Version

19.3.0

Platform

Darwin Geoffreys-MacBook-Pro.local 22.2.0 Darwin Kernel Version 22.2.0: Fri Nov 11 02:08:47 PST 2022; root:xnu-8792.61.2~4/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64

Subsystem

module, esm, process, cli

What steps will reproduce the bug?

With a checkout of the node repo at ~/Sites/node:

$ pwd /Users/geoffrey $ node file:///Users/geoffrey/Sites/node/test/fixtures/es-modules/mjs-file.mjs node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1042 throw err; ^ Error: Cannot find module '/Users/geoffrey/file:/Users/geoffrey/Sites/node/test/fixtures/es-modules/mjs-file.mjs' at Module._resolveFilename (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1039:15) at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:885:27) at Function.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (node:internal/modules/run_main:82:12) at node:internal/main/run_main_module:23:47 { code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND', requireStack: [] } Node.js v19.3.0

Note the /Users/geoffrey/file:/Users/geoffrey/Sites/node/test/fixtures/es-modules/mjs-file.mjs constructed specifier. This doesn’t make sense.

How often does it reproduce? Is there a required condition?

Every time.

What is the expected behavior?

Absolute file URLs should be allowable as program entry points.

What do you see instead?

Error: Cannot find module '/Users/geoffrey/file:/Users/geoffrey/Sites/node/test/fixtures/es-modules/mjs-file.mjs' 

Additional information

I understand per https://nodejs.org/api/cli.html#program-entry-point the entry point is parsed by the CommonJS resolver, even when it passes the criteria for being loaded by the ESM one; but it doesn’t make sense that either resolver would be constructing an invalid path.

It’s also counterintuitive that file:///Users/geoffrey/Sites/node/test/fixtures/es-modules/mjs-file.mjs should be acceptable input for --loader and --import but not as the main entry point. For example, all of these are valid:

• node --import file:///Users/geoffrey/Sites/node/test/fixtures/es-modules/mjs-file.mjs --eval ';'
• node --loader file:///Users/geoffrey/Sites/node/test/fixtures/es-modules/mjs-file.mjs --eval ';'
• node --import file:///Users/geoffrey/Sites/node/test/fixtures/es-modules/mjs-file.mjs ./Sites/node/test/fixtures/es-modules/mjs-file.mjs
• node --loader file:///Users/geoffrey/Sites/node/test/fixtures/es-modules/mjs-file.mjs ./Sites/node/test/fixtures/es-modules/mjs-file.mjs

cc @aduh95 @JakobJingleheimer @nodejs/modules @nodejs/loaders

This came up because I was writing a test like this:

 const { code, signal, stdout, stderr } = await spawnPromisified(execPath, [ '--loader', fixtures.fileURL('/es-module-loaders/loader.mjs'), fixtures.fileURL('/es-modules/mjs-file.mjs'), ]);

The solution was to change the second fixtures.fileURL to fixtures.path; but this feels wrong.