Update package.json to exports itself

[Graphmaxer]

This change is needed to access the package.json for external bundlers as documented here and discussed here. I also did the same for another npm package here.

[coveralls]

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[Andarist]

Why would you like to import Stylis' package.json though?

[Graphmaxer]

It's not for my usage but for bundlers, for example with rollup and svelte, the bundler want to access the package.json to check for a custom property named svelte. There is also the same for React Native as discussed here and here.

[Andarist]

Oh, gotcha. I don't think this is a scalable solution though - they should switch to fs APIs.

[Graphmaxer]

I agree, this current situation is not ideal and that's why the node.js team is thinking about auto-exporting the package.json for all packages as discussed here. @ljharb is working on it.

[Andarist]

Btw. from what I remember Svelte's compiler is Rollup-based and it seems that @rollup/plugin-node-resolve is using FS APIs to access package.json: https://github.com/rollup/plugins/blob/3d60158f21e0b6a5a8a53d9977928e2e148cb885/packages/node-resolve/src/resolveImportSpecifiers.js#L133-L134

[Graphmaxer]

You're right this should work with the @rollup/plugin-node-resolve but svelte is using rollup-plugin-svelte to compile svelte via rollup and here is where they access the package.json. In this code it use relative.resolve with /dist (value of path.dirname(importer)), that's why it cannot access the package.json file.

[thysultan]

package.json to check for a custom property named svelte

Is this specific to svelte only? Because stylis doesn't export a svelte pkg.json field making this issue moot?

[Graphmaxer]

Stylis don't need to modify its package.json file, it just need to exports it because it was a default behavior in the past and now it needs to be manual.

[Andarist]

@thysultan the problem is only that Svelte's compiler is trying to require the stylis/package.json because it wants to check if there is a custom svelte key there but node rejects their request because we have exports map defined and we do not allow for stylis/package.json to be accessed within it. This is a problem with their approach to read package.json - they really should FS APIs to read this file (which wouldn't be rejected) instead of a plain require

[thysultan]

I'd imagine many other packages would have this same issue, @Graphmaxer can you file this issue with the svelte compiler.

Thanks.

[ljharb]

@thysultan any other package using “exports” but not explicitly including package.json does have this issue, and the fix in this PR is the only solution available. The svelte compiler has no reliable way to do this otherwise.

[Andarist]

@ljharb Why using FS APIs is not a possible solution for the Svelte compiler? @rollup/plugin-node-resolve does exactly this and it doesn't suffer from this issue:
https://github.com/rollup/plugins/blob/3d60158f21e0b6a5a8a53d9977928e2e148cb885/packages/node-resolve/src/resolveImportSpecifiers.js#L133-L134

[ljharb]

It’s impossible to reliably know where package.json lives on the filesystem. That plugin is using heuristics to figure out the package name, which does not reliably locate the proper package.json in every case.

As a member of the node modules team and the maintainer of https://npmjs.com/resolve, i can assure you that the only fix (prior to node itself adding an api for locating a package directory) is for every individual package using “exports” to also add package.json to it.

[Andarist]

I know about your involvement in those projects but I would also like to understand the issue at hand (so for example I could explain it to others in the future). I fail to see when this heuristic could fail.

According to the https://nodejs.org/api/esm.html#esm_resolver_algorithm and the PACKAGE_RESOLVE algorithm .exports is always read from pjson that is a result of READ_PACKAGE_JSON (step 10.5). So if I understand this correctly that READ_PACKAGE_JSON algorithm would have to return something that doesn't fit that simple heuristic. That algorithm mentions this:

Let pjsonURL be the resolution of "package.json" within packageURL.

But I can't find anything beyond that and this statement doesn't seem to tell me on its own how this is resolved.

Also, the call to READ_PACKAGE_JSON looks like this: READ_PACKAGE_JSON(packageURL) (step 10.4) so either way this is resolved from the "root" of the package so how this could return anything beyond lib/package.json?

[ljharb]

The issue is exactly that - when an exports dot points to a file in a dir, that in turn has a package.json.

Certainly tools could reimplement node’s own require algorithm, as resolve itself has, but this is far more complicated than packages adding a single line to their own exports object.

[Andarist]

The issue is exactly that - when an exports dot points to a file in a dir, that in turn has a package.json.

I don't follow. Could you illustrate this with a simple example?

Certainly tools could reimplement node’s own require algorithm, as resolve itself has, but this is far more complicated than packages adding a single line to their own exports object.

Well, at least if tools do this then this complexity lies just in a couple of tools whereas if the community will be forced to add package.json to the exports map the "complexity" gets spread across the ecosystem. I strongly believe that this solution just doesn't scale at all and adding this to packages is just counter-productive.

[ljharb]

The longer term solution is to add an api to node itself to expose the package dir, which tools can then use. That solution is not yet ready, and in the interim, a package’s choices are “don’t use exports”, or “add package.json”, or “screw over users by breaking the majority of tools that don’t yet use fs APIs or resolve”.

[Andarist]

I find it hard to blame package authors for "screwing over users" if this has not been accounted for by the node team... If anything I feel like this should be prioritized there so we wouldn't have to do anything for a short period of time in which this stays "bugged" on the node's side.

That being said I still have no idea how a package can be structured right now that would be incorrectly handled by the @rollup/plugin-node-resolve 😕

[ljharb]

That is a reasonable reaction, and i don’t dispute it - but that doesn’t change the reality now.

I’d have to take a look at its logic to locate bugs, but i don’t pay much attention to the rollup ecosystem, so I’m not sure when I’d find time.

[Graphmaxer]

@thysultan Thanks for reopening this. I just merged master to resolve conflicts.