commander.js: Commander incorrectly assumes that process.argv[0] is 'nodejs' and argv[1] is script name

What about this:

if (process.defaultApp != true) {
  process.argv.unshift(null)
}

It works for me using both electron and electron-packager generated executable, and it seems to be the “official” way to handle this.

Obviously implementing this on the library itself would break some existing workarounds, so I would keep the existing behaviour by default, and add a parameter to normalize the arguments. For example something like this:

/**
 * Parse `argv`, settings options and invoking commands when defined.
 *
 * @param {Array} argv
 * @param {Boolean} normalize
 * @return {Command} for chaining
 * @api public
 */
Command.prototype.parse = function(argv, normalize) {

For some reason the workarounds posted here didn’t really do it for me. So here is mine:

let exe = process.argv.shift()
if(!process.argv[0] || process.argv[0] && process.argv[0] !== '.') {
  process.argv.unshift('')
}
process.argv.unshift(exe)

commander.parse(process.argv)

It just forces your process.argv to always start with ['<yourelectronexe>', '.'], so commander can properly parse it. No matter the enviroment you’re in (dev or packaged).

---

Edit: You will run into problems when passing the current directory via ., e.g. meview .. As a temporary workaround pass ./ or precede the dot with other arguments.

Edit 2 Better workaround if you use electron-builder or similar, which renames the electron executable:

let execPath = process.execPath.toLowerCase()
if(execPath.endsWith(pkg.name) || execPath.endsWith(pkg.name + '.exe')) {
  let exe = process.argv.shift()
  process.argv.unshift('')
  process.argv.unshift(exe) 
}

In dev mode, your execPath will contain electron and in production the execPath will have the name of your app as the executable name.

it doesn’t work in all scenarios, but this worked when executing with electron app.js and executing the electron-builder generated binnary, in this case app:

if (process.argv.length > 2 ) opts.parse([""].concat(process.argv));

Possible API for an options parameter to .parse() to specify different conventions for the passed arguments:

// default node style process.argv, { format: 'node' }
.parse(['node', 'script.js', 'serve'])

// No script parameter, such as Electron when process.defaultApp==true
.parse(['electron.exe', 'serve'], { format: 'execPath' })

// No leading special arguments
.parse(['serve'],  { format: 'args' })

node references:

• process.argv
• process.execPath