Question

When my script fails to parse for any reason, I get a stack trace from the compiler, with no insight at all into where in my script the problem lies:

mpurvis@citadel:~/coffee$ coffee -c Test.coffee

/usr/local/lib/node_modules/coffee-script/lib/command.js:15
    return process.binding('stdio').writeError(line + '\n');
                   ^
Error: No such module
    at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/coffee-script/lib/command.js:15:20
    at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/coffee-script/lib/command.js:167:7
    at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/coffee-script/lib/command.js:115:26
    at [object Object].<anonymous> (fs.js:108:5)
    at [object Object].emit (events.js:64:17)
    at afterRead (fs.js:1074:12)
    at Object.wrapper [as oncomplete] (fs.js:246:17)

For now, it’s just a toy script to try the system out, so I can usually just experiment until it works again, but that would be impossible in a file of any size. Is there some trick I’m not seeing to get the line where the error occurred?

Thanks!

Answer 1

This doesn’t look like a syntax issue. The error is coming from command.js, which is what defines the coffee command-line utility. If it were a compiler error, it would be from coffee-script.js.

So why is the process.binding('stdio') bit in command.js failing? There are two possibilities I can think of:

1. You’re using a weird shell (or a weirdly configured one) that doesn’t play nice with Node’s version of stdio. This seems unlikely, but it’s possible…
2. You’re using a version of Node.js that CoffeeScript isn’t currently compatible with. What do you get when you do node -v? Your safest bet is the latest 0.4.x, since those are stable releases (0.5.x is experimental).