Issues with running Haxe via npx (launch Node via VS Code)

1

Hey there :). I’m hardly leaving my Haxe-lab now-a-days, stuck on an early 4 version and too focused on my huge Haxe project to read the news. But I did update my NodeJS and this seems to have caused an update in how “npx haxe” runs. I think when running haxe via npx, a different, newer version of the compiler is used?

First, my --library flags in build.hxml stopped working. Ok, I changed to -lib and it worked.
But then this code doesn’t compile anymore:

		SetTimeout.call(() ->
		{
			bootstrap();
		}, _delayForDebugging ? 2000 : 2);

It complains at the (), saying 'Unexpected )

Just by trial & error & some hunches, I replaced → with => and I put a “none” argument in the parenthesis and it moved on, only to fail at:

app.get(‘/choice/:choiceID’, (req, res, next) => {

Where it says “unexpected ,”

This, I can’t get rid of (even after replacing → with =>

Weird thing is that my code STILL COMPILES using a different launch method, which uses npx task, which runs “haxe build.hxml”, which, I presume, uses my older Haxe compiler.

It only fails when launching via VS Code debug, whose terminal dies saying:

The terminal process “C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -Command npx haxe build.hxml” terminated with exit code: 1.

Any ideas? :slight_smile:

2

You can try running npx haxe -version and haxe -version to see which versions are being used.

The -> syntax should be valid for haxe 4 and up: Local Functions - Haxe - The Cross-platform Toolkit

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3

It seems like you ended up with an older version of haxe compiler, like 3.4.7

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4

Thank you @tobil4sk , useful tip. Yeap, indeed, the versions are different.

Hey @kLabz :slight_smile: nice to see you around. Here’s to us lurkers busy in the labs :smiley:

And damn, you’re right, I’m on 3.4.7. How do I update the haxe version used by npx? I just updated node and then when I first ran the project, it asked me to install something and I just said “yes” without thinking much about the version.

5

I think in package.json, you need to specify the Haxe version by adding a “haxeDependencies” section:

  "haxeDependencies": {
    "haxe": "4.2.5"
  },
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6

Nope… that didn’t seem to do anything :frowning:

I still get 3.4.7 when I do npx haxe -version. I tried an npm install -g haxe , hoping that this will somehow update whatever npx is using. Still stuck on 3.4.7. How in the world does one update npx haxe?

7

I think it’s worth drawing attention to this, haxe working well on npm would make a big difference to adoption I believe

I think we can get it as simple as npm install haxe 4.2.5. We’d need to provide precompiled binaries for individual which is common practise for many non-js tools, for example we can take inspiration from esbuild here. The current haxe package on npm is itself a mini package manager which downloads those precompiled binaries anyway; might as well give that job to npm

8

Installing haxe through npm and consistently building with the same version is exactly what lix does for you. The setup is quite easy: GitHub - lix-pm/lix.client: A dependable package manager for your Haxe projects

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9

I don’t know what’s going on with my setup. I tried npm install haxe and despite having 5.2.1 in my package.json it installs this ancient 3.4.7 Haxe. So what I did was just to grab my own haxe executable that I had in a separate location, throw it in node_modules and that was that. It works now. Hack, ugly, don’t get it, but I don’t have the time to either :smiley:

*puts back his lab coat and goes back inside the quantum resonance chamber *

10

Okay, I just gave it a try with a new project, and here are the steps that I followed to use Haxe 4.2.5 installed from npm:

  1. Run npm init -y to create package.json
  2. Open package.json in an editor and add the haxeDependencies section that I mentioned in my previous reply.
  3. Run npm install --save-dev haxe
  4. Run npx haxe -version

It prints 4.2.5 to the terminal.

I made sure to install a different version of Haxe globally to rule out that npx haxe wasn’t using the global version. It’s definitely using the local version that I just installed with npm.

I think when you add a new haxeDependencies section to your existing project, you specifically need to install Haxe from npm again, or it’ll just keep using the version you had installed previously.

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