Guarantee deterministic ordering of sequential scripts matching a wildcard. (A document)

[jamestalmage]

It's not clear from the documentation if execution order is guaranteed in sequential runs that match a wildcard.

IMO, the best ordering would be to execute in the order they are defined in package.json.

If such a guarantee exists, it should be documented.

[voxpelli]

I can't remember if it's in the order of the json or in alphabetical order – in my cases my json is always in in alphabetical order

[jamestalmage]

@voxpelli - Having played with it now, it appears that the ordering in the JSON is honored... That said, I can't tell if that's a fluke or if it's something the library guarantees (If it guarantees it, how? JSON.parse() doesn't guarantee it...)

[bcomnes]

We can update the docs to clarify this. The scripts are run in the order they are defined in pacakge.json. Some tools re-order pacakge.json based on alphanumeric sorting though, so if you really want to pin this down you can add numbers in your script steps, so even if someone applies a sort to your script fields they remain ordered.

[jamestalmage]

@bcomnes - Seems like it's just relying on the key order from V8. Which currently is the order in the file, but I don't think it's guaranteed to stay that way.

Guaranteeing / Alphabetical seems fine, but guaranteeing that was honored would be a breaking change, right?

[bcomnes]

I don't think it's guaranteed to stay that way.

Im not really a spec person but: https://tc39.es/ecma262/#sec-ordinaryownpropertykeys

For each own property key P of O such that P is a String and P is not an array index, in ascending chronological order of property creation, do

I'm fairly sure they will never change this behavior.

Sorry let me clarify my advice:

• Scripts are run in order of their listing in pacakge.json. This will never change, either behaviorally from the language or by changes to this project under the current present circumstances (we have test cases to make sure this doesn't change).
• Some tools physically re-order your pacakge.json scripts, due to stylistic sorts and whatnot. It sounds like @voxpelli does this. I don't personally like this because of the re-ordering hazard, but people and projects do it.
• If you are worried about scripts getting re-ordered by an alphanumeric sort, you can rename your scripts so they re-order correctly with numbers. People can still go in and re-orders scripts by hand though. This is always a hazard.
• Another alternative is to not use the glob behavior and define a definite order.
• Complex, order dependent build flows may benefit from a more sophisticated build system. run-s is a simple tool for mostly simply problems.

[jamestalmage]

Obviously more of a spec person than me! I didn't pick up on that.

I'm not worried about external tools reordering my scripts. If I find a tool that does, and can't live without it, I can fallback to numbering. A guarantee from this library (and test cases to boot!) is more than enough for me to stop worrying about it.

Close if you wish, or leave open as a marker to document it.

Thank you, very much, for the work on the great tool.

[bcomnes]

Obviously more of a spec person than me

I'm never quite sure I'm reading it right so just saving in case I read wrong.

I'll leave open as a reminder to clarify in the docs.