These are still correct, right? I'm not too sure how makefile uses this part.

Yeah, NODE_EXE is mostly used as build target.

Aren't we changing directory a few lines up? Thinking this should just be $NODE. Guess it depends on how you pass the binary path.

It's not ./node because at this point we are inside the test-npm directory. :)

Yeah, you're right

Actually on second thought this always used the local node to run cli.js anyways because these are relative links.

Still, I think this PR is better practice given our makefile setup.

see: http://stackoverflow.com/a/9107028/1279026 (related comment linked below in the "get absolute path" part).

Seems zsh doesn't sport this variable unfortunately. There is an alternative, but I'd rather avoid using shell-specific things, if possible.

Ok, Will revert to using $0

Hmm, what issue were you trying to solve here exactly? Maybe there's an alternative way.

Nothing really, I just saw it was suggested in the stackoverflow, going to revert to using $0

This may be an issue cross-platform.

My OS X ln cannot do relative symlinks (-r), but linux does not appear to like hard links.

Ok I can confirm this works on both OS X and Linux (Ubuntu 15), it just means we have an extra thing to clean up in the project root, as seen at the bottom of this file.

Looks like this fails on a more recent npm with these errors:

test/tap/lifecycle-path.js ............................ 2/4
  make sure the path is correct
  not ok exit code
    +++ found                                                          
    --- wanted                                                         
    -0                                                                 
    +1                                                                 
    compare: ===
    at:
      file: test/tap/lifecycle-path.js
      line: 55
      column: 7
    stack: |
      test/tap/lifecycle-path.js:55:7
      f (node_modules/once/once.js:17:25)
      ChildProcess.<anonymous> (test/common-tap.js:56:5)
      maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:764:16)
      Socket.<anonymous> (internal/child_process.js:319:11)
      Pipe._onclose (net.js:467:12)

  make sure the path is correct
  not ok should be equivalent
    +++ found                                                          
    --- wanted                                                         
     [                                                                 
    -  "{{ROOT}}/bin/node-gyp-bin"                                     
    -  "{{ROOT}}/test/tap/lifecycle-path/node_modules/.bin"            
    -  "/bin"                                                          
    -  "/usr/bin"                                                      
    +  "> ./node-bin/node print-path.js"                               
     ]                                                                 
    at:
      file: test/tap/lifecycle-path.js
      line: 74
      column: 7
    stack: |
      test/tap/lifecycle-path.js:74:7
      f (node_modules/once/once.js:17:25)
      ChildProcess.<anonymous> (test/common-tap.js:56:5)
      maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:764:16)
      Socket.<anonymous> (internal/child_process.js:319:11)
      Pipe._onclose (net.js:467:12)

From this test: https://github.com/npm/npm/blob/master/test/tap/lifecycle-path.js

@othiym23 is this worth the effort to hack this in before npm's tests work without a global node? It seems like this test is relying on the location of the node binary, is that something that can / should be fixed?

I think the original PATH should be restored after the test run? (Maybe through saving it to a temp var)

@silverwind you mean after the legacy tests? I could try that.

I mean having PATH=$PWD:$PATH will prepend the directory on each run of test-npm.sh, resulting in PATH getting longer and longer.

Hmmm, nope. It appears the tests themselves depend on a global node (from the tap module, I think?)

Since running the test requires it, and causes it to fail, that's not a possibility.

Not sure you understand what I mean. My issue is with the global shell's PATH being in an modified state after this script finishes executing (global node now pointing to the built one), and I think we should restore PATH after this script is done.

Maybe just removing the export is sufficient so all child scripts get the correct binary and we avoid touching the global PATH.