TypeError: URL is not a constructor in replace-info.js of NPM

[ewrayjohnson]

This occurs with Nodejs 14.7.0 it does not occur with 12.18.3
In NPM CLI on line 14 of replace-info.js an attempt is made to construct a new URL(...), however URL is not a constructor.

Since upgrading Nodejs causes the problem many will consider this a NodeJS bug since the newer version is not backward compatible. I am not sure in what release of Nodejs the change was introduced.

If the bug is in NPM CLI:
One fix is to change line 1 to:
const URL = require('url').URL;
Another (possibly better) option to fix is to replace new URL with URL.parse.

See: npm/cli#1658

[MylesBorins]

URL should be a globally available constructor in 14.7.0

https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v14.x/docs/api/url.html#url_class_url

What operating system are you on? Is there a way to reproduce this bug?

Which version of npm?

[ewrayjohnson]

OS: Windows
The version of npm is the version that installed with node 14.7.0

[ewrayjohnson]

I don't have access to a real machine at the moment but think the following should duplicate the error:
const URL = require('url');
const url = new URL('C:\Windows');
// any uri will work

[rickyes]

This occurs with Nodejs 14.7.0 it does not occur with 12.18.3

@ewrayjohnson Can you confirm again that this code will work on Windows with Node.js v12.18.3? I don't get it to work in macOS, and the reference documentation doesn't say that require('url') is an available constructor.

[aduh95]

require('url') is not (and never has been) the same thing as the global URL object, it would be very surprising if it was working on any version of Node.js. It looks like the file containing the error has been introduced quite recently to npm and is lacking some testing.

[jasnell]

The challenge is that this code...

const URL = require('url');
const url = new URL('C:\Windows');

Is reassigning URL to something that is not a URL. This is not a bug in Node.js, and there's no reason to do the const URL = require('url') assignment here at all.

[MylesBorins]

Looks like there was a similar bug in the npm source, I've opened a PR to fix this

npm/cli#1665

[jasnell]

Closing given that this is not a bug in core