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Document pnpm dlx path #580

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Document pnpm dlx path #580

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237bc0d
Document pnpm dlx location
karlhorky Sep 19, 2024
a007bb3
Fix Windows path
karlhorky Sep 19, 2024
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8 changes: 7 additions & 1 deletion docs/cli/dlx.md
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Expand Up @@ -14,14 +14,20 @@ needing to install it under another project, you can run:
pnpm dlx create-react-app ./my-app
```

This will fetch `create-react-app` from the registry and run it with the given arguments.
This will fetch `create-react-app` from the registry, download it to a temporary location (see below) and run it with the given arguments.
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pnpm dlx will download it to the store then reflink the files from the store to the dlx cache dir. This works similar to pnpm install.

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ok right, I was unsure whether this was technically 100% correct wording here. I was trying to keep the explanation simple


You may also specify which exact version of the package you'd like to use:

```
pnpm dlx create-react-app@next ./my-app
```

The temporary location of the downloaded files is:

* On Windows: **~/AppData/Local/pnpm-cache/dlx**
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is this the correct path on Windows? I couldn't find where it was being retrieved / generated, after looking through the code in pnpm/pnpm#7835

* On macOS: **~/Library/Caches/pnpm/dlx**
* On Linux: **~/.cache/pnpm/dlx**
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is this the correct path on Linux? I couldn't find where it was being retrieved / generated, after looking through the code in pnpm/pnpm#7835

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The correct path should be $CACHE_DIR/dlx for all platforms. The specific values of CACHE_DIR can be found here: https://pnpm.io/npmrc#cache-dir

The short answer is yes.


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Suggested change
The temporary location of the downloaded files is:
* On Windows: **~/AppData/Local/pnpm-cache/dlx**
* On macOS: **~/Library/Caches/pnpm/dlx**
* On Linux: **~/.cache/pnpm/dlx**

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They are just a repeat of cache-dir section but with dlx suffix. So I don't think this part is necessary.

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@karlhorky karlhorky Sep 19, 2024 •
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I hope that this part will not be removed

to me, this is the main value of the PR: to explicitly list out the paths to the pnpm dlx files.

this will allow for:

  1. easy searching through the docs for possible paths for a particular package
  2. search engines + LLMs retrieving and surfacing this information for searchers, in case the docs search doesn't provide an experience that is discoverable enough

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The location of the cache dir is not necessary fixed. Maybe in the future, it will change. I don't think as a developer, we would like to duplicate our effort.

What I suggest is, instead of explicitly listing out the resolved values of the dlx cache paths, just mention that they are saved in $CACHE_DIR/dlx is enough.

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@karlhorky karlhorky Sep 19, 2024 •
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ok, I still disagree - strongly prefer having the resolved paths

$CACHE_DIR is not clear, and indicates an environment variable, which is not observable / discoverable in the case of the default paths

The location of the cache dir is not necessary fixed. Maybe in the future, it will change. I don't think as a developer, we would like to duplicate our effort.

I think if the cache dir does change in future, it will be probably a grep + replace across the whole codebase (already needs to be updated in the cache-dir section on the .npmrc docs page), so I would argue, probably not extra effort to update the docs

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$CACHE_DIR is not clear, and indicates an environment variable, which is not observable / discoverable in the case of the default paths

It is just my personal habit to communicate with developers in issues and PRs. It is essentially the same as saying $THIS_YEAR on Reddit. I do not suggest you use $CACHE_DIR literally. You can change it to "a subdirectory named dlx inside the [cache-dir](link)" or something.

it will be probably a grep + replace across the whole codebase

No one is expected to grep + replace everything all the time, so unless the person who would edit it remember the duplicated docs (which is unlikely), they are going to forget it.

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@karlhorky karlhorky Sep 19, 2024 •
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You can change it to "a subdirectory named dlx inside the [cache-dir](link)" or something.

this is somewhat better, but still leaves out parts of the paths, which may be what users are searching for

I still strongly believe that the tradeoff is worth it - to me, the value of explicit, resolved paths far outweighs the possible future developer error because of the duplication

## Options

### --package <name\>
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2 changes: 1 addition & 1 deletion docs/npmrc.md
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Expand Up @@ -238,7 +238,7 @@ After executing a dlx command, pnpm keeps a cache that omits the installation st
* On Linux: **~/.local/share/pnpm/store**
* Type: **path**

The location where all the packages are saved on the disk.
The location where all the packages are saved on the disk (exception: [`pnpm dlx`](./cli/dlx.md)).
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@karlhorky karlhorky Sep 19, 2024 •
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Or, another idea: also link to the cache-dir heading on the same page:

Suggested change
The location where all the packages are saved on the disk (exception: [`pnpm dlx`](./cli/dlx.md)).
The location where all the packages are saved on the disk (exception: [cache data](#cache-dir) incl. [dlx](./cli/dlx.md)).

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There is no exception. The files for dlx are still stored in the store directory. They are reflinked or hardlinked from the store directory to the dlx cache (same as when you pnpm install on one of your Node.js projects). In fact, pnpm dlx is just pnpm install on a temporary dlx cache directory.

Suggested change
The location where all the packages are saved on the disk (exception: [`pnpm dlx`](./cli/dlx.md)).
The location where all the packages are saved on the disk.

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@karlhorky karlhorky Sep 19, 2024 •
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if the pnpm team thinks that there is no need to clarify in this position in the docs, then feel free to remove this change of mine

I added it because I think it's common to run into the "store location" docs when searching for locations for where pnpm stores files

but users won't always be looking for these particular paths, so linking elsewhere, where other paths can be found was my aim here

Alternative

an alternative would be a single page which ONLY listed out directory paths that pnpm used (regardless of whether it's the files or symlinks), so that it's centralized in one place...

bigger PR though

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I guess the overarching concern is when cleaning up disk spaces, the user needs to know the locations to remove?

There are 3 types of locations need to be concern about:

  • Your projects' node_modules.
  • The store directory.
  • The cache directory.

The files used by dlx are well within the 3 confines above (technically 2). And if you remove the 3 above, you should clean up dlx.

Maybe you can document the 3 locations above (if the documentation doesn't have it already). But to word it as an "exception" would confuse the users.

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@karlhorky karlhorky Sep 19, 2024 •
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I guess the overarching concern is when cleaning up disk spaces, the user needs to know the locations to remove?

no, I wasn't concerned with cleaning up disk space

my use case (mentioned in the PR description above) is to find the location of the files that are currently running when running the dlx commands, so that I can modify the files:

I was having trouble finding the location of packages such as create-playwright when running any of these commands (I was trying to edit them to verify that my PR to create-playwright would behave as I wanted):

pnpm dlx create-playwright

pnpx create-playwright

pnpm create playwright

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Well, dlx is still not an exception here. It still uses the same store-dir and its "projects" are still in the same cache-dir.

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I didn't mean to suggest that dlx was an exception

I'm trying to describe use cases of developers who:

  1. use pnpm (maybe using --global, maybe using dlx)
  2. who want to modify the node_modules files that are currently being run

the problems I'm trying to alleviate with this PR (maybe not clear, I'll copy this above to the PR description):

these developers need to find the files. it's currently not easy and centralized to find the locations of these files.

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it's currently not easy and centralized to find the locations of these files.

I see. You should create an issue and discuss it with @zkochan.

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I edited the PR description to provide a clearer picture into the motivations.

If it needs to be copied to an issue, I can do this too.

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If it needs to be copied to an issue, I can do this too.

I meant regarding what you said about not easy to find a centralized location that list all these locations of --global, dlx, etc. I didn't mean just dlx.


The store should be always on the same disk on which installation is happening,
so there will be one store per disk. If there is a home directory on the current
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