Cannot dynamically import resolved file url from other working directory

[borkdude]

Version: Deno 2.4.5

I came across this issue in the context of nbb, a scripting environment using ClojureScript on Node.js and deno.

When a user loads a library in nbb, the implementation roughly goes as follows in Node.js. Assume there is a node_modules folder with the "ws" library installed in /tmp/repro.

const x = import.meta.resolve("ws")
console.log(x);
const ws = await(import(x));

When executing this script from /tmp/repro with deno -A repro.mjs this prints:

file:///private/tmp/repro/node_modules/ws/wrapper.mjs

and succesfully loads the library in Deno.

If however I execute the dynamic import of the same file URL from another directory, which is often the case in nbb since nbb can be loaded from jsr: for example, it fails in Deno. This can be simulated with the following:

Create this script repro.mjs in /tmp where there is no node_modules directory:

const ws = await(import('file:///private/tmp/dude/node_modules/ws/wrapper.mjs'));
console.log(ws);

Here I'm getting:

/tmp $ deno -A repro.mjs
error: Uncaught (in promise) SyntaxError: The requested module './lib/receiver.js' does not provide an export named 'default' at file:///private/tmp/dude/node_modules/ws/wrapper.mjs:2:8
const ws = await(import('file:///private/tmp/dude/node_modules/ws/wrapper.mjs'));
           ^
    at async file:///private/tmp/repro.mjs:1:12

It seems Deno is trying to load the file and follow the import from ws/wrapper.mjs but fails.

When running the same file with Node.js it works flawlessly.

[dsherret]

Probably run with --node-modules-dir=manual to force doing node resolution with node_modules directories? Deno doesn't do node resolution automatically unless the project has a package.json (it only does it in the global npm cache in that case)

(It would be hard to change the behaviour to do node resolution in node_modules directories all the time because some people have distributed Deno apps within a node_modules folder and expect it not to to do node_modules resolution)

[borkdude]

@dsherret I can confirm that worked!

[borkdude]

It also works with --node-modules-dir=auto