"process.env.NODE_ENV" is defined as an identifier instead of a string

[jjenzz]

I'm trying to use esbuild on a mac with the following script:

"build:dev": "esbuild index.ts --bundle --define:process.env.NODE_ENV=\"development\" --minify --sourcemap --platform=browser --outfile=dist/index.development.js"

But I always get the following warning:

> warning: "process.env.NODE_ENV" is defined as an identifier instead of a string (surround "development" with double quotes to get a string)

I've tried single quotes without luck also. Is this warning being incorrectly reported or am I doing something wrong here?

[nettybun]

It's in #466

You need to use '--define:process.env.NODE_ENV="production"' not --define:process.env.NODE_ENV="production" because your shell eats the outer quotes.

Shells are messy. I think it's good you opened this issue so there's now something people can search for

[evanw]

The answer is in the documentation for the define feature: https://esbuild.github.io/api/#define. Your shell is removing the outer layer of quotes. That means by the time esbuild sees it, it’s as if you never had any quotes in the first place. This is why it gives you this warning.

While it’s true that using two layers of quotes works for bash (since bash will only remove the outer layer of quotes), this isn’t portable to Windows command prompt. The portable approach is to escape the quotes in the shell command using a backslash like this: \". Since you are encoding the shell command in a JSON string, you need to escape each of those characters again for JSON like this: \\\". The final build command would look like this:

"build:dev": "esbuild index.ts --bundle --define:process.env.NODE_ENV=\\\"development\\\" --minify --sourcemap --platform=browser --outfile=dist/index.development.js"

[jjenzz]

Ooooh, I had tried to double them but hadn't tried tripling them. admittedly only looked as far as the "bundling for browser" docs 🙈 Thank youuuuu!!

[evanw]

No worries. I'm going to close this issue since it sounds like it has been resolved.

[mattrossman]

For anyone else wondering how to do this in the JS API, this appears to work:

require('esbuild').buildSync({
  define: { 'process.env.NODE_ENV': '"production"' },
})

I intially expected that I'd have to turn the process.env.NODE_ENV part into a nested object of some sort

[i-priyanshu]

I have tried using single as well triple quote , yet still the terminal is generating error.

I am currently using Windows 10 and terminal i am using is bash

The command i am trying to run is:
"prepublishOnly": "esbuild src/index.ts --platform=node --outfile=dist/index.js --bundle --minify --define:process.env.NODE_ENV = \\\"production\\\""

I have even tried using single slash as well..but it still didin't work

--define:process.env.NODE_ENV = \\\"production\\\""

Error Output for triple quote statement is somewhat like this.
--define:process.env.NODE_ENV = \production\

As for single quote statement
--define:process.env.NODE_ENV = production

It would be a great help if anyone could solve it..i have been stuck here for a while now

[evanw]

One potential way to fix this is to just remove the --define flag completely as it's no longer necessary. Since version 0.11.3, esbuild now automatically sets process.env.NODE_ENV to "development" when not minifying and "production" otherwise.