make output package order deterministic

[anhvu-accuracy]

Hello,

When running the license checker 2 times on the same folder without any change on whole system between two runs,
the list of package order is not kept.

Therefore, the output of license checker cannot be added in a repository to track license changes.

Thanks

[RSeidelsohn]

Hello @anhvu-accuracy ,

sorry for the late reaction. I currently have the time to take care of this project and just tried to reproduce your issue, but to no avail. Could you please provide me with more information regarding your problem?

Which OS are you observing this under and what exact command do you use?
You are right assuming that the output order should always be the same if nothing else changes. And this works fine on my machine when I simply run it in my terminal.

Cheers, Roman.

[anhvu-accuracy]

Hello @RSeidelsohn

No problem for the delay, this is not critical at all. The output is the same when running on the same machine.
But in our team, some guys use MacOs, some use Windows 10, other use Linux. The order of package might change.
I did not narrow the exact cause. Analysis is not easy, indeed.
I'll get back to you when I better understand how it occurs.

Anh-Vu

[ehoogeveen-medweb]

I noticed that the sort order on Windows doesn't match the sorting order in package.json, which I think would probably be the preferred sorting order. The sorting order (with --direct) looks like it matches the order of the directories in node_modules. Here's an example:

package.json:

		"vue": "^2.6.14",
		"vue-router": "^3.5.3",
		"vue-tables-2": "~1.5.46",

license-checker-rseidelsohn --direct --markdown:

[vue-router@3.5.3](https://github.com/vuejs/vue-router) - MIT
[vue-tables-2@1.5.46](https://github.com/matfish2/vue-tables-2) - MIT
[vue@2.6.14](https://github.com/vuejs/vue) - MIT

npm actually had a fairly recent change to sort the same way regardless of the user's locale: npm/cli#3203

[ffMathy]

It's not just that it's not the same order. It's that every time we run it, it gives a different result entirely. Sometimes it skips certain packages even.