Wildcard option doesn't seem to follow README

[TigersWay]

Despite #212, it seems the wildcard option still (v7.x) doesn't get name right,

concurrently "npm:watch-*"

Equivalent to:
concurrently -n js,css,node "npm run watch-js" "npm run watch-css" "npm run watch-node"

but gives now:
concurrently -n watch-*js,watch-*css,watch-*node "npm run watch-js" "npm run watch-css" "npm run watch-node"

Something I understood wrong or a recurring bug?

[AmmarArnt]

Getting the same behaviour with 7.1.0

It seems that naming got broken.

[gustavohenke]

#212 actually caused this bug, from what I can see.

It made the current command name the prefix for expanded commands, but it so happens that when you use the shortcut npm:/yarn: and etc, the command you're going to run becomes the command name.

In the docs case, the watch-* is the command name, which is then simply suffixed by the wildcard's contents, so it becomes watch-*js and so on.

[gustavohenke]

Might be one way of fixing this.
When a command's name contains wildcards, it's replaced there too.

To make the problem more apparent, you can try running the command line concurrently -n wild-west-* "npm:watch-*".

• Currently/before, it gets translated to concurrently -n wild-west-*js,wild-west-*css "npm run watch-js" "npm run watch-css"
• After, it would be translated to concurrently -n wild-west-js,wild-west-css "npm run watch-js" "npm run watch-css".

Any thoughts?

[TigersWay]

@gustavohenke I would love not to be the only one answering 😊 .... But i think I could use it that way!
What about then concurrently -n * "npm:watch-*"?

[gustavohenke]

That's exactly what I've suggested 👍

Mind you, this change will be a breaking change as it turns * into a special character for -n.

[gkweb]

I'm having the same issue here. I ended up just manually inputing the commands with no wildcards.

[justmoon]

If you don't mind a little jank, you can use this as a workaround:

concurrently -n '​' 'npm:watch-*'

There is a zero-width space character being passed as the argument to -n. So this will only work if you copy/paste the above. It won't work if you try to type it in without the ZWS.

[patrickfatrick]

Hi, trying out concurrently and came across this issue rather immediately because I happen to use wildcards liberally (currently using npm-run-all which also supports wildcards). passing -n is a workaround (ie concurrently -n build: \"npm:build:*\" is equivalent concurrently -n build:server,build:client \"npm:build:server\" \"npm:build:client\"). However the description in #211 is IMO not what should happen when -n is not passed. It should match the name of the script in package.json, not the wildcard contents (ie build:js not js).

Unless the readme has changed recently I don't see anything in it that indicates it should behave the way as described in #211 so my preferred fix is to simply revert #212. The example in the readme includes the -n argument.

[paescuj]

Since this annoys me as well, I'm going to fix it!

I think the way it is described in the README really makes sense, therefore my suggestion is to simply adjust the implementation to match this behavior:

  "scripts": {
    "lint:js": "echo js",
    "lint:ts": "echo ts",
  }

concurrently "npm:lint:*"

Will result in:

...
[js] js
[ts] ts
...

As an alternative, I think we could also just use the name of the matching script, which in that case will result in:

...
[lint:js] js
[lint:ts] ts
...

(However, with this approach the "prefixing" as described in the README would no longer make sense)

Please let me know, which solution you prefer! Thanks!

[patrickfatrick]

You're right, the readme does stipulate that behavior here

concurrently "npm:watch-*"

# Equivalent to:
concurrently -n js,css,node "npm run watch-js" "npm run watch-css" "npm run watch-node"

Personally I don't think that's really any better than showing the full script name like so

concurrently "npm:watch-*"

# Equivalent to:
concurrently -n watch-js,watch-css,watch-node "npm run watch-js" "npm run watch-css" "npm run watch-node"

However I will also say that it's easier to add the watch- prefix via -n arg than it is to remove it for users who DO only want to show the wildcard-matched string. So, either way, I guess.

[paescuj]

Thanks @patrickfatrick! I really appreciate your feedback on this!

I agree that both solution do come with a few drawbacks and thus realized that it might be worth starting a discussion in a separate thread to find a better solution.
However, since this issue here is valid as concurrently indeed doesn't behave like described in the README, I decided to focus on fixing this, for now.

[patrickfatrick]

@paescuj awesome, that was quick. Look forward to its release.