Fractal•11mo ago

Convex dev server chokes on Emacs backup files

By default, my text editor (Emacs) saves backup files in the same directory by adding a # to the beginning and the end of the file name. So for instance a file called functions.ts will generate a backup file called #functions.ts# (which then gets removed automatically when saving the original file). The problem is that npx convex dev chokes on those files, it crashes with the following error message:

⠙ Preparing Convex functions...
Unexpected Error: SyntaxError: Private identifiers are not allowed outside class bodies. (13:20)
  11 |   
  12 |   import type { ApiFromModules, FilterApi, FunctionReference } from "convex/server";
> 13 |   import type * as #functions from "../#functions.js";
     |                    ^
  14 | import type * as functions from "../functions.js";
  15 |

⠙ Preparing Convex functions...
Unexpected Error: SyntaxError: Private identifiers are not allowed outside class bodies. (13:20)
  11 |   
  12 |   import type { ApiFromModules, FilterApi, FunctionReference } from "convex/server";
> 13 |   import type * as #functions from "../#functions.js";
     |                    ^
  14 | import type * as functions from "../functions.js";
  15 |

It actually crashes, so my functions are not kept synchronized anymore and I have to restart npx convex dev for my functions to synchronize again, which is pretty annoying. Sure I could configure Emacs to save the backup files somewhere else or with a different name, but it would be nice if it worked out of the box. After all the extension is .ts# so it should not even be considered as a Typescript file by Convex?

7 Replies

ballingt•11mo ago

The extension .ts# should be skipped! Is it possible the file is named #functions.ts instead? The generated code here suggests that. although the .ts# could be swapped here for .js... we'll fix this! Likely there's code that allows /.ts./ somewhere

FractalOP•11mo ago

No, it is called #functions.ts#. And I also get the same error if I just do touch "convex/#abc.txt and then npx convex dev, so it looks like Convex doesn’t even look at the extension at all?

ballingt•11mo ago

Looking at the code I agree https://github.com/get-convex/convex-js/blob/f39968ac595e75c2914e011c339675b470950c66/src/bundler/index.ts#L334

GitHub

convex-js/src/bundler/index.ts at f39968ac595e75c2914e011c339675b47...

TypeScript/JavaScript client library for Convex. Contribute to get-convex/convex-js development by creating an account on GitHub.

ballingt•11mo ago

This could be limited to all possible .ts and .js extensions for now, even if long term anything esbuild can bundle should be allowed. .ts .tsx .mts .mtsx etc This is just limiting entry points, one if these modules can still import a txt file if the bundler is configured for that. Let's start with carving out #, being extra careful because we don't want to ignore files now we later add support for since that would break people's projects

FractalOP•11mo ago

Yes, the reason it crashes currently is because the # at the beginning of the filename results in syntactically invalid generated code, so I guess it’s safe to handle this particular case as it will never make sense to want that

ballingt•10mo ago

@Fractal the change for this is in, you'll see it in the next client release.

FractalOP•10mo ago

@ballingt Great, thank you!

Convex dev server chokes on Emacs backup files

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