feat: add support for current and latest aliases

[theoludwig]

Fixes#257

The goal of this PR is to support current as alias for the node-version array.
I thought that current is a better name than latest because the actual name from Node.js is current but we can support both aliases if we really want to.

Currently, this is a Work In Progress, I don't know much of this codebase, so I would appreciate some help.
I'm new to the world of developing GitHub Actions, I always use them but never develop them 😆, I saw that you can test if it actually works with the tool nektos/act.
So I ran this command : act -j current-syntax and it seems to work, but it is not caching the Node.js version yet.

EDIT: I also added the latest alias.

[theoludwig]

cc @maxim-lobanov

[TomasHubelbauer]

I'd like to request that 'latest' also be supported, however even without it this would be great to have! Thank you for making the PR

[theoludwig]

I'd like to request that 'latest' also be supported, however even without it this would be great to have! Thank you for making the PR

Done! 👍
I also added the latest alias in addition to the current one.

[Tungbengok]

Dowload ?

[theoludwig]

From #278 (comment)

We will be ready to cut new action release at the begin of next week.

Could you review this PR and maybe include it in the next release if possible and everything is good to go, please ? 😄 @maxim-lobanov

[Kikobeats]

any chance to merge this?

[demurgos]

Hi,
It's been two months: is there any news about this PR?

[theoludwig]

Thanks for your interest. @Kikobeats and @demurgos

I'm happy to continue to work on this PR if it's needed.
The main problem currently is that it is not caching the Node.js version, it's downloading again Node.js even if the current release hasn't changed.
That means it's slower than it should be, at least it works. 😄
But to set up caching, I would need some help from the maintainers.

[dmitry-shibanov]

Hello @divlo. Thank you for your pull request. Could please attach link to the documentation for the current alias ? If I understood well, it should install the latest (lts/non lts) version ? My main concern is about that the latest alias is more obvious.

[theoludwig]

Hello @divlo. Thank you for your pull request. Could please attach link to the documentation for the current alias ? If I understood well, it should install the latest (lts/non lts) version ? My main concern is about that the latest alias is more obvious.

Updated README and resolved the conflicts. 👍
Yes, it installs the latest Node.js version (for example currently it is v17.3.1).
The latest alias might be more obvious but the real name is current as you can see on the Node.js website.

[aivus]

Latest is also used in the dists: https://nodejs.org/dist/latest/

…

On Tue 18 Jan 2022, 15:21 Divlo, ***@***.***> wrote: Hello @divlo <https://github.com/Divlo>. Thank you for your pull request. Could please attach link to the documentation for the current alias ? If I understood well, it should install the latest (lts/non lts) version ? My main concern is about that the latest alias is more obvious. Updated README and resolved the conflicts. 👍 Yes, it installs the latest Node.js version (for example currently it is v17.3.1). The latest alias might be more obvious but the real name is current as you can see on the Node.js website <https://nodejs.org/>. [image: image] <https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/25207499/149944317-cc2de4ef-67e8-499c-bc52-5a66435010b9.png> — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#279 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAHZOBZ422J4N6HGDOF46GDUWVSMVANCNFSM47UQCZLA> . Triage notifications on the go with GitHub Mobile for iOS <https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-store/id1477376905?ct=notification-email&mt=8&pt=524675> or Android <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.android&referrer=utm_campaign%3Dnotification-email%26utm_medium%3Demail%26utm_source%3Dgithub>. You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[dominykas]

Just a memory dump of prior art:

• current is the official terminology as per https://nodejs.org/en/about/releases/
• nvm does not support current or latest, but it does support node (and a deprecated alias for that: stable).
• Travis CI (reference CI for a very long time in the Node.js ecosystem) does support latest (and pulls in the "current (stable) release"), but I think it does that because it installs node via nvm when the keyword is unsupported, rather than latest being explicitly supported (if I remember correctly from the research I did for https://github.com/pkgjs/detect-node-support)
• https://github.com/pkgjs/nv (reference package from https://github.com/nodejs/package-maintenance WG) supports current (alias meaning the same as node from nvm)

I'd argue latest should not be supported explicitly.

[jehon]

Could it be that the two would exists ? "current" and "latest" being synonyms ?

[dominykas]

My thinking is that "latest" can be misleading, esp. in the context of there being "latest in a release line", "latest LTS", etc. I'd rather have latest not work and error out, so that people do not pick that up and try to use it elsewhere, eventually leading to further confusion.

I could be wrong in my thinking, of course. I'll try to dig out some more discussion threads about this for reference.

[dominykas]

I guess a lot of threads can be followed from nodejs/package-maintenance#236

I do have to admit, that I have an issue open on nvm side to support latest myself, but ideally these keywords should all be converging...

[theoludwig]

@dmitry-shibanov Friendly ping. 😄

What is needed to merge this PR?

[bluelovers]

Just a memory dump of prior art:

• current is the official terminology as per https://nodejs.org/en/about/releases/
• nvm does not support current or latest, but it does support node (and a deprecated alias for that: stable).
• Travis CI (reference CI for a very long time in the Node.js ecosystem) does support latest (and pulls in the "current (stable) release"), but I think it does that because it installs node via nvm when the keyword is unsupported, rather than latest being explicitly supported (if I remember correctly from the research I did for https://github.com/pkgjs/detect-node-support)
• https://github.com/pkgjs/nv (reference package from https://github.com/nodejs/package-maintenance WG) supports current (alias meaning the same as node from nvm)

I'd argue latest should not be supported explicitly.

so does actions/setup-node support node too?

[theoludwig]

@bluelovers Does node alias is about the latest current Node.js released version (e.g: currently it is v17.5.0)?
If yes, that would solve this issue, but it just adds another naming...
What naming should we choose: current or latest or node or all the three together?

[bluelovers]

@bluelovers Does node alias is about the latest current Node.js released version (e.g: currently it is v17.5.0)? If yes, that would solve this issue, but it just adds another naming... What naming should we choose: current or latest or node or all the three together?

nvm , travis ci use node , and actions/setup-node support nvmrc, so i think node should be support

[theoludwig]

This PR has no recent activity, and probably won't be merged for a long time and as I don't want/have time to do the job for this PR, I decided to close it.

Feel free to open another PR yourself based on this one if you want this to be implemented.