structuredClone / atob / btoa should throw a TypeError without arguments

[zloirock]

Version

17.3.0

Platform

MacOS 12.1

Subsystem

global / buffer

What steps will reproduce the bug?

structuredClone(); // => undefined, should be a TypeError
atob(); // => 'ºw^~)Þ', should be a TypeError
btoa(); // => 'dW5kZWZpbmVk', should be a TypeError

How often does it reproduce? Is there a required condition?

No response

What is the expected behavior?

No response

What do you see instead?

^

Additional information

It's an inconsistency with web standards.

[DerekNonGeneric]

@zloirock, thanks for opening this issue. As far as I understand, these utility methods evolved w/o any standard or official specification. The nearest I can find is the link below.

https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/webappapis.html#atob

By any chance, would you be able to link a more complete specification or should we derive this specification from current web browser behavior?

[zloirock]

@DerekNonGeneric the same with structuredClone. I'm not an expert in Web IDL, but looks like here specified that they should take a required argument, so they should throw an error if the argument is missed. This is the behavior of all actual browsers, so I think that's interpreted correctly.

[zloirock]

For example, similarly, in the URL spec we could see that URLSearchParams#append should accept 2 params - and if not, that throws an error everywhere - in Node and all browsers:

And the error is not specified directly.

[VoltrexKeyva]

As far as I understand, the WHATWG spec for both of the atob() and btoa() functions/methods states that a required argument must be taken and must be a value with the primitive type of string.

As for the structuredClone() function, the value can be anything other than specified C++ natives; so I guess it's already giving out the intended output as passing nothing falls back to the undefined value, which it's structured clone is undefined, we could also require the user to pass a value regardless of the fallback behavior by checking the amount of arguments they've passed to the function, but I'm -0 on that.

[aduh95]

Spec for atob and btoa: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/webappapis.html#dom-atob-dev

• Firefox: TypeError: Window.atob: At least 1 argument required, but only 0 passed
• Safari: TypeError: Not enough arguments
• Chromium: TypeError: Failed to execute 'atob' on 'Window': 1 argument required, but only 0 present.
• Deno: DOMException: Failed to decode base64.

Spec for structuredClone: https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/structured-data.html#dom-structuredclone

• Firefox: TypeError: Window.structuredClone: At least 1 argument required, but only 0 passed
• Safari: TypeError: Not enough arguments
• Chromium: TypeError: Failed to execute 'structuredClone' on 'Window': 1 argument required, but only 0 present.
• Deno: TypeError: Failed to execute 'structuredClone': 1 argument required, but only 0 present.

It looks like Node.js indeed not aligned with the rest of the ecosystem.

[targos]

I think this is the part of Web IDL that defines what should happen: https://webidl.spec.whatwg.org/#es-overloads

If there is no valid overload for the type of value passed in here, then we throw a TypeError.

[benjamingr]

Sure I'll open a quick PR that throws ERR_INVALID_ARG_TYPE and adds a test good catch

[benjamingr]

I can also add a fix for structuredClone to the PR but I'd rather make a good-first-issue out of it if everyone is OK with it given how straightforward it is maybe?

[DerekNonGeneric]

@benjamingr, do you think it would be best to add a new ERR_INVALID_ARGS_NUMBER code first, or do you plan to go w/ ERR_MISSING_ARGS? Without the name of this missing argument, it might be tough to determine what to provide to the error for the message text.

If you want me to open a PR to include this ERR_INVALID_ARGS_NUMBER first, it might be best since adding a whole new error code seems a bit much for a GFI, and it can be tricky.

[benjamingr]

@DerekNonGeneric I think it's important to understand what .code is used for and its importance and I don't think it matters in this case. I just think it's important we should raise a TypeError and atob is for browser compatibility anyway so I doubt anyone is checking .code on anything atob related.

That said, if you feel strongly about this feel free to push whatever code you want on that branch or ask that I change it to ERR_MISSING_ARGS both are fine by me :)

[gioragutt]

I'll be happy to take the structuredClone fix. What would be the error of choice in this case? ERR_MISSING_OPTION('value') or ERR_INVALID_ARG_TYPE('value', [...'everything specified in #1'], value)?

• 1: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Workers_API/Structured_clone_algorithm

[benjamingr]

ERR_MISSING_ARGS? I honestly just care that it's a TypeError and is spec compliant :)