René's URL Explorer Experiment

{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","headline":"watch: reconstructing NODE_OPTIONS for the child process corrupts quotes and backslashes","articleBody":"### Version\n\nmain\n\n### Platform\n\n```text\nAll\n```\n\n### Subsystem\n\nwatch\n\n### What steps will reproduce the bug?\n\n```console\n$ mkdir watch-repro && cd watch-repro\n$ printf 'console.log(JSON.stringify(process.title));\\n' > app.cjs\n```\n\n**Case 1: a value containing a double quote makes the child fail to start**\n\n```console\n$ NODE_OPTIONS='--title=\"a\\\"b\"' node app.cjs\n\"a\\\"b\"\n\n$ NODE_OPTIONS='--title=\"a\\\"b\"' node --watch app.cjs\n/path/to/node: invalid value for NODE_OPTIONS (unterminated string)\n\nFailed running 'app.cjs'. Waiting for file changes before restarting...\n```\n\n**Case 2: a value containing a backslash is silently altered**\n\n```console\n$ NODE_OPTIONS='--title=\"a \\\\b\"' node app.cjs\n\"a \\\\b\"\n\n$ NODE_OPTIONS='--title=\"a \\\\b\"' node --watch app.cjs\n\"a b\"\nCompleted running 'app.cjs'. Waiting for file changes before restarting...\n```\n\n### How often does it reproduce? Is there a required condition?\n\nAlways\n\n### What is the expected behavior? Why is that the expected behavior?\n\nThe reconstructed `NODE_OPTIONS` string must tokenize back to exactly the tokens that were parsed, so the child process observes the same options as a non-`--watch` run. Round-tripping through the tokenizer is lossless only if the serializer is the exact inverse of it, which means escaping the characters the tokenizer treats specially.\n\n### What do you see instead?\n\nThe child either refuses to start with `invalid value for NODE_OPTIONS (unterminated string)`, or starts with a silently wrong option value (`a \\b` becomes `a b`).\n\n### Additional information\n\n_No response_","author":{"url":"https://github.com/trivikr","@type":"Person","name":"trivikr"},"datePublished":"2026-09-28T00:31:18Z","url":"https://github.com/nodejs/node/issues/66362"}