Why is verbosity needed in version 8 to make echo or printf output anything?

[p3k]

Not only because this was different in version 7, but also because I expect when I invoke a command with $ that it outputs the result of this command to the terminal.

Even the example in the documentation about ProcessOutput does not output anything in version 8 – except I prepend a line with $.verbose = true; (and get more output than I actually want…)

What am I missing?

[antonmedv]

get more output than I actually want…

Could you please explain?

ping @antongolub

[p3k]

Apologies, I was wrong with claiming that – I did not check again if the output of the invoked commands (the lines starting with $) is the same in version 7.

Anyway, the file below, let’s name it test.mjs, produces the following outputs:

#!/usr/bin/env zx

//$.verbose = true;
const date = await $`date`;
await $`echo Current date is ${date}.`;

• Version 7:

  $ date
  Wed Nov  6 09:26:47 UTC 2024
  $ echo Current date is $'Wed Nov  6 09:26:47 UTC 2024'.
  Current date is Wed Nov  6 09:26:47 UTC 2024.

• Version 8:
  (no output)
• Version 8 with uncommented $.verbose = true:

  $ date
  Wed Nov  6 09:45:39 UTC 2024
  $ echo Current date is $'Wed Nov  6 09:45:39 UTC 2024'.
  Current date is Wed Nov  6 09:45:39 UTC 2024.

So I get that with version 8 I would need to enable $.verbose = true in every script to get the same output as with version 7.

But still, the example I referred to – or take the one with Promise.all on the “Getting Started” page – just remain silent in version 8.

Is it a documentation issue then?

And it looks like $`echo` is considered a logging command – is the remedy then to use echo() or console.log() without having to enable $.verbose = true?

[antongolub]

I'm afraid, we cannot know in advance how to handle cmd output correctly (whether it contains sensitive data or credentials), so we suggest specifying this behavior explicitly. That's why we use verbose=false by default.

[p3k]

Thanks for the reply @antongolub – I understand the reason, makes a lot of sense.

I recommend to modify the examples, though – in a way that applying them does not lead to frustration because they yield nothing in the terminal.

Closing this discussion.