[BUG] npm view --json outputs illegal JSON for existing package but non-existent version

[rjgotten]

Current Behavior:

npm view <package>@<version> --json returns an empty or white-space string when answering a query for a package which does exist, but a version descriptor which has no matches. This is illegal JSON and attempting to JSON.parse it throws an error.

Expected Behavior:

npm view <package>@<version> --json should return valid JSON in this case: either null or something that is contextually relevant to the kind of query, such as perhaps an empty array []. E.g.

> npm view npm@10 --json
null

> npm view npm@10 version --json
[]

Steps To Reproduce:

Execute npm view npm@10 --json.

Environment:

OS: any
Node: any
npm: 6+

[varungandhi-src]

It looks like this problem isn't specific to the --json flag. Without the --json flag, as of npm 7.20.3, using npm view react@9999 will exit successfully instead of emitting an error and exiting with a non-zero exit code.

[lukekarrys]

All of these cases now correctly set the exit code to 1 and show the relevant error. In --json mode that error is present in the json output.

❯ npm --version
10.7.0

❯ npm view npm@11 --json
npm error code E404
npm error 404 No match found for version 11
npm error 404
npm error 404  'npm@11' is not in this registry.
npm error 404
npm error 404 Note that you can also install from a
npm error 404 tarball, folder, http url, or git url.
{
  "error": {
    "code": "E404",
    "summary": "No match found for version 11",
    "detail": "\n 'npm@11' is not in this registry.\n\nNote that you can also install from a\ntarball, folder, http url, or git url."
  }
}

npm error A complete log of this run can be found in: /Users/lukekarrys/.npm/_logs/2024-05-13T22_12_44_503Z-debug-0.log

❯ npm view npm@11 version --json
npm error code E404
npm error 404 No match found for version 11
npm error 404
npm error 404  'npm@11' is not in this registry.
npm error 404
npm error 404 Note that you can also install from a
npm error 404 tarball, folder, http url, or git url.
{
  "error": {
    "code": "E404",
    "summary": "No match found for version 11",
    "detail": "\n 'npm@11' is not in this registry.\n\nNote that you can also install from a\ntarball, folder, http url, or git url."
  }
}

npm error A complete log of this run can be found in: /Users/lukekarrys/.npm/_logs/2024-05-13T22_13_04_350Z-debug-0.log

❯ npm view npm@11
npm error code E404
npm error 404 No match found for version 11
npm error 404
npm error 404  'npm@11' is not in this registry.
npm error 404
npm error 404 Note that you can also install from a
npm error 404 tarball, folder, http url, or git url.

npm error A complete log of this run can be found in: /Users/lukekarrys/.npm/_logs/2024-05-13T22_13_19_311Z-debug-0.log

❯ npm view npm@11 version
npm error code E404
npm error 404 No match found for version 11
npm error 404
npm error 404  'npm@11' is not in this registry.
npm error 404
npm error 404 Note that you can also install from a
npm error 404 tarball, folder, http url, or git url.

npm error A complete log of this run can be found in: /Users/lukekarrys/.npm/_logs/2024-05-13T22_13_27_269Z-debug-0.log