Feature request: add `preserveSymlinks` option to `require.resolve()`

[searls]

According to the docs, the only option currently on require.resolve(path[, options]) is paths. I have a project that I'm trying to eliminate a dependency on browserify/resolve, and the only thing holding me back is that my library needs to know the resolved path of a given string while preserving symlinks, regardless of whatever the end-user has set their global Node environment to.

I propose a second option be added to this method named preserveSymlinks which behaves the same way as the --preserve-symlinks CLI flag and ENV var, but is local only to the call on require.resolve().

I attempted to work around this by changing the NODE_PRESERVE_SYMLINKS env var at runtime, but it had no effect.

If this seems like an agreeable enhancement to require.resolve, I'd happily take a stab at a PR

[jasnell]

I'm fine with this. I had suggested this previously and it wasn't too popular at the time -- but at that time there was no options argument on resolve() already. Now that it's there, the story might be different.

[cjihrig]

Something like this commit should do the trick. It would need benchmarked and documented though.

EDIT: module benchmark results:

                                                                        improvement confidence   p.value
 module/module-loader.js useCache="false" fullPath="false" thousands=50      0.08 %            0.9925357
 module/module-loader.js useCache="false" fullPath="true" thousands=50       2.62 %            0.6623119
 module/module-loader.js useCache="true" fullPath="false" thousands=50       0.46 %            0.7855123
 module/module-loader.js useCache="true" fullPath="true" thousands=50       -2.31 %            0.2031434

[safizn]

I prefer adding an object as the argument for specific options which there is now already the options object argument https://nodejs.org/api/modules.html#modules_require_resolve_request_options.
e.g.
require.resolve('<path>', { preserveSymlinks: true })

Any plan on adding preserveSymlinks option ?

[clydin]

@cjihrig Any chance we could see the changes in your commit turned into a full PR? I think many people would greatly benefit from the added options. Having to rely on third-party packages that attempt to mimic the behavior of the node resolution algorithm is considerably less than ideal.

[alcuadrado]

Any news on this? It would be very beneficial for one of my projects. I have to rely on a third-party package that just recreates part node's functionality, and it feels fragile.

[github-actions]

There has been no activity on this feature request for 5 months and it is unlikely to be implemented. It will be closed 6 months after the last non-automated comment.

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