Cannot import IPFS

Help IPFS
1

I’m trying to get anything to run on the Windows OS after importing IPFS, but I’m stuck on the import statement.

ReferenceError: TextDecoder is not defined                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

> 1 | const IPFS = require('ipfs');

I’m using Node version v14.16.1. Are there extra requirements to get a working ‘Hello world’ example running in Windows?

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2

Hello jinhale! Could you tell me what steps you performed so I may attempt to replicate them? (How did you install Node, how are you running the js?)

3

I installed a new project, npx create-react-app ipfs-foo --template typescript, then I installed IPFS in the newly created project, yarn add ipfs, then I created a new file src\utils.ts:

const IPFS = require('ipfs');

interface ipfsMemoInterface {
    [index:string]: any,
}

const ipfsCreateMemo = {};

export async function createIpfs(props = {}) {
  const memo = String(Object.entries(props)) || 'createIpfs';

  if (memo in ipfsCreateMemo === false) {
      console.log(Object.keys(IPFS)); // This verifies that IPFS is imported correctly
      // The error always happens next
      ipfsCreateMemo[memo] = await IPFS.create();
  }
  // never gets to this point
  return ipfsCreateMemo[memo];
}

export async function getLatest() {
  const ipfs = await createIpfs();

  return ipfs.refs.local();
}

and I created src\utils.test.ts:

import createIpfs from './utils';

test('Test IPFS create method', async () => {
    // expect.assertions(1);
    const mockCreateIpfs = jest.fn(async () => await createIpfs());

    await mockCreateIpfs();

    expect(mockCreateIpfs).toHaveReturned();
});

test("Read the latest", async () => {
    const mockGetLatest = jest.fn(async () => await getLatest());

    await mockGetLatest();

    expect(mockGetLatest).toHaveReturned();
});

finally I ran npm test which runs a script, react-scripts test, and the result is that the tests fail to even run (0 tests are run out of 2)!

4

I can replicate this error now using npm version 7.7.6 and node version v12.21.0 on Linux and a very simple setup:

Run npm init, then yarn add ipfs ipfs-core and yarn add --dev jest.

// index.js
const IPFS = require('ipfs-core');

const ipfsMemo = {};

async function getIPFS(options) {
        const memo = JSON.stringify(options);

        if (memo in ipfsMemo) {
                return ipfsMemo;
        }

        const ipfs = await IPFS.create(options);

        ipfsMemo[memo] = ipfs;

        return ipfsMemo[memo];
}

async function getLatest() {
        const node = await getIPFS();

        return await node.refs.local();
}

module.exports = {
        getIPFS, getLatest,
};

// index.test.js
const { getLatest, getIPFS, } = require('./index.js');

describe("Test IPFS is configured correctly", () => {
        test('itialialize IPFS nodes', async () => {
                const node1 = await getIPFS();
                const node2 = await getIPFS();

                expect(node2).toBeNull();
        });
});

Run npm test.

5

I’m surprised that the error happens whether I use ipfs or 'ipfs-core`.

6

Does this just mean that IPFS is not compatible with NodeJS? Is support just limited to a narrow set of browsers?

7

I’m testing using jest in case that wasn’t clear. Is Jest fundamentally incompatible somehow? If that’s the case how could I do unit tests? Do I have to roll my own testing framework?

I get the same error if I try to add a unit test of IPFS like before in the 101 example.

8

I don’t have any experience with Jest, however a minimal NodeJS example:

npm install ipfs-core

const IPFS = require('ipfs-core')
const fs = require('fs');
 
 async function toIPFS() {
	 const node = await IPFS.create()
	 const data = fs.readFileSync('./Icon.png')
	 const results = await node.add(data)
	 console.log(results.cid.string)
 }
 
toIPFS();

Run with: node index.js

Icon.png is just my avatar, it should output the CID (QmcuGJ7ukmuTnVkYrPSc32irpwKpM78p3DSwvQn9J12SX3) and work without a hitch. Not sure why you’re getting TextDecoder is not defined.

FWIW: NodeJS v16.0.0, npm 7.11.1.

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9

Using Node similar to yours and not Jest, does indeed work. I simply needed to replace require expressions with import statements.

Node v 16.0.0 npm v 7.10.0

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10

I’m also experiencing this issue when attempting to run jest version 27.0.6 with typescript.

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