2024-03-26, Version 20.12.0 'Iron' (LTS), @richardlau

Notable Changes

crypto: implement crypto.hash()

This patch introduces a helper crypto.hash() that computes a digest from the input at one shot. This can be 1.2-2x faster than the object-based createHash() for smaller inputs (<= 5MB) that are readily available (not streamed) and incur less memory overhead since no intermediate objects will be created.

const crypto = require('node:crypto');

// Hashing a string and return the result as a hex-encoded string.
const string = 'Node.js';
// 10b3493287f831e81a438811a1ffba01f8cec4b7
console.log(crypto.hash('sha1', string));

Contributed by Joyee Cheung in #51044.

Loading and parsing environment variables

• process.loadEnvFile(path):
• Use this function to load the .env file. If no path is specified, it automatically loads the .env file in the current directory. Example: process.loadEnvFile().

• Load a specific .env file by specifying its path. Example: process.loadEnvFile('./development.env').

• util.parseEnv(content):

• Use this function to parse an existing string containing environment variable assignments.
• Example usage: require('node:util').parseEnv('HELLO=world').

Contributed by Yagiz Nizipli in #51476.

New connection attempt events

Three new events were added in the net.createConnection flow:

• connectionAttempt: Emitted when a new connection attempt is established. In case of Happy Eyeballs, this might emitted multiple times.
• connectionAttemptFailed: Emitted when a connection attempt failed. In case of Happy Eyeballs, this might emitted multiple times.
• connectionAttemptTimeout: Emitted when a connection attempt timed out. In case of Happy Eyeballs, this will not be emitted for the last attempt. This is not emitted at all if Happy Eyeballs is not used.

Additionally, a previous bug has been fixed where a new connection attempt could have been started after a previous one failed and after the connection was destroyed by the user. This led to a failed assertion.

Contributed by Paolo Insogna in #51045.

Permission Model changes

Node.js 20.12.0 comes with several fixes for the experimental permission model and two new semver-minor commits. We're adding a new flag --allow-addons to enable addon usage when using the Permission Model.

$ node --experimental-permission --allow-addons

Contributed by Rafael Gonzaga in #51183

And relative paths are now supported through the --allow-fs-* flags. Therefore, with this release one can use:

$ node --experimental-permission --allow-fs-read=./index.js

To give only read access to the entrypoint of the application.

Contributed by Rafael Gonzaga and Carlos Espa in #50758.

sea: support embedding assets

Users can now include assets by adding a key-path dictionary to the configuration as the assets field. At build time, Node.js would read the assets from the specified paths and bundle them into the preparation blob. In the generated executable, users can retrieve the assets using the sea.getAsset() and sea.getAssetAsBlob() API.

{
  "main": "/path/to/bundled/script.js",
  "output": "/path/to/write/the/generated/blob.blob",
  "assets": {
    "a.jpg": "/path/to/a.jpg",
    "b.txt": "/path/to/b.txt"
  }
}

The single-executable application can access the assets as follows:

const { getAsset } = require('node:sea');
// Returns a copy of the data in an ArrayBuffer
const image = getAsset('a.jpg');
// Returns a string decoded from the asset as UTF8.
const text = getAsset('b.txt', 'utf8');
// Returns a Blob containing the asset without copying.
const blob = getAssetAsBlob('a.jpg');

Contributed by Joyee Cheung in #50960.

Support configurable snapshot through --build-snapshot-config flag

We are adding a new flag --build-snapshot-config to configure snapshots through a custom JSON configuration file.

$ node --build-snapshot-config=/path/to/myconfig.json

When using this flag, additional script files provided on the command line will not be executed and instead be interpreted as regular command line arguments.

These changes were contributed by Joyee Cheung and Anna Henningsen in #50453

Text Styling

• util.styleText(format, text): This function returns a formatted text considering the format passed.

A new API has been created to format text based on util.inspect.colors, enabling you to style text in different colors (such as red, blue, ...) and emphasis (italic, bold, ...).

const { styleText } = require('node:util');
const errorMessage = styleText('red', 'Error! Error!');
console.log(errorMessage);

Contributed by Rafael Gonzaga in #51850.

vm: support using the default loader to handle dynamic import()

This patch adds support for using vm.constants.USE_MAIN_CONTEXT_DEFAULT_LOADER as the importModuleDynamically option in all vm APIs that take this option except vm.SourceTextModule. This allows users to have a shortcut to support dynamic import() in the compiled code without missing the compilation cache if they don't need customization of the loading process. We emit an experimental warning when the import() is actually handled by the default loader through this option instead of requiring --experimental-vm-modules.

const { Script, constants } = require('node:vm');
const { resolve } = require('node:path');
const { writeFileSync } = require('node:fs');

// Write test.js and test.txt to the directory where the current script
// being run is located.
writeFileSync(resolve(__dirname, 'test.mjs'),
              'export const filename = "./test.json";');
writeFileSync(resolve(__dirname, 'test.json'),
              '{"hello": "world"}');

// Compile a script that loads test.mjs and then test.json
// as if the script is placed in the same directory.
const script = new Script(
  `(async function() {
    const { filename } = await import('./test.mjs');
    return import(filename, { with: { type: 'json' } })
  })();`,
  {
    filename: resolve(__dirname, 'test-with-default.js'),
    importModuleDynamically: constants.USE_MAIN_CONTEXT_DEFAULT_LOADER,
  });

// { default: { hello: 'world' } }
script.runInThisContext().then(console.log);

Contributed by Joyee Cheung in #51244.

Root certificates updated to NSS 3.98

Certificates added:

• Telekom Security TLS ECC Root 2020
• Telekom Security TLS RSA Root 2023

Certificates removed:

• Security Communication Root CA

Updated dependencies

• acorn updated to 8.11.3.
• ada updated to 2.7.6.
• base64 updated to 0.5.2.
• brotli updated to 1.1.0.
• c-ares updated to 1.27.0.
• corepack updated to 0.25.2.
• ICU updated to 74.2. Includes CLDR 44.1 and Unicode 15.1.
• nghttp2 updated to 1.60.0.
• npm updated to 10.5.0. Fixes a regression in signals not being passed onto child processes.
• simdutf8 updated to 4.0.8.
• Timezone updated to 2024a.
• zlib updated to 1.3.0.1-motley-40e35a7.

Include Provides: nodejs20-* for non-versioned packages.