Error messages are not precise enough

[ehmicky]

I tried to run resolve against a library which had an invalid main field in package.json.

With require.resolve(), the error message is:

> require.resolve('mylib')
Uncaught:
Error: Cannot find module '/home/me/code/cv-website/node_modules/mylib/index.js'. Please verify that the package.json has a valid "main" entry
    at tryPackage (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:322:19)
    at Function.Module._findPath (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:683:18)
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:1007:27)
    at Function.resolve (internal/modules/cjs/helpers.js:78:19) {
  code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND',
  path: '/home/me/code/cv-website/node_modules/mylib/package.json',
  requestPath: 'mylib'
}

With resolve, it is:

> resolve.sync('mylib')
Uncaught Error: Cannot find module 'mylib' from '.'
    at Function.resolveSync [as sync] (/home/me/code/cv-website/node_modules/resolve/lib/sync.js:89:15) {
  code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND'
}

Missing error information was critical in my use case, and it took some time to figure out why resolve was failing.

[ljharb]

I’d be quite happy to review a PR that improved error messages.

[ehmicky]

I am not sure I would have time for this unfortunately.

[matthew-dean]

Related to this, does the error list all variants tried, if you have multiple paths and extensions?

[Cheesetouched]

Sounds interesting. Happy to look into this. Would drop updates here as I go.