Cross-Platform Compatibility
Table of Contents
Overview
Comprehensive guide to writing code that works seamlessly across Windows, macOS, and Linux. Covers file path handling, environment detection, platform-specific features, and testing strategies.
When to Use
- Building applications for multiple operating systems
- Handling file system operations
- Managing platform-specific dependencies
- Detecting operating system and architecture
- Working with environment variables
- Building cross-platform CLI tools
- Dealing with line endings and character encodings
- Managing platform-specific build processes
Quick Start
Minimal working example:
// ❌ BAD: Hardcoded paths with platform-specific separators
const configPath = "C:\\Users\\user\\config.json"; // Windows only
const dataPath = "/home/user/data.txt"; // Unix only
// ✅ GOOD: Use path module
import path from "path";
import os from "os";
// Platform-independent path construction
const configPath = path.join(os.homedir(), "config", "app.json");
const dataPath = path.join(process.cwd(), "data", "users.txt");
// Resolve relative paths
const absolutePath = path.resolve("./config/settings.json");
// Get path components
const dirname = path.dirname("/path/to/file.txt"); // '/path/to'
const basename = path.basename("/path/to/file.txt"); // 'file.txt'
const extname = path.extname("/path/to/file.txt"); // '.txt'
// Normalize paths (handle .. and .)
const normalized = path.normalize("/path/to/../file.txt"); // '/path/file.txt'
Reference Guides
Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:
| Guide | Contents | |---|---| | File Path Handling | File Path Handling | | Platform Detection | Platform Detection | | Line Endings | Line Endings | | Environment Variables | Environment Variables | | Shell Commands | Shell Commands | | File Permissions | File Permissions | | Process Management | Process Management | | Platform-Specific Dependencies | Platform-Specific Dependencies | | Testing Across Platforms | Testing Across Platforms | | Character Encoding | Character Encoding | | Build Configuration | Build Configuration |
Best Practices
✅ DO
- Use path.join() or path.resolve() for paths
- Use os.EOL for line endings
- Detect platform at runtime when needed
- Test on all target platforms
- Use optionalDependencies for platform-specific modules
- Handle file permissions gracefully
- Use shell escaping for user input
- Normalize line endings in text files
- Use UTF-8 encoding by default
- Document platform-specific behavior
- Provide fallbacks for platform-specific features
- Use CI/CD to test on multiple platforms
❌ DON'T
- Hardcode file paths with backslashes or forward slashes
- Assume Unix-only features (signals, permissions, symlinks)
- Ignore Windows-specific quirks (drive letters, UNC paths)
- Use platform-specific commands without fallbacks
- Assume case-sensitive file systems
- Forget about different line endings
- Use platform-specific APIs without checking
- Hardcode environment variable access patterns
- Ignore character encoding issues