Node: Consistent `TypeError`s

[sonicdoe]

fs.readFileSync(null)
// > TypeError: path must be a string or Buffer

path.join(null)
// > TypeError: Path must be a string. Received null

new URL(null)
// > TypeError [ERR_INVALID_URL]: Invalid URL: null

The above output is from Node.js v8.2.1. I think It would be nice if TypeErrors in general would be more consistent across Node.js’s core modules.

[mscdex]

That's the eventual goal. All errors are being more standardized to include error codes and such. It takes time to convert entire modules over and doing so (currently) still is a semver-major change, meaning those incremental changes won't be seen until the next major version of node.

[sonicdoe]

Thanks for the quick reply. I read about the standardization of error codes in the Node.js v8 blog post and am glad to hear that the error messages themselves will be revised eventually, too 👍

[Trott]

Looking at changes thus far in 9.0.0-pre, it does seem like the ERR_INVALID_URL (from new URL(null)) above might be better as ERR_INVALID_ARG_TYPE (which is what path.join(null) throws). I would expect ERR_INVALID_URL if I passed a string that wasn't a valid URL. But passting null is different. Not sure if it should be changed or not--there may be performance considerations etc.--but flagging it now just in case.

[bnoordhuis]

Looks like this has been answered. I'll close it out.