removing breaking space

[icculp]

space between -- and npm_config_global cause the following error:

'npm_config_global' is not recognized as an internal or external command,

Checklist

• [ ] npm install && npm test passes
• [ ] tests are included
• [ ] documentation is changed or added
• [ ] commit message follows commit guidelines

Description of change

[cclauss]

@owl-from-hogvarts @DeeDeeG Your reviews, please.

[DeeDeeG]

Hi, thanks for the ping. I have to say the commands modified in this PR should work without modification on Unix-like OSes. Linux and macOS, mainly.

For what it's worth, this looks like Windows cmd.exe ~~or Powershell~~ to me:

XYZ is not recognized as an internal or external command

Windows' cmd and powershell do not understand the "ENV_VAR=value command arguments" syntax.

The commands in this section of the document are only meant to work on Unix-like OSes (Linux or macOS mainly). There is a separate section of the instructions for Windows elsewhere in the document, which should work okay on Windows. I suggest trying those as written currently.

Furthermore, I agree with all of what @owl-from-hogvarts said above.

---

To add to that...

In plain English, the command updated by this PR is meant to

• Go into the global install dir (npm explore with -g flag)
• From there go into the subdirectory npm/node_modules/@npmcli/run-script (npm 7 or 8) or npm/node_modules/npm-lifecycle (npm 6 or older)
• Set the environment variable npm_config_global=false (npm 7 or 8)
• Finally, run the command after the --, namely: npm install node-gyp@latest

So in summary, we are temporarily moving into the internal dependencies of the globally installed npm and updating its copy of node-gyp.

The "command -- positional arguments here" syntax convention is sometimes used in Unix-style command-line tools to have a main command x and a -- and then some potentially complex or ambiguous argument y after. The -- allows to clarify that whatever follows is a "positional argument", where being after the -- tells you the meaning.

As @owl-from-hogvarts mentioned above, npm explore reserves a special meaning for anything after the --. Specifically: For npm explore, anything after the -- is a command to run after moving to the specified directory.

Changing it to --something makes what follows a flag rather than a positional argument. So it would instead tack a flag on to npm explore. This would probably not be a flag npm explore is programmed to recognize or respond to, so the flag would likely be ignored... And the npm install node-gyp@latest would not be interpreted as a separate command to run.

So this PR would remove the crucial step of actually installing newer node-gyp.

Again I suggest trying the steps in the Windows section of the document and seeing if those work, if you are indeed on Windows.

[lukekarrys]

If this continues to be an issue, please try following the guidance above and if that does not work, open a new issue.