Child process is exited prematurely when running a view command

npm_issue.md

I'm opening this issue because:

• npm is crashing.
• npm is producing an incorrect install.
• npm is doing something I don't understand.
• Other (see below for feature requests):

What's going wrong?

When using NPM 5: if I run the npm view command in a child process (either exec or spawn) the child process exits with code 0 right after the reception of the first chunk of data.

How can the CLI team reproduce the problem?

Considering this simple Node program:

const exec = require('child_process').exec;

const child = exec('npm view npm@latest');

child.stdout.on('data', data => {
  console.log('DATA', data.length);
});

child.stderr.on('data', data => {
  console.log('ERROR', data.length);
});

child.on('exit', code => {
  console.log('EXIT', code);
});

Output when NPM 4.6.1 is installed:

$ node debug-exec.js      
DATA 8192
DATA 8192
DATA 8189
DATA 8191
DATA 3817
EXIT 0

Output when NPM 5.0.0 is installed:

$ node debug-exec.js      
DATA 8192
EXIT 0

There is no problem with these commands (the whole output is received whatever the NPM version):

• ls -l node_modules
• curl -s https://github.com/ncuillery

supporting information:

• npm -v prints: either 4.6.1 or 5.0.0
• node -v prints: v7.1.0
• npm config get registry prints: https://registry.npmjs.org/
• Windows, OS X/macOS, or Linux?: macOS Sierra 10.12.4
• Network issues:
  • Geographic location where npm was run:
  • I use a proxy to connect to the npm registry.
  • I use a proxy to connect to the web.
  • I use a proxy when downloading Git repos.
  • I access the npm registry via a VPN
  • I don't use a proxy, but have limited or unreliable internet access.
• Container:
  • I develop using Vagrant on Windows.
  • I develop using Vagrant on OS X or Linux.
  • I develop / deploy using Docker.
  • I deploy to a PaaS (Triton, Heroku).