How can I add a compilation error regex for node js?

Question

I can't seem to get emacs to recognize node stacktraces. As you can see, I've added what I think is a valid regular expression to compilation-error-regex-alist and compilation-error-regex-alist-alist, but it still does not match, and brings up the file selection dialog if I try to navigate to the next error.

https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/4205/18681080/0cb6630a-7f2c-11e6-9c5c-aeaf62f651a6.png

It appears that it's thinking of test/state-test.js:127 as the file name:

Is there a way to debug the process by which errors are recognized so I can see why it is not matching?

I've run regex in the re-builder showing the file and so it would appear that the line and column groups match:

Here is the lisp code that attempts to add the node regex:

(add-to-list 'compilation-error-regexp-alist 'node)

(add-to-list 'compilation-error-regexp-alist-alist
         '(node "^[ \f\n ]*at.+(\(.+\):\([[:digit:]]+\):\([[:digit:]]+\))$" 1 2 3))

The compilation buffer:

-*- mode: compilation; default-directory: "~/Code/microstates.js/" -*-
Compilation started at Tue Sep 20 12:09:31

npm t
[?25h[0G
> [email protected] test /Users/cowboyd/Code/microstates.js
> mocha test/index.js

[?25l[0G
[?25h[?25h[1A[0G[?25h[0G

  The Basic Opaque State
    wrapping an object value in a State
      with pre-defined properties
[0G        1) has those properties by default


  0 passing (38ms)
  1 failing

  1) The Basic Opaque State wrapping an object value in a State with pre-defined properties has those properties by default:
      AssertionError: expected undefined to be an instance of State
      at Context.<anonymous> (test/state-test.js:127:33)



[?25l[0G
[?25h[?25h[1A[0G[?25h[0Gnpm ERR! Test failed.  See above for more details.

Compilation exited abnormally with code 1 at Tue Sep 20 12:09:33

Answer 1

Answer came in via twitter from hero @jscalterego https://twitter.com/cowboyd/status/778287337952247808

Apparently the problem is that in the re-builder, I was using "string" regex syntax vs "read" syntax, and so the regular expression was not properly formed. I'm not super well-versed on the differences between the various syntaxes. I imagine that's a whole other line of inquiry, but the winning regex was

'(node "at [^ ]+ (\\(.+?\\):\\([[:digit:]]+\\):\\([[:digit:]]+\\)" 1 2 3)

which worked very well.

Answer 2

compile-goto-error didn't work for me when I tried the answer from the tweet -- it seems like the line number was being captured by the filename group. From this emacs.d I tried:

(setq compilation-error-regexp-alist-alist
        ;; Tip: M-x re-builder to test this out
        (cons '(node "^[ ]+at \\(?:[^\(\n]+ \(\\)?\\([a-zA-Z\.0-9_/-]+\\):\\([0-9]+\\):\\([0-9]+\\)\)?$"
                           1 ;; file
                           2 ;; line
                           3 ;; column
                           )
              compilation-error-regexp-alist-alist))

which worked perfectly!