env variable DEBUG is not parsed correctly
Author: zymonCreated Jan 16, 2025Updated Mar 2, 2026
If the DEBUG env variable contains multiple items separated with spaces, then only the first one is used.
For example: export DEBUG="APP_X APP_Y APP_Z"
Then, only the APP_X is enabled for debugging. Other apps are ignored. This is due to the way the string is parsed:
In debug\src\common.js, line 169:
const split = (typeof namespaces === 'string' ? namespaces : '') .trim() .replace(' ', ',') .split(',') .filter(Boolean);
replace('', ',') changes only the first occurrence of space
So, to fix it you can use regexp:
const split = (typeof namespaces === 'string' ? namespaces : '') .trim() .replace(/ /g, ',') .split(',') .filter(Boolean);
Source: debug-js/debug