vm.runInNewContext doesn't raise a ReferenceError on console

[cdipiet]

• Version: v14.10.1
• Platform:Linux cdplinux 5.4.0-47-generic Nominating Chris Dickinson to the TC #51-Ubuntu SMP Fri Sep 4 19:50:52 UTC 2020 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
• Subsystem:

What steps will reproduce the bug?

from command line:
node -e "const vm=require('vm');vm.runInNewContext('console.log(\"test\")');"

from script:
vm.runInNewContext('console.log("test")');

How often does it reproduce? Is there a required condition?

always

What is the expected behavior?

ReferenceError: console is not defined

What do you see instead?

nothing is printed, ReferenceError is not raised, test is not printed

Additional information

console object seems to be accessibile from new context:

node -p "const vm=require('vm');vm.runInNewContext('typeof console');"
object

For example this works:
node -e "const vm=require('vm');vm.runInNewContext('let x = y;');"
evalmachine.:1
let x = y;
^
ReferenceError: y is not defined

[bnoordhuis]

That's because console is a built-in object, like Object and Array, except the default implementation in a "plain" context only has no-op methods. Node.js overrides it in "node-y" contexts.

Closing as not-a-bug but let me know if you have follow-up questions and I'll move it to nodejs/help.

[cdipiet]

Thank you, my question come from: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/39416716/what-is-the-difference-between-new-function-and-vm where it seems that in past version of node.js the behaviour was different. Thanks to your explanation I just found also: #16755. So it could be interesting having somewhere in the nodejs documentation some details on this point(may be doc on console class and vm module). Thanks

[bnoordhuis]

What would you document? It's true console wasn't always a built-in but every version of Node.js where that isn't the case has been long out of support.