Change working directory for npm scripts

node.js npm makefile package.json
eljefedelrodeodeljefe picture eljefedelrodeodeljefe · May 17, 2015 · Viewed 53.7k times · Source

Q: Is it possible to change the the context in which npm runs scripts?

What I want to is the following:

"scripts": {
   "test": "gulp mocha",
   "pre-install": "./deps/2.7/cpython/configure --prefix=$(pwd)/build --exec-prefix=$(pwd)/build && make -C deps/2.7/cpython && make -C deps/2.7/cpython install",
   "install": "node-gyp rebuild"
},

Obviously cd deps/2.7/cpython/ && ./configure would work on UNIX-like systems but not on windows.

Why: The root of the problem is, that the configure command of the python repo outputs files into the directory where it is called. The files however are build relevant for make and make install which look for the files in the directory of the repo.

In this case I can't change the Makefile since the build process of Python is understandably complex.

Alternative: The alternative is probably to write some install.js and use node's OS independent API and some child_process.exec(), which I am probably gonna do. However, not leaving npm would be really nice.

Answer

eljefedelrodeodeljefe picture eljefedelrodeodeljefe · Mar 4, 2016

npm allows only to do cd dir && command -args, which will also run on Windows.

A change to use node's spawn functionality has been made in PR https://github.com/npm/npm/pull/10958, but was rejected, due to the above solution.

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