Postinstall patch script unreliable

General Information

• Usage
• Development
• Documentation
• Feature Request

Specific generator

• Addons
• HandlebarsJS

What Version you are running?

• NodeJS: v.10.18.0
• NPM: 6.13.4
  • (Yarn v1.19.2)
• @pnp/spfx: v1.10.2

Describe your problem

The postinstall patch script is unreliable, since it relies on all the dependency modules being installed inside the package’s own install directory. Installing with NPM globally will yield this result, however installing locally with either NPM or Yarn, or installing globally with Yarn, will not.

Instead, the modules are installed at the root of node_modules meaning this path (and various other paths) are no longer correct. This causes the package to fail installation.

error C:\Users\jake.stanger\AppData\Local\Yarn\Data\global\node_modules\@pnp\generator-spfx: Command failed.
Exit code: 1
Command: node lib/patch.js
Arguments:
Directory: C:\Users\jake.stanger\AppData\Local\Yarn\Data\global\node_modules\@pnp\generator-spfx
Output:
fs.js:114
    throw err;
    ^

Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, mkdir 'C:\Users\jake.stanger\AppData\Local\Yarn\Data\global\node_modules\@pnp\generator-spfx\node_modules\@microsoft\generator-sharepoint\lib\generators\applicationCustomizer\templates\react'       at Object.mkdirSync (fs.js:757:3)
    at Object.<anonymous> (C:\Users\jake.stanger\AppData\Local\Yarn\Data\global\node_modules\@pnp\generator-spfx\lib\patch.js:123:8)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:778:30)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:789:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:653:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:593:12)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:585:3)

The script could use require.resolve to get the path for the the module. The downside to this is that the generator will be modifying an install of the base generator that may not be associated with this generator. The upside is it should always work.

[JakeStanger]

Awesome, thanks!

[JakeStanger]

Okay just installed the alpha version as a dep and it worked fine. Awesome!

We use a generator internally that first runs this generator and then adds some company specific patches such as extra configs etc.