App root automatic discovery not working when --root option did

Environment

react-native info unfortunately does not produce fully valid results in my case. The valid part is

here

System: OS: macOS 10.15.3 CPU: (4) x64 Intel® Core™ i5-5257U CPU @ 2.70GHz Memory: 1.23 GB / 16.00 GB Shell: 5.0.11 - /usr/local/bin/bash Binaries: Node: 12.14.1 - /usr/local/bin/node Yarn: 1.22.4 - /usr/local/bin/yarn npm: 6.13.7 - /usr/local/bin/npm Watchman: 4.9.0 - /usr/local/bin/watchman Managers: CocoaPods: 1.8.4 - /usr/local/bin/pod SDKs: iOS SDK: Platforms: iOS 13.4, DriverKit 19.0, macOS 10.15, tvOS 13.4, watchOS 6.2 Android SDK: Android NDK: 17.2.4988734 IDEs: Android Studio: 3.6 AI-192.7142.36.36.6308749 Xcode: 11.4/11E146 - /usr/bin/xcodebuild

Description

In https://github.com/react-native-community/datetimepicker there is an example project in the example folder. I’m using the kind of setup that it common in many of the community repositories where the example app links to the native and js code which is in the parent folder.

In the master branch with RN 0.60.4, I’m able to run react-native run-android --root example/ and get the build running.

In the @vonovak/enable-detox branch which uses RN 0.62.1 and @react-native-community/cli@^4.5.1 , if I run the same command, I get

Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml'
    at Object.openSync (fs.js:440:3)
    at Object.readFileSync (fs.js:342:35)
    at buildAndRun (/Users/vojta/dev/_own/datetimepicker/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli-platform-android/build/commands/runAndroid/index.js:162:41)
    at /Users/vojta/dev/_own/datetimepicker/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli-platform-android/build/commands/runAndroid/index.js:146:12
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:94:5)
    at async Command.handleAction (/Users/vojta/dev/_own/datetimepicker/node_modules/@react-native-community/cli/build/index.js:186:9)

(yes, the file is not there). It would be nice to have some more docs about how the detection works https://github.com/react-native-community/cli/blob/master/docs/commands.md#--root-string

Reproducible Demo

https://github.com/react-native-community/datetimepicker @vonovak/enable-detox branch

[troZee]

I encountered the same issue and I resolved it as follow: I created react-native.config.js file in root dir (at the same level as package.json file ), which contains below code:

module.exports = {
  project: {
    android: {
      sourceDir: './example/android',
    },
  },
};

Where android project is located inside './example/android You can also check all dirs using react-native config command.

[thymikee]

Closed via https://github.com/react-native-community/cli/pull/1122