Change default location of iOS and Android folder

(I asked this on StackOverflow but nobody answered so I decided to report that here)

Environment

System:
    OS: macOS 10.15.1
    CPU: (4) x64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4278U CPU @ 2.60GHz
    Memory: 20.93 MB / 8.00 GB
    Shell: 3.2.57 - /bin/bash
  Binaries:
    Node: 12.7.0 - /Volumes/JETDRIVE/.nvm/versions/node/v12.7.0/bin/node
    Yarn: 1.19.0 - /usr/local/bin/yarn
    npm: 6.10.0 - /Volumes/JETDRIVE/.nvm/versions/node/v12.7.0/bin/npm
    Watchman: 4.9.0 - /usr/local/bin/watchman
  Managers:
    CocoaPods: 1.8.4 - /usr/local/bin/pod
  SDKs:
    iOS SDK:
      Platforms: iOS 13.2, DriverKit 19.0, macOS 10.15, tvOS 13.2, watchOS 6.1
    Android SDK:
      API Levels: 23, 28, 29
      Build Tools: 23.0.1, 28.0.3, 29.0.1
      System Images: android-29 | Google Play Intel x86 Atom
      Android NDK: Not Found
  IDEs:
    Android Studio: 3.5 AI-191.8026.42.35.5900203
    Xcode: 11.3/11C29 - /usr/bin/xcodebuild
  Languages:
    Python: 2.7.16 - /usr/bin/python
  npmPackages:
    @react-native-community/cli: Not Found
    react: 16.11.0 => 16.11.0 
    react-native: 0.62.0 => 0.62.0 
  npmGlobalPackages:
    *react-native*: Not Found

Description

According to the react-native CLI documentation we can specify custom configuration based on each platform for RN CLI. I want to change the default location of each platform folders so I added my custom react-native.config.js to the root of the project which you can find that here:

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

If I run react-native config in the root folder, I can see the correct configuration:

{
...
  "project": {
    "ios": {
      "sourceDir": "path-to-project-directory/example/ios",
      "folder": "path-to-project-directory",
      "pbxprojPath": "path-to-project-directory/example/ios/example.xcworkspace/project.pbxproj",
      "podfile": "path-to-project-directory/example/ios/Podfile",
      "podspecPath": null,
      "projectPath": "path-to-project-directory/example/ios/example.xcworkspace",
      "projectName": "example.xcworkspace",
      "libraryFolder": "Libraries",
      "sharedLibraries": [],
      "plist": [],
      "scriptPhases": []
    },
    "android": {
      "sourceDir": "path-to-project-directory/example/android/",
      "isFlat": true,
      "folder": "path-to-project-directory",
      "stringsPath": "path-to-project-directory/example/android/app/src/main/res/values/strings.xml",
      "manifestPath": "path-to-project-directory/example/android/app/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml",
      "buildGradlePath": "path-to-project-directory/example/android/build.gradle",
      "settingsGradlePath": "path-to-project-directory/example/android/settings.gradle",
      "assetsPath": "path-to-project-directory/example/android/app/src/main/assets",
      "mainFilePath": "path-to-project-directory/example/android/app/src/main/java/com/example/MainApplication.java",
      "packageName": "com.example",
      "packageFolder": "com/example",
      "appName": "app"
    }
  }
}

The problem is whenever I run react-native run-ios I get this error:

error iOS project folder not found. Are you sure this is a React Native project?. Run CLI with --verbose flag for more details.

NOTE: I installed all the dependencies properly. Here is the result of the react-native --v command:

react-native-cli: 2.0.1
react-native: 0.62.0

Reproducible Demo

1. Create a RN project via react-native init
2. Create a subfolder in the project and move ios and android folders there
3. Create a react-native.config.js in the root directory and export project configuration as I provided in this issue(You can find in the Description section).
4. Try to run the project via react-native run-ios or react-native run-android

[jenshandersson]

Looking at the code it looks like react-native.config.js is being ignored for iOS. The script simply looks for project/workspace in the root or --project-path.

https://github.com/react-native-community/cli/blob/4870ac55811d9c1491f2730088f3cb96f4f3c049/packages/platform-ios/src/commands/runIOS/index.ts#L52

[jenshandersson]

I’m having the same issue on iOS. Got it working by specifying the project-path: react-native run-ios --project-path example/ios. But I feel this shouldn’t be needed?

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