npm use in build.gradle when using Android Studio

An error is being thrown by the use of npm in this line of the build.gradle: version = "npm --silent run get-version".execute(null, projectDir).text.trim()

I am using this in a React Native project. I typically build from the command line but attempted to build in Android Studio and the build fails with this error since it can’t find the npm executable:

Cannot run program "npm" (in directory "/Users/<directory>/node_modules/realm/android"): error=2, No such file or directory

The default path for a GUI application like Android Studio on macOS is:

/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

In my case, npm is in /usr/local/bin installed through homebrew.

If I change the command to a full path then it builds correctly: version = "/usr/local/bin/npm --silent run get-version".execute(null, projectDir).text.trim()

Any suggestions for handling this in the publish_android_template instead of me manually correcting this?

[nhachicha]

Hi @davidstoker

Android Studio doesn’t inherit the environment variables you defined in your shell. we have similar problem in realm-java where we use launchctl setenv to work around the issue.

In your case a quick work around, is to start Android Studio from the shell (ex: on OSX) ~/Applications/Android\ Studio.app/Contents/MacOS/studio& this will inherit the PATH containing npm

Cheers

[anders-g-hansen]

Was seeing this problem on windows even though npm was in the path. Was able to resolve the issue by adding the npm file extension (see below).

task send(type: SendAnalyticsTask) {
    applicationId = getAppId()
    version = "npm.cmd --silent run get-version".execute(null, projectDir).text.trim()
}