How do I build 32-bit binaries on a 64-bit system using npm?

Question

I'm developing an application that I plan to distribute using node-webkit, which only has 32-bit binaries on Windows. My OS is Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, so npm is building 64-bit binaries of protobuf for node, which is a prerequisite of one of the modules I am using.

I have tried:

• npm install protobuf --arch=ia32
• npm install protobuf --target_arch=ia32
• npm set npm_config_arch ia32
• Installing the 32-bit version of node and npm and using it to install protobuf

And a few other things that I can't remember at the moment.

How can I get npm to build 32-bit binaries? Would I have to build it on a 32-bit machine?

Answer 1

You should be able to clone the repo into node_modules yourself and compile it manually using

node-gyp clean configure build --verbose --arch=ia32

inside the directory where you cloned the repo.

Answer 2

Add a file in your project root called .npmrc Windows explorer doesn't allow creation of a file name starting with a dot, but this can be done on windows command line like this:

type NUL > .npmrc

Then add the following line to the file:

npm_config_arch=ia32

You may also want to put this line in there to force VS build version, since some packages want to use non-installed versions. Replace 2013 with your version of Visual Studio if different (2012, etc):

msvs_version=2013