npm package.json bin won't work on Windows

Question

I am trying to start my cli tool via the package.json bin property.

I have the following:

... "name": "mycli", "bin": "./bin/mycli", ... 

When I open the cmd in the package path and type: "mycli" it says that the command is not recognized.

Should I run an npm command? or use the scripts property? am I trying to access the bin property incorrectly?

Answer 1

Try to specify the name of your cli tool in the bin property, like:

"bin": {   "mycli": "./bin/mycli" // or "/bin/mycli.js" if it's a .js file } 

Then, run npm link, from inside your project folder, to create a global symbolic link to the current folder.

Don't forget to add the "preferGlobal": "true" property just before the bin property in your package.json file, in order to warn users to install your module globally.

Answer 2

Whenever I was trying to get my app to link, I kept running into problems on Windows where the generated scripts that would execute on path would try to run the *.js file using the default Windows executable (I don't know what that would be). I'm not sure why. I think it might be because it is a JavaScript file. However, I compared the generated scripts to some of the other modules I had installed, and figured out that if I made the bin file referenced by the package.json act as though it were to be executed on a *nix machine, npm would automatically try and add the call to node.

For example:

If my package.json looks like this:

myapp/package.json

"name": "myapp", "bin": {     "myapp": "./bin/myapp" } 

My referenced bin file looks like this:

myapp/bin/myapp

#!/usr/bin/env node require("../server.js"); 

The 2 generated executable files that appear in %APPDATA%\npm show up as follows by running the command npm link from within the myapp directory (which would have package.json in the root):

myapp

#!/bin/sh basedir=`dirname "$0"`  case `uname` in     *CYGWIN*) basedir=`cygpath -w "$basedir"`;; esac  if [ -x "$basedir/node" ]; then   "$basedir/node"  "$basedir/node_modules/myapp/bin/myapp" "$@"   ret=$? else    node  "$basedir/node_modules/myapp/bin/myapp" "$@"   ret=$? fi exit $ret 

myapp.cmd

@IF EXIST "%~dp0\node.exe" (   "%~dp0\node.exe"  "%~dp0\node_modules\myapp\bin\myapp" %* ) ELSE (   node  "%~dp0\node_modules\myapp\bin\myapp" %* ) 

Bear in mind, I didn't need to make the 2 files above explicitly, I just needed to have the file to be executed as the bin file in the package.json. npm did the file creation.

---

Line Endings

One other thing to note that I ran into while using this method, make absolutely sure that your line endings are correct. I noticed that my bin was erroring with: ": No such file or directory" whenever I installed on *nix machines because there was an incorrect line ending. Thanks to View line-endings in a text file for example of how to print visible line endings.

For example, if you run cat -e PATH_TO_BIN and get something like this:

#!/usr/bin/env node^M$ ^M$ require("../index.js");^M$ 

You're using the wrong line endings. If you get something like this:

#!/usr/bin/env node$ $ require("../index.js");$ 

Those should be the right line endings.