Testing locally on Windows

[chrisglein]

I'd be helpful if I could do testing of this locally on my Windows box. There are different expectations in environment expectations, and you may not agree with how Windows is set up, but the situation remains. For other projects generally I'm able to get running anyway. For example when doing GitHub Pages local with Jekyll, I have to manually drop into a bash prompt, but then everything is good from there. There's might be something more compatible here by delving deeper into WSL, but I haven't needed that previously.

But here's the experience I get:

❯ npm run build

> build
> ./songs-to-json && pug-pack src

'.' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

(same result running from either standard Windows terminal or a bash prompt)

From the gate it doesn't want to run the python script. Python doesn't come in the box, but can be installed from the command-line with winget:

winget install -e --id Python.Python.3.11

After that, it's available in the path:

❯ python -V
Python 3.11.9

There's no file extension for songs-to-json. Is running it with python intended to be inferred from the file contents?

I can run it manually and it does the thing:

❯ python .\songs-to-json
weird song: toss.pdf

(which is to say it exports src/songs.json and src/by-title.json)

Next step in the script is to run pug-pack on that src folder. And pug-pack exists:

❯ npx pug-pack -h
usage:

pug-pack [src] [dist] [-p|--prod|--production] [-w|--watch]
  [-v|--verbose] [-c|--clean]

pug-pack [-l|--list] [-i|--init] [-h|--help] [-V|--version]

default: pug-pack ./src ./dist

But trying to run that manually doesn't work:

❯ npx pug-pack src
OperationalError: Command failed: find 'C:\Users\chris\source\repos\shanties\node_modules\pug-pack\src' -type f -print0
FIND: Parameter format not correct

    at ChildProcess.exithandler (node:child_process:422:12)
    ... 3 lines matching cause stack trace ...
 {
  cause: Error: Command failed: find 'C:\Users\chris\source\repos\shanties\node_modules\pug-pack\src' -type f -print0
  FIND: Parameter format not correct

      at ChildProcess.exithandler (node:child_process:422:12)
      at ChildProcess.emit (node:events:515:28)
      at maybeClose (node:internal/child_process:1105:16)
      at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (node:internal/child_process:305:5)
   {
    code: 2,
    killed: false,
    signal: null,
    cmd: "find 'C:\\Users\\chris\\source\\repos\\shanties\\node_modules\\pug-pack\\src' -type f -print0"
  },
  isOperational: true,
  code: 2,
  killed: false,
  signal: null,
  cmd: "find 'C:\\Users\\chris\\source\\repos\\shanties\\node_modules\\pug-pack\\src' -type f -print0"
}

Which smells like a relative path / working directory issue, but I haven't found a variant that comes up with anything different.

This is as far as I've had it get.

[brewingcode]

I have to manually drop into a bash prompt

How are you doing this? This particular error indicates that you are not in a bash environment:

 npm run build

> build
> ./songs-to-json && pug-pack src

'.' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

. is a bash built-in, so if it's not being recognized, you aren't in a bash prompt. That is also a Windows error message. So a quick test would be to just run . and verify you get this error:

[12:47:04] $ .
-bash: .: filename argument required
.: usage: . filename [arguments]

[brewingcode]

There's no file extension for songs-to-json. Is running it with python intended to be inferred from the file contents?

This is POSIX thing: the first line of the script tells your shell how to run the script (it's officially called a shebang, a contraction of "hash-bang"). That line in this case is:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

...which assumes you're on a *nix filesystem, and that you have python3. I would wager winget's Python package installs both python and python3, they're just the same binary. But as you noted, you can also just run as python .\songs-to-json, and as long as your python is version 3, it will work.

This Python binary naming thing is contentious: all the unix distros I have worked with reserve python for v2, and python3 for v3.

[brewingcode]

Next step in the script is to run pug-pack on that src folder. And pug-pack exists:

But trying to run that manually doesn't work:

FIND: Parameter format not correct

The error output shows what's happening: pug-pack is running a find shell command, and it's picking up the Windows version of it, instead of the one it expects, which is the Unix find command.

Basically, all the problems are due to not running in a bash shell, so if we can find a bash shell that works for you, you should be good to go. git-bash is an option, and WSL is another.

[chrisglein]

This is from running in a bash shell.

❯ bash
Welcome to Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS (GNU/Linux 5.15.167.4-microsoft-standard-WSL2 x86_64)

 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com
 * Management:     https://landscape.canonical.com
 * Support:        https://ubuntu.com/advantage

 * Strictly confined Kubernetes makes edge and IoT secure. Learn how MicroK8s
   just raised the bar for easy, resilient and secure K8s cluster deployment.

   https://ubuntu.com/engage/secure-kubernetes-at-the-edge

This message is shown once a day. To disable it please create the
/root/.hushlogin file.
root@DESKTOP-7070L4O:/mnt/c/Users/chris/source/repos/shanties# npm install

up to date, audited 301 packages in 7s

32 packages are looking for funding
  run `npm fund` for details

22 vulnerabilities (4 low, 8 moderate, 10 high)

To address issues that do not require attention, run:
  npm audit fix

To address all issues possible (including breaking changes), run:
  npm audit fix --force

Some issues need review, and may require choosing
a different dependency.

Run `npm audit` for details.
root@DESKTOP-7070L4O:/mnt/c/Users/chris/source/repos/shanties# npm run build

> build
> ./songs-to-json && pug-pack src

'.' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
root@DESKTOP-7070L4O:/mnt/c/Users/chris/source/repos/shanties#

In this environment, python3 is defined:

root@DESKTOP-7070L4O:/mnt/c/Users/chris/source/repos/shanties# python
Command 'python' not found, did you mean:
  command 'python3' from deb python3
  command 'python' from deb python-is-python3
root@DESKTOP-7070L4O:/mnt/c/Users/chris/source/repos/shanties# python3
Python 3.10.12 (main, Jan 17 2025, 14:35:34) [GCC 11.4.0] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>

But python is not:

root@DESKTOP-7070L4O:/mnt/c/Users/chris/source/repos/shanties# python
Command 'python' not found, did you mean:
  command 'python3' from deb python3
  command 'python' from deb python-is-python3

And I do get that error message for .:

root@DESKTOP-7070L4O:/mnt/c/Users/chris/source/repos/shanties# .
-bash: .: filename argument required
.: usage: . filename [arguments]

[brewingcode]

Hmm, something odd is still happening: you're correct that you're in a bash shell, as the .: usage: . filename [arguments] error proves.

Instead of calling ./songs-to-json && pug-pack src, does it work if you do npm run build?

[chrisglein]

Instead of calling ./songs-to-json && pug-pack src, does it work if you do npm run build?

That's the command I ran above.