`postinstall` is broken on Windows

[baltpeter]

Error (this was when running npm i -g tweasel-cli):

npm ERR! code 1
npm ERR! path C:\Users\root\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\tweasel-cli\node_modules\appstraction
npm ERR! command failed
npm ERR! command C:\Windows\system32\cmd.exe /d /s /c node scripts/postinstall.js; andromatic-install -p platform-tools 'build-tools;33.0.2'
npm ERR! node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1078
npm ERR!   throw err;
npm ERR!   ^
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Error: Cannot find module 'C:\Users\root\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\tweasel-cli\node_modules\appstraction\scripts\postinstall.js;'
npm ERR!     at Module._resolveFilename (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1075:15)
npm ERR!     at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:920:27)
npm ERR!     at Function.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (node:internal/modules/run_main:81:12)
npm ERR!     at node:internal/main/run_main_module:23:47 {
npm ERR!   code: 'MODULE_NOT_FOUND',
npm ERR!   requireStack: []
npm ERR! }
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Node.js v18.15.0

Full debug log: 2023-07-12T21_42_03_073Z-debug-0.log

[baltpeter]

As a workaround you can install like this: npm i appstraction --ignore-scripts.

This will skip the postinstall script and not preinstall the dependencies. But that isn't much of a problem. They are installed on demand anyway.

[zner0L]

It seems like the error is caused by the semicolon being considered part of the path in Powershell. If I separate the semicolon from the path with a space, the postinstall script runs.

[zner0L]

Aha, apparently npm on Windows doesn’t understand the semicolon at all and treats the second command as arguments of the first. Here is a minimal version to reproduce that:

{
  "name": "test",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "postinstall": "echo 'first'; echo 'second'"
  }
}

On Windows 10 PowerShell, we get:

PS C:\Users\user\Documents\test> npm run postinstall

> test@1.0.0 postinstall
> echo 'first'; echo 'second'

'first'; echo 'second'

While on a Fedora zsh this runs like expected:

❯ npm run postinstall

> test@1.0.0 postinstall
> echo 'first'; echo 'second'

first
second

It should be noted that this is not an issue with PowerShell, as this runs it just fine:

PS C:\Users\user\Documents\test> echo 'first'; echo 'second'
first
second

The problem is that the normal Windows cmd does not recognize ; a a special character. Windows uses & for that. && should work on both machines, though, so maybe let’s use that.

[zner0L]

The examples for Android seem to run fine on Windows, after I fixed the install.