Bazel does not run on Windows

[lukasholzer]

Bug Report

Currently, starting the Bazel server performing an npm install which triggers the postinstall.js script there is an incompatibility for windows so it won't run on windows. This results that currently running any Bazel target on Windows is not possible.

The first investigation was done by @andreas-doppelhofer:

diff --git a/postinstall.js b/postinstall.js
index 26810f5c..132bf5e3 100644
--- a/postinstall.js
+++ b/postinstall.js
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 // migration script for the phase where we support building with bazel
 // and without.
 const { exec } = require('child_process');
+const { execFile } = require('child_process');
 const { resolve } = require('path');
 const { sync } = require('glob');
 const { writeFileSync, readFileSync } = require('fs');
@@ -20,10 +21,18 @@ async function main() {
   // Generate Angular ngfactory.js, ngsummary.js files for the dependencies,
   // that are needed for ViewEngine
-  await execCommand(`${NGC_BINARY} -p view-engine-tsconfig.json`);
+  console.log("DOPS da bin ich");
+  await execCommand(`dir view-engine-tsconfig.json`);
+  await execCommand(`dir ${NGC_BINARY}`);
+
+  await execFileCommand(NGC_BINARY,["-p","view-engine-tsconfig.json"])
+  //await execCommand(`${NGC_BINARY} -p view-engine-tsconfig.json`);
   // Generate Ivy entry points
-  await execCommand(
-    `${NGCC_BINARY} --properties es2015 browser module main --first-only --create-ivy-entry-points`,
+  //await execCommand(
+  //  `${NGCC_BINARY} --properties es2015 browser module main --first-only --create-ivy-entry-points`,
+  //  );
+  await execFileCommand(
+    NGCC_BINARY,["--properties","es2015","browser","module","main","--first-only","--create-ivy-entry-points"],
   );
   // link the ivy entry points
   updateNgccMainFields();
@@ -33,6 +42,25 @@ async function main() {
   }
 }
+/**
+ * Executes a file and return it as a Promise.
+ * @param cmd {string}
+ * @return {Promise<string>}
+ */
+function execFileCommand(_cmd, _args) {
+  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
+    console.log("DOPS " + _cmd + " " + _args);
+    execFile(_cmd,_args, {shell: true}, (error, stdout, stderr) => {
+      if (error) {
+        return reject(error);
+      }
+      const output = stdout ? stdout : stderr;
+      console.log(output);
+      resolve(output);
+    });
+  });
+}
+
 /**
  * Executes a shell command and return it as a Promise.
  * @param cmd {string}
@@ -40,7 +68,7 @@ async function main() {
  */
 function execCommand(cmd) {
   return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
-    exec(cmd, (error, stdout, stderr) => {
+    exec(cmd, {shell: true}, (error, stdout, stderr) => {
       if (error) {
         return reject(error);
       }

[SkaillZ]

See bazel-contrib/rules_nodejs#2144

[lukasholzer]

Status update

Could track down the problem on two smaller problems.

1. Bazels npm_install rule does not work with using third party npm dependencies inside the postinstall script. (a switch to yarn would work – but this would be a lot of work)
2. Executing nodejs_test on windows fails. Jest Example fails on Windows bazel-contrib/rules_nodejs#1454