Quickstart doesn't work if you use npx

[togakangaroo]

I assumed that - like most globals nowadays - you could use bs-platform via npx

~/code $ npx -p bs-platform bsb -init reason-playground -theme basic-reason
Making directory reason-playground
Symlink bs-platform in /Users/gmauer/code/reason-playground 

turns out you cannot

~/code $ cd reason-playground/
~/code/reason-playground $ npm s
npm ERR! search must be called with arguments

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /Users/gmauer/.npm/_logs/2019-10-28T02_20_36_086Z-debug.log
~/code/reason-playground $ npm run start

> [email protected] start /Users/gmauer/code/reason-playground
> bsb -make-world -w

sh: bsb: command not found
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! syscall spawn
npm ERR! file sh
npm ERR! errno ENOENT
npm ERR! [email protected] start: `bsb -make-world -w`
npm ERR! spawn ENOENT
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Failed at the [email protected] start script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     /Users/gmauer/.npm/_logs/2019-10-28T02_20_47_999Z-debug.log

Seems like it expects a global bs-platform installed.

Might I recommend installing bs-platform as part of dev-dependencies and then using that local install?

This would also allow have the benefit of allowing the app generator to control the version of bs-platform all this stuff runs against.

[bloodyowl]

did you run npm install in the created directory after your npx?

[Inkbottle007]

You have to do rm -r node_modules/ otherwise you have a broken symlink node_modules/bs-platform -> ~/.npm/_npx/nnnnnn/lib/node_modules/bs-platform causing npm install to fail. So, what worked was:

npx -p bs-platform bsb -init reason-playground -theme basic-reason
cd reason-playground/
rm -r node_modules/
npm install
npm run start

The npx -p bs-platform bsb -init reason-playground -theme basic-reason line is creating 4 files:

$ cat reason-playground/bsconfig.json 
{
  "name": "reason-playground",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "sources": {
    "dir" : "src",
    "subdirs" : true
  },
  "package-specs": {
    "module": "commonjs",
    "in-source": true
  },
  "suffix": ".bs.js",
  "bs-dependencies": [

  ],
  "warnings": {
    "error" : "+101"
  },
  "namespace": true,
  "refmt": 3
}

$ cat reason-playground/package.json 
{
  "name": "reason-playground",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "scripts": {
    "build": "bsb -make-world",
    "start": "bsb -make-world -w",
    "clean": "bsb -clean-world"
  },
  "keywords": [
    "BuckleScript"
  ],
  "author": "",
  "license": "MIT",
  "devDependencies": {
    "bs-platform": "^7.1.0"
  }
}

$ cat reason-playground/README.md 
...

$ cat reason-playground/src/Demo.re 
Js.log("Hello, BuckleScript and Reason!");

Copying those files in another directory:

$ mkdir hello-bsb
$ cd hello-bsb/
$ cp ../reason-playground/bsconfig.json .
$ cp ../reason-playground/package.json .
$ mkdir src
$ cp ../reason-playground/src/Demo.re src/

is sufficient to have the same results with npm install and npm run start.

(The only prerequisite is sudo apt install nodejs.)

[davesnx]

bs-platform is the old package from BuckleScript, which is now called ReScript.

Using npx with ReScript shouldn't have any problem, otherwise open an issue on their repo: https://github.com/rescript-lang/rescript-compiler