Framework: spaces and braces break the build / hot-reload

[hoverduck]

We noticed today that spaces in the path break the build system. This compounds with another issue using braces ({ and }).

• If there's a space in the path (" ") then the build fails entirely
• If there are braces in the path ("{" and "}") then the build succeeds, but hot-reload doesn't work.

These are likely two independent issues, because the second never worked, but the first stopped working in the latest few days (even just this morning? -- 06Nov2015).

Note that while this is a relatively minor problem right now, with the open-sourcing it could cause setup issues, because by default the hard drive on Macs is called /Volumes/Macintosh HD, containing a space, thus will likely fail or require a longer tutorial.

make run worked for me on a freshly pulled master branch yesterday. Today it stopped working (06Nov15)

I've also tried npm install, npm update, and make distclean. Nothing worked.

I did try to check out a very old branch, so old it had to "unbuild" a few things. That branch would make run just fine.

After some debugging in slack, we found out that if I rename my harddrive from Macintosh HD to just Macintosh (no space), it works just fine.

Partial fix: if we change in Makefile:

export NODE_PATH := server:shared:$(THIS_DIR)

to

export NODE_PATH := server:shared:.

• Fixes the build issue.
• Doesn't fix hot-reload. :P

Further info:

• If I make run from this path, it works: ~/git/wp-calypso
• If I make run from this path, it breaks: /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/username/git/wp-calypso

Since Coda insists upon expanding any symlinks (BAD CODA!) it would be so nice if the build process could take spaces into account.

[klimeryk]

I've tested this with newest master - it seems that in "the meantime" this issue fixed itself.
I've tested make run on Linux with the path ~/workspace/wp calypso and it worked as it should. Let me know if you can reproduce the behavior reported in this issue.

[folletto]

I ran a test and the problem is still present.

With a path like: ~/repo/wp-calypso {git}/:

• the build works — was fixed in Build: Fix NODE_PATH for cwd paths with spaces in them #873 linked above
• HotReload doesn't work.

[klimeryk]

Ah, sorry, I missed the part about braces 🙇 Either way, I've created #3583 to address any issues with special characters in the path - please test it and let me know if it helped.

[folletto]

I did a round of tests:

• /repo/wp-calypso {git} builds but hot-reload doesn't work (as discussed, we can't do much)
• /repo/wp-calypso git builds and hot-reload works
• /repo/wp-calypso-git builds and hot-reload works

Weirdly the first time I tried with both spaces and { it crashed on gyp, but was just the first try. After that it worked.

👍

[klimeryk]

Thanks for the extra testing - at least spaces don't break hot reloading... Do you think we should keep this issue open (it was autoclosed by the merge of my PR just now) or leave it closed since it's most likely something that has to be fixed upstream?

[folletto]

Yeah... I haven't reopened it exactly for that reason. It's not really dependent on us, even if it's a shame the build tools don't work properly in a modern filesystem. :)