react-native link never works

[gokulkulkarni1987]

Is this a bug report?

Yes

Have you read the Contributing Guidelines?

YES

Environment

1. react-native -v: react-native-cli: 2.0.1, react-native: 0.47.0
2. node -v: v8.4.0
3. npm -v: 5.3.0
4. yarn --version: 0.27.5

Then, specify:

• Target Platform:
  iOS and Android

• Development Operating System:
  macOS and Linux

• Build tools:
  Not specific to any platform

Steps to Reproduce

(Write your steps here:)

1. I do installation of any library by using npm install <lib_name> --save
2. The installation goes successful and I run react-native link <lib_name>

Expected Behavior

The linking of the library must happen.

Actual Behavior

The library linking never happens and I will have to manually do all the steps to add the library in both iOS and Android.

Reproducible Demo

I think this step is not applicable as it is related to linking.

[patw0929]

link issue were solved in 0.47.1.

[laurent22]

I had this issue after renaming a project. The old name was still used in one place and because of this linking was silently failing.

[agrison]

I'm also having the exact same issue with react-native 0.47.2 and react-native-cli 2.0.1.

[agrison]

Complete step to reproduce:

$ react-native -v
react-native-cli: 2.0.1
react-native: 0.47.2
$ create-react-native-app foo
$ cd foo
foo$ yarn add react-native-device-info
foo$ react-native link react-native-device-info
foo$ cat <<EOF > App.js
> import React from 'react';
> import { StyleSheet, Text, View } from 'react-native';
> 
> var DeviceInfo = require('react-native-device-info');
>
> export default (props) => {
>  return (
>    <View
>      style={{
>        flex: 1,
>        backgroundColor: '#fff',
>        alignItems: 'center',
>        justifyContent: 'center'
>      }}
>    >
>      <Text>Locale: {DeviceInfo.getDeviceLocale()}</Text>
>    </View>
>  );
>};
>EOF

Now if I eject and link manually in XCode, it works.

foo$ yarn eject
foo$ do some stuff in XCode
foo$ hit Cmd+R 

[agrison]

Same problem with any other library, for instance react-native-i18n which I need to use, but I'd rather not have to eject just to handle internationalization 😃

[reneweb]

The problem is that create-react-native-app does not support native code (https://github.com/react-community/create-react-native-app#what-are-the-limitations-of-create-react-native-app) thus the linking doesn't work. It's unfortunate though that the linking script doesn't present any error message, but just silently returns. I will look into adding some error message for that.
To use native code you need to either eject or use react-native init to setup the project.

[reneweb]

There is already an error message by now in master: https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/master/local-cli/link/link.js#L160

[agrison]

Thanks, that's what I did, everything works correctly :)

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Maybe the issue has been fixed in a recent release, or perhaps it is not affecting a lot of people. If you think this issue should definitely remain open, please let us know why. Thank you for your contributions.