Including local plugin causes error

[jacobweber]

I'm using cordova-custom-config 5.0.1, cordova-android 7.0.0, cordova-cli 8.0.0, and node 8.4.0, on Mac OS 10.13.2.

If my config.xml includes a plugin from a local directory, e.g.:

<plugin name="cordova-plugin-test" spec="custom_plugins/cordova-plugin-test" />

it causes the following error from cordova-custom-config, when I run cordova-prepare --verbose:

cordova-custom-config: Running applyCustomConfig.js
(node:70396) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Unhandled promise rejection (rejection id: 1): TypeError: Cannot read property 'getConfigXml' of undefined
(node:70396) [DEP0018] DeprecationWarning: Unhandled promise rejections are deprecated. In the future, promise rejections that are not handled will terminate the Node.js process with a non-zero exit code.

This happens even if the custom plugin doesn't do anything.

Something that might be relevant: the latest version of cordova-cli seems to make node_modules/cordova-plugin-test a symbolic link to the original directory, instead of copying it, like cordova-cli 7.x did. I'm not seeing this error with cordova-cli 7.x.

A sample project is attached; just install cordova-cli 8.0.0 and run cordova-prepare --verbose. CordovaTest.zip

[dpa99c]

This seems to be a bug in the cordova@8.0.0 CLI: for some reason, inclusion of the local plugin causes installation of this plugin's node dependencies to fail. If you look at the contents of the project's node_modules/ directory, you'll see it's virtually empty whereas it should contain the node modules listed as dependencies by this plugin.

The error message is a bit confusing due to some dodgy error handling by this plugin that can probably be improved: this is what's currently happening:

• plugin calls the loadDependencies() function.
• this throws an exception when it tries to load the lodash module because it has not been installed.
• the exception is caught and use to reject the deferred promise
• however, the plugin then continues to attempt to process custom config
• resulting in the observed error TypeError: Cannot read property 'getConfigXml' of undefined when it attempts to use the local fileUtils module
• the line that loads fileUtils was never reached due to the exception being raised before it by attempting to load the lodash module.

The error handling of this plugin could certainly be improved (I'll have a go at that and publish as @5.0.2) but the root cause of the failure is cordova@8.0.0 failing to install the dependencies of this plugin when a local plugin has been referenced before it in the config.xml.

We should open an issue against cordova@8.0.0 using your test project as an illustration of the bug.

[dpa99c]

On further inspection of your test project, it seems the problem is that it was missing a package.json file and this was causing Cordova to omit installation of the plugin dependencies. Once the auto-generated package.json is in place, the cordova prepare operation is successful.

I've updated your test project to add the package.json - you can try it yourself: CordovaTest.zip

For this reason, I'm not going to raise a bug against cordova@8.0.0 using this test case, because I'm pretty sure they'll say the package.json is a required file and that its absence is an error in the project structure rather than the Cordova CLI. However, if you think this should not be the case, you are welcome to open an issue against it yourself.

I'm closing this issue on the basis that the resulting error is due to the lack of a package.json file and not a bug with this plugin.

FYI I've published @5.0.2 of this plugin which better handles errors when loading dependent modules.

[jacobweber]

Hi @dpa99c — thanks for taking a look at this. Hope I didn't waste too much of your time on it. I had always assumed that I could let the "cordova prepare" command create package.json. Maybe I'll report this to them anyway, and see what they say.