mkdir -p doesn't work as expected on windows

[ajmh]

The mkdir -p call in the writeJs() method in lib/coffee-script/command.js does not work as expected on Windows when using the coffee compiler on a source tree with sub-directories - it will actually create a new directory -p in the current working directory of the console environment instead.

Here is the code from the current master branch causing the problem:

return exec("mkdir -p " + jsDir, compile);

The recursive path creation behavior desired is natively available in Windows with mkdir if Command Extensions are enabled (which they are by default). Here is the MS documentation for mkdir on WinXP (seems to apply for Win7+ as well).

Perhaps this could check the process.platform flag (nodejs docs) for the Windows platform and omit the -p flag?

// ... somewhere early on - pre-set flag use for local platform
var mkdirFlag = '-p';
// Check for windows platform to vet flag
if (process.platform.substr(0,3) === 'win') {
  mkdirFlag = '';
}
// ... code ...
return exec("mkdir " + mkdirFlag + " " + jsDir, compile);

[jashkenas]

Ha -- with the release of Node 0.6, the Windows support struggle begins...

There are probably a number of places where we shell out in the compiler's helper scripts that we should be proofreading for this kind of thing.

[michaelficarra]

Yeah, I vote for changing this to a general "support windows" ticket.

[ajmh]

I've been trying to do some heavy testing on windows since I want to use it in a client environment - this is the first oddity I've hit, but I'll feedback any other spots as I find them. Awesome package - props to everyone working on it.

[tylorr]

I am still getting this problem on windows. I am using coffee-script 1.3.3.

[rstehwien]

Still occurs in 1.4.0

[Philipp15b]

I also get this on 1.4.0. Are there any news on this? Why don't just use a plain JS solution, for example wrench has this.

[yazla]

1.6.1 also has this issue.

[hickford]

@Philipp15b right pure Javascript would work more reliably than platform-dependant system calls. See https://github.com/ryanmcgrath/wrench-js/blob/master/lib/wrench.js#L356 or https://github.com/substack/node-mkdirp/blob/master/index.js

[katanacrimson]

This is constantly causing the directory -p to be created in the roots of my projects, this is an annoying bug and can be fixed with node-mkdirp and kin...

[vendethiel]

or with a real mkdir utility

[xixixao]

+1 to fix this

[danielkcz]

I am wondering, why that PR #2091 has been rejected. It works correctly at least on Windows 7. I removed -p argument locally and have no issues with directory creation whatsoever even deep ones.

Anyway there is no reason for the holdup as older Windows cannot create deep directories even with -p argument. I think it's better to support at least some Windows and not to bother everyone with odd directory created all the time.

I tried another approach (#3101) using node-mkdirp as @damianb noted above.

[Philipp15b]

Since #3101 is merged, this can finally be closed now. Thanks @FredyC and @jashkenas!

[katanacrimson]

Awesome. I take it we can expect this in coffeescript 1.6.4?

[hickford]

@damianb if you can't wait

npm install -g git+https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script.git