you cannot run "npm install" inside of preinstall. this creates an install loop in npm 3+

[tjwebb]

because of this: df7d542

You cannot run npm install anything inside of the preinstall, because npm install runs preinstall.
This is pointless, anyway, because node-pre-gyp is a dependency already.

This happens:

$ npm install mapnik
(node:34121) fs: re-evaluating native module sources is not supported. If you are using the graceful-fs module, please update it to a more recent version.
fetchMetadata → network   ▌ ╢███████████████████████████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░╟

> mapnik@3.5.13 preinstall /Users/tjwebb/workspace/langa/underbuilt/api-server/node_modules/.staging/mapnik-d6304832
> npm install node-pre-gyp

(node:34209) fs: re-evaluating native module sources is not supported. If you are using the graceful-fs module, please update it to a more recent version.

> mapnik@3.5.13 preinstall /Users/tjwebb/workspace/langa/underbuilt/api-server/node_modules/.staging/mapnik-d6304832/node_modules/.staging/mapnik-5b75902b
> npm install node-pre-gyp

(node:34265) fs: re-evaluating native module sources is not supported. If you are using the graceful-fs module, please update it to a more recent version.

> mapnik@3.5.13 preinstall /Users/tjwebb/workspace/langa/underbuilt/api-server/node_modules/.staging/mapnik-d6304832/node_modules/.staging/mapnik-5b75902b/node_modules/.staging/mapnik-3e3892ff
> npm install node-pre-gyp

and so on, forever, until eventually it looks like this:

/Users/tjwebb/workspace/langa/underbuilt/api-server/node_modules/.staging/mapnik-d6304832/node_modules/.staging/mapnik-5b75902b/node_modules/.staging/mapnik-3e3892ff/node_modules/.staging/mapnik-6a353413/node_modules/.staging/mapnik-872c850e/node_modules/.staging/mapnik-8edd7495/node_modules/.staging/mapnik-ada28736/node_modules/.staging/mapnik-aa3f2198/node_modules/.staging/mapnik-129f704a/node_modules/.staging/mapnik-9e1cde87/node_modules/.staging/mapnik-89279f14/node_modules/.staging/mapnik-7b7084a4/npm-debug.log

etc.

[tjwebb]

see also #630 and #640, where others have experienced this problem as well.

[springmeyer]

In my opinion this is an npm bug and not something I'm planning to change in node-mapnik or node-pre-gyp. Pre-installing node-pre-gyp is desirable for avoiding having to bundle it. Avoiding bundling is desirable to avoid the extra weight of the dependency in the package, the possibility it will get out of sync, and the problem of bundled deps being out of date.

[tjwebb]

In my opinion this is an npm bug

npm is behaving correctly, as documented and as designed.

Avoiding bundling is desirable to avoid the extra weight of the dependency in the package

This is not a real reason. npm exists so that modules can have dependencies, which are installed during npm install.

This issue has already been filed several times by other users. It's frustrating that your response to this issue is to bury your head in the sand and act like it doesn't exist and that npm is somehow at fault.

[springmeyer]

@tjwebb I've been unable to replicate this problem myself. Are you able to replicate with npm v3.10.8?

[springmeyer]

The v3.6.0 release has started bundling node-pre-gyp again. If anyone hits this issue again with >= 3.6.0 please create a new issue.

[alanb1501]

If you do add a npm install inside a preinstall script, use npm install --ignore-scripts to prevent the recursive calls to scripts.

[springmeyer]

@balasuar - thanks: where is the documentation on this recommendation located?