--modules-folder fails when needing to build binaries

[danielrentz]

Do you want to request a feature or report a bug?
Bug report

What is the current behavior?
Cannot install packages with binary code to custom modules directory.

If the current behavior is a bug, please provide the steps to reproduce.

yarn add bcrypt --modules-folder test

fails with

yarn add v1.9.4
info No lockfile found.
[1/4] Resolving packages...
[2/4] Fetching packages...
[3/4] Linking dependencies...
[4/4] Building fresh packages...
error test\bcrypt: Command failed.
Exit code: 1
Command: node-pre-gyp install --fallback-to-build
Arguments:
Directory: test\bcrypt
Output:
Command "node-pre-gyp" not found.

Yarn creates a test directory with dependencies of bcrypt, and a node_modules directory with a .bin subdir containing node-pre-gyp.

What is the expected behavior?
bcrypt builds and installs into the test directory.

Please mention your node.js, yarn and operating system version.
node v8.11.1
yarn v1.9.4
Windows 10

[himdel]

In general, --modules-folder does not work right when the path does not end in node_modules.

But even if it does, yarn still skips creating $MODULES_FOLDER/.bin completely, creating ./node_modules/.bin instead.

(Also also, yarn.lock gets updated in ./ and not $MODULES_FOLDER/.., which may or may not be a bug.)

---

$ yarn --version
1.9.4

$ rm -rf node_modules
$ yarn --modules-folder=/tmp/test/node_modules
(...no errors)

$ ls -a node_modules/
. .. .bin

$ ls -a /tmp/test/node_modules/.bin
ls: cannot access '/tmp/test/node_modules/.bin': No such file or directory

---

Maybe what's really missing is something more granular, like yarn --path-source './package.json' --path-lock '/tmp/test/yarn.lock' --modules-folder '/tmp/test/node_modules' --bin-folder '/tmp/test/node_modules/.bin but OTOH all I really wish for is yarn --from './package.json' --to '/tmp/test'

[paxperscientiam]

@danielrentz my understanding is that many (most?) packages depend on the modules directory having the name "node-modules."

Not sure what you're trying to accomplish, but if you're trying to keep certain folders from your published product, you might trying a filter according to your syncronization process (eg rsync).

As a tangential point, I don't want to waste resources syncing module folders to iCloud. Luckily, iCloud ignores all directories with the suffix "noSync."

For example, my project's .yarnrc uses this directives: --modules-folder "./node-modules.noSync/node_modules". Works nicely, though requires a bit more effort to scaffold a project.