运行Protractor时找不到模块'../built/cli.js'

Question

Because of the present in Protractor 3.3.0 issue with getMultiCapabilities , we have to install Protractor directly from github since the master branch contains the fix which is scheduled for Protractor 3.4.

In package.json we've added the following:

"dependencies": {
  "protractor": "git+https://github.com/angular/protractor.git"
},

And, now, we are getting the following error when trying to run protractor :

> protractor conf.js

module.js:341
    throw err;
    ^

Error: Cannot find module '../built/cli.js'

Is it something we are doing wrong, or Protractor development version cannot be installed and used this way?

Answer 1

There are differents between package downloading on npm and fetching directly on git repo.

And the main point prevent your protractor to run is:

//protractor from git repo, inside ./bin/protractor
require('../built/cli.js');

//protractor from npm, inside ./bin/protractor
require('../lib/cli.js');

So basically you need to go to protractor local folder then execute gulp task 'prepublish' to setup the environment for protractor . It will be something like this:

// from your project directory
cd node_modules/protractor
// install base dependencies for protractor
npm install
// setup environment by publishing
gulp prepublish

Answer 2

As far as i see, one step is missing. Protractor has prepublish step in package.json , you can call it manually, or try to do the same as this step do:

Error: Cannot find module '../built/cli.js'

What i see in https://github.com/angular/protractor/blob/master/gulpfile.js#L76 :

gulp.task('prepublish', function(done) {
  runSequence(['typings', 'jshint', 'format'], 'tsc', 'tsc:globals', 'types',
    'ambient', 'built:copy', done);
});

gulp.task('built:copy', function() {
  return gulp.src(['lib/**/*','!lib/**/*.ts'])
      .pipe(gulp.dest('built/'));
});

I think you just need to do postinstall task, that will copy that files to destination.