'.' is not recognized as an internal or external command (when running npm install for firebaseUI)

Question

I cannot install npm packages on my firebaseUI demo application. I cloned the master branch on github and am simply trying to run "npm install" but I am getting an error I have never come across with node package manager. I get

'.' is not recognized as an internal or external command

I also tried this will cygwin64 and had the exact same result. below is the error, and below that is my package.json

firebaseui@3.3.0 generate-test-files C:\repos\Firebase Demos\firebaseui-web
> ./buildtools/generate_test_files.sh

'.' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! firebaseui@3.3.0 generate-test-files: `./buildtools/generate_test_files.sh`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the firebaseui@3.3.0 generate-test-files script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     C:\Users\adam\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_logs\2018-08-18T01_43_27_526Z-debug.log
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! firebaseui@3.3.0 test: `npm run build && npm run generate-test-files && ./buildtools/run_tests.sh`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the firebaseui@3.3.0 test script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     C:\Users\adam\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_logs\2018-08-18T01_43_27_547Z-debug.log
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 1
npm ERR! firebaseui@3.3.0 prepublish: `npm run test && cp -r dist demo/public`
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the firebaseui@3.3.0 prepublish script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     C:\Users\adam\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_logs\2018-08-18T01_43_27_577Z-debug.log

package.json

{
  "name": "firebaseui",
  "version": "3.3.0",
  "description": "Javascript library for customizable UI on top of Firebase SDK",
  "files": [
    "dist/firebaseui.js",
    "dist/firebaseui.css",
    "dist/npm.js",
    "dist/index.d.ts",
    "dist/externs",
    "LICENSE",
    "README.md",
    "package.json"
  ],
  "main": "./dist/npm.js",
  "types": "./dist/index.d.ts",
  "style": "dist/firebaseui.css",
  "scripts": {
    "build": "gulp",
    "build-all": "gulp build-all",
    "build-soy": "gulp build-soy",
    "demo": "npm run build && ./buildtools/run_demo.sh",
    "test": "npm run build && npm run generate-test-files && ./buildtools/run_tests.sh",
    "serve": "npm run build && npm run generate-test-files && gulp serve",
    "generate-test-files": "./buildtools/generate_test_files.sh",
    "prepublish": "npm run test && cp -r dist demo/public"
  },
  "test": "npm run test",
  "author": "Google",
  "repository": {
    "type": "git",
    "url": "https://github.com/firebase/firebaseui-web.git"
  },
  "license": "Apache-2.0",
  "devDependencies": {
    "closure-builder": "^2.2.34",
    "firebase": "^5.0.0",
    "firebase-tools": "^4.0.1",
    "fs-extra": "^3.0.1",
    "google-closure-compiler": "^20171112.0.0",
    "google-closure-library": "^20171112.0.0",
    "google-closure-templates": "^20150410.0.0",
    "gulp": "^4.0.0",
    "gulp-clean-css": "^2.0.12",
    "gulp-closure-compiler": "^0.4.0",
    "gulp-concat-css": "^3.1.0",
    "gulp-connect": "^5.5.0",
    "gulp-css-flip": "^0.4.0",
    "gulp-css-inline-images": "^0.1.1",
    "gulp-sass": "^2.3.2",
    "gulp-util": "^3.0.7",
    "material-design-lite": "^1.2.0",
    "protractor": "^5.3.2",
    "streamqueue": "^1.1.1"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "dialog-polyfill": "^0.4.7"
  },
  "peerDependencies": {
    "firebase": ">=5.0.0"
  }
}

Answer 1

> ./buildtools/generate_test_files.sh

here just leave out dot-slash( ./ )

Though, if you wanted to, you could use .\\\\ (since single '\\' would skip the next character) and it would work.

Answer 2

Although this question is old I ran into the same problem when I was collaborating with another developer using another OS (Linux x Windows). At the beginning of the project a script .sh was failing depending on the OS. We had to constantly modify the json file after merging some branch. The solution we came up with was to append the shell being used to call the script, eg we changed the initialization script to

...
{
start: bash ./myscript && npm run start
}
...

It works fine on Linux and on Gitbash on Windows.