[CB-11873] No plugins installed when running a prepare before a build in a gulp task.

• Type: Bug
• Status: Open
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Affects Version/s: 6.3.1
• Component/s: cordova-lib
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Alex Buijs
• Created: 20/Sep/16 13:36
• Updated: 03/May/17 07:18

Description

I use a gulp task for building, so I work directly with

var cordova = require('cordova-lib').cordova;
cordova.build({platforms: ['ios', 'android'], options: {}}, cb);

Because of a check in cordova-lib/src/cordova/util.js, platforms need to be added before the project can be build, otherwise the error "No platforms added to this project..." is thrown.

Since I always remove the contents of the platforms and plugins directories before building (I target multiple apps from the same codebase), I need to prepare the project before I can build, because of this check. This leads to a bug similar to CB-11519 and CB-11589, where plugins are never correctly installed.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find the exact reason why platforms/ios/ios.json is missing the plugins when running a prepare immediately followed by a build. When the tasks are performed manually one after the other, everything works fine. I am waiting for the callback of prepare to be called, before the build task is started, but perhaps the prepare callback is called too early?

Since the build function in cordova-lib/src/cordova/build.js already prepares the project (after calling preProcessOptions in util.js), it seems redundant to be forced to prepare the project before building.

When the check I mentioned is not performed, a build with empty platforms and plugins directories works just fine: it saves one superfluous prepare task and, more importantly, plugins are correctly installed.

My proposal: perhaps this check could be omitted when preProcessOptions is called from the build task?