Meteor Git Repo and symlinks

help
1

Hello everyone,

I am looking for someone who has experience working in a meteor dev team with different environments.
I have a project with two meteor apps that share the some custom packages. The repo structure is kind of like this:

/
   /packages
   /adminApp
   /mobileApp

and I created symlinks in the adminApp/packages folder that point to the /packages folder.

I read the git support for windows thread with @dandv pushing for support of symlinks on windows but I don’t understand the applied fix. The symlinks on windows appear as files but meteor is not able to find the packages.

How can I have this type of repo that can be cloned in windows ? Or what are the workarounds possible ?

2 Likes
2

One solution could be to ignore the symlinks the app/packages folders and to run a script after each pull to create them using ln -s or mklink depending on the platform.

What do you think about that ? Could there be an easier approach ?

3

I thought there was a way to define a global package directory, but I can’t find it in the docs at the moment. Maybe it was for an old version of Meteor.

4

Oh yeah! There seems to be a PACKAGES_DIR environment variable as stated here http://stackoverflow.com/a/28070364/4265107

Maybe @serkandurusoy has some input on this ?

5

PACKAGES_DIR is a list of directories in which to look for packages. Directories are delimited by the appropriate separator character (: in linux, ; in windows).

Local package directories are searched first when building an app.

For example (linux):

export PACKAGE_DIRS=/path/to/directory:/different/directory
2 Likes
6

Yep, exactly as @robfallows has explained. You’ll of course need to set up your environment variables at

computer properties > advanced system properties > environment variables

or use the set command on the command prompt like:

C:\> set PACKAGE_DIRS="C:\pathtoyourprojectgrouproot\packages;C:\somegloballyavailablelocalmeteorpackages\"
C:\> meteor
2 Likes
7

Thanks a lot to you both! I think this is the most simple solution for this problem.

It would be nice that some blogger with a lot readers would a little article on this so that future people in my position would find a solution easily. Or maybe even better: create an “environment variables” section in the docs that list all of the variables used by meteor.

8

These are all the process.env.XXXX I grep’d out of the current codebase (E&OE):

ANDROID_SDK_HOME
APP_ID
AUTOUPDATE_VERSION
BIND_IP
CONSTRAINT_SOLVER_BENCHMARK
DDP_DEFAULT_CONNECTION_URL
DEPLOY_HOSTNAME
DISABLE_WEBSOCKETS
DISCOVERY_PORT
EMACS
HOME
http_proxy
https_proxy
MAIL_URL
METEOR_APP_PRELINK_CACHE_SIZE
METEOR_AVD
METEOR_BAD_PARENT_PID_FOR_TEST
METEOR_BUILD_FARM_URL
METEOR_CATALOG_COMPRESS_RPCS
METEOR_COLOR
METEOR_DEBUG_BUILD
METEOR_DEBUG_SPRINGBOARD
METEOR_DEBUG_SQL
METEOR_DISABLE_BUILDER_IN_PLACE
METEOR_INSTALLATION
METEOR_LINKER_CACHE_SIZE
METEOR_LOG
METEOR_NO_WORDWRAP
METEOR_OFFLINE_CATALOG
METEOR_OPLOG_TOO_FAR_BEHIND
METEOR_PACKAGE_SERVER_URL
METEOR_PACKAGE_STATS_SERVER_URL
METEOR_PACKAGE_STATS_TEST_OUTPUT
METEOR_PARENT_PID
METEOR_PKG_SPIDERABLE_PHANTOMJS_ARGS
METEOR_PRETTY_OUTPUT
METEOR_PRINT_ON_LISTEN
METEOR_PROGRESS_DEBUG
METEOR_SAVE_TMPDIRS
METEOR_SESSION_FILE
METEOR_SETTINGS
METEOR_SHELL_DIR
METEOR_TEST_FAIL_RELEASE_DOWNLOAD
METEOR_TEST_FAKE_MONGOD_CONTROL_PORT
METEOR_TEST_LATEST_RELEASE
METEOR_TEST_MULTIPLE_MONGOD_REPLSET
METEOR_TEST_NO_PUBLISH
METEOR_TEST_PRINT_LINKER_CACHE_DEBUG
METEOR_TEST_TMP
METEOR_TOOL_PATH
METEOR_WAREHOUSE_DIR
METEOR_WATCH_FORCE_POLLING
METEOR_WATCH_POLLING_INTERVAL_MS
MOBILE_DDP_URL
MOBILE_ROOT_URL
MONGO_OPLOG_URL
MONGO_URL
NODE_DEBUG
NODE_ENV
NODE_OPTIONS
NO_METEOR_PACKAGE
PACKAGE_DIRS
PORT
ROOT_URL
RUN_ONCE_OUTCOME
SERVER_WEBSOCKET_COMPRESSION
SystemDrive
THROW_FROM_PACKAGE
TIMEOUT_SCALE_FACTOR
TINYTEST_FILTER
TREE_HASH_DEBUG
USE_GLOBAL_ADK
USE_JSESSIONID
WRITE_RUNNER_JS
3 Likes
9

https://dweldon.silvrback.com/local-packages and http://themeteorchef.com/recipes/writing-a-package/#tmc-local-packages discuss that, and these guys are pretty popular with their blog posts and tutorials.

Although I admit I don’t enjoy their material as much as I do funny kittens :wink: just kidding of course, they are indeed two great meteor resources :smile:

10

@robfallows now you have to write a blog post explaining all of these. You just cannot leave it hanging in the air like that :smile:

11

Missed this…

Alright then I’ll do my research more thoroughly next time no need to take the piss (even thought it’s well deserved).

1 Like
12

LOL.

I can explain the grep.

I can even explain some of the env variables…

… but I was kinda hoping someone else might like to jump in :smile:

1 Like
13

On the same topic. I’ve got the same structure as @elgusto and haven’t quite figured out the workflow for making git commits that pull in package contents. I just end up committing the symlinks.

Does anyone know of a step by step tutorial for getting this working? I’m using a Mac.

14

@babrahams @elgusto what I do when I need to dissect an app into shared local packages, is to make my git root the topmost folder containing apps and packages

/project
/project/global-packages
/project/web-app
/project/mobile-app
/project/admin-panel
/project/misc

and use PACKAGE_DIRS to point at /project/global-packages

Since I commit the project directory, I can easily track and share the changes to everything.

I use the misc directory for some docs, configuration files that are not security-sensitive etc.

1 Like
15

@serkandurusoy - Legit. Thank you so much.

By the way, I should have said this a long time ago … Every time I see a post of yours on these forums, I read it with interest. For me, you’re the voice of reason when things get heated, and a constant source of useful knowledge for all of us. Major respect.

3 Likes
16

Wow, I really don’t know what to say! Thank you @babrahams this means a lot! :smile:

17

Was it this thread?

Make sure to install the right git for Windows. The release from July 18 claims to handle symlinks on Windows.

18

@dandv Yes this is the one! It got pretty heated in the end…

Thank you for the heads up converning the right version!

19

Hi, are you using this with galaxy deploy? I don’t know if this will work. Will deploy command understand package_dirs and upload these folders inside my app or your packages are published in atmosphere?

20

Yes it will understand that because deploy is basically a “build and upload”.