[Error: Current working directory is not a Cordova-based project.]

Question

I created a Phonegap project according to instructions, checked it into SVN, checked it out and then discovered I could no longer run the build command--necessary to have changes to www be replicated to each platform. Terminal in Mac OS X shows this error:

[Error: Current working directory is not a Cordova-based project.]

Jesús Carrera · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-13T10:33:22.603

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Yes as others have stated already you need to check into your SVN a few config files and folders in order to make PhoneGap work when you check it out. This is what defines a PhoneGap project:

Has a .cordova directory, with a config.json inside.
Has a www directory, with a config.xml inside.
Has a platforms directory.

I found that with that in place you can use PhoneGap commands without problems. If you need to see an example of those config files, just run phonegap create myapp.

edited Nov 13 '14 at 10:33

answered Apr 18 '14 at 10:49

Jesús Carrera

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Thanks ;)! I had deleted the 'www' directory (since Android uses the assets/www directory instead..). – Dillen Meijboom May 08 '14 at 11:31
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I had also deleted the www as was using Yeoman/Grunt to generate it – Damo Aug 21 '14 at 03:59
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If you're building ios apps with a fresh pull down of your app code (from git), all you have to do is manually create “www”, “platforms” and “plugins” folders as these are normally ignored in .gitignore. – alexkb Jan 13 '15 at 01:55
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I have a working project with config.xml in the root directory. A www and a platforms directory are present, but I have no.cordova directory. To summarize, my config.xml is in the root and .cordova is not needed – mico Feb 25 '16 at 10:16
Just a note, the www/ directory does not have a config.xml inside. – f1lt3r Feb 01 '18 at 20:36

Thunder Rabbit · Answer 2 · 2013-12-17T05:55:02.190

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In a new directory, I just typed

cordova create .

and that created the .cordova directory as required. Then copy into that directory the phonegap files you want to use.

edited Dec 17 '13 at 05:55

answered Dec 17 '13 at 05:49

Thunder Rabbit

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That just gives a `Path already exists and is not empty: /path/to/project` – Robin van Baalen Mar 04 '14 at 18:20
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This works perfectly. For anyone facing path already exists and is not empty - Please try to create a new folder and try executing this command – Vatsal Dec 18 '15 at 06:01

score 8 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 23 '14 at 11:16

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When i am creating my project, I got a same error too. You need to enter into the folder what you create before.

cd exampleapp

answered Apr 23 '14 at 11:16

cell-in

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Yup. Visit this page and scroll down to Add Platform title: http://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/3.3.0/guide/cli/index.html#The%20Command-Line%20Interface – alejnavab Sep 11 '16 at 02:03

score 5 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 16 '13 at 16:23

Doing some searching, I found quite a few complaints about the PhoneGap documentation, but eventually figured this out on my own.

when creating a project, a hidden .cordova folder is created with some project information. For whatever reason, this didn't go into the repository the first time. I copied it over to the checked-out version and fortunately, now Cornerstone sees it and will let me check it into SVN so other team members will not run into this issue.

If you get this error, there's probably a problem with the hidden .cordova folder inside your project folder. Either recreate the project in PhoneGap, or copy it over if you have another version of that same project.

newest versions of Cordova don't create a .cordova folder (not sure starting from which version). For me the issue was solved by creating a new project and moving the www folder to the root folder of the project I was having troubles with (..not a Cordova project..). This worked for me in Ionic2 — dragonmnl, Sep 14 '16 at 11:49

score 5 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 24 '14 at 14:23

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In my project I had nothing in www, so when I put into git the www folder was missing. I put a .gitignore into www and pushed, than it worked.

answered Apr 24 '14 at 14:23

balazs

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score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Mar 05 '14 at 15:22

I experienced this problem when working in an Xcode project that somehow didn't build properly with the needed Cordova files. While the existing Cordova plugins are working, installing new ones does not.

My example is for the InAppBrowser plugin.

What I did:

Created a new cordova project with cordova create .
Install the needed plugins in that directory with cordova plugin add https://github.com/apache/cordova-plugin-inappbrowser.git
Go to the plugins folder in that root directory and copy the plugin folders to the plugin folder of your Xcode project. (e.g org.apache.cordova.PLUGIN_NAME)
In the plugin specific folder (inside plugins directory) copy the source files to the Plugins folder inside Xcode (just drag and drop them in and copy to the targets you need)
Be sure to make the necessary changes to your config.xml file (the plugin documentation should tell you)
Rebuild and run - plugin should be working fine

Hope this helps!

score 1 · Answer 7 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:02

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To complete other answers, this thread will help you understand what should be put in version control or not. The .cordova file should rather be versionned to avoid this kind of problems.

What parts of cordova cli generated projects can be safely versioned in source control?

edited May 23 '17 at 12:02

Community

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answered May 13 '14 at 09:15

Sebastien Lorber

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score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Sep 10 '14 at 07:58

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Wrong path!!

go to your workspace and run code again.

answered Sep 10 '14 at 07:58

NuuoeiZ

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score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Oct 14 '15 at 10:50

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Make sure you are in your project directory. I made this mistake.

answered Oct 14 '15 at 10:50

Ashish Kwatra

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[Error: Current working directory is not a Cordova-based project.]

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