Packaging an executable binary with angular-electron

Question

I am trying to package a python binary executable with angular-electron on Linux. I have followed this answer from stack overflow. bundling precompiled binary into electron app.

In main.ts I have written this extra code snippet. I have placed executable binary in node_modules/datapod/datapod and also symlinked this path in node_modules/.bin/ folder.

  const spawn = require('child_process').spawn;
  var appRootDir = require('app-root-dir').get();

  var datapodpath=appRootDir+'/node_modules/datapod/datapod';
  console.log(datapodpath)

  const datapod = spawn(datapodpath, [], {});  //add whatever switches you need here

  datapod.stdout.on( 'data', data => {
      console.log( `stdout: ${data}` );
    });
  datapod.stderr.on( 'data', data => {
      console.log( `stderr: ${data}` );
   })
   datapod.on( 'close', code => {
    console.log( `child process exited with code ${code}` );
  })

Everything works great when i do

npm start

I can also see the logs for python application. When I do ,

npm run electron:linux

The application compiles successfully with the binary (Because the size of the compiled app with binary is exactly equal to the bare angular app + size of the binary). When i try to run this compiled application, It fails with the following error.

UPDATE: I tried a different method and still no result. I have create a new folder externals/bin and copied the executable binary "datapod" in this folder. To copy this folder into the packaged app, added these lines to electron-builder.js

 "files": [
        "**/*",
        "!**/*.ts",
        "!*.code-workspace",
        "!LICENSE.md",
        "!package.json",
        "!package-lock.json",
        "!src/",
        "!e2e/",
        "!hooks/",
        "!angular.json",
        "!_config.yml",
        "!karma.conf.js",
        "!tsconfig.json",
        "!tslint.json",
        "externals/bin"
    ],

Edited my code in main.ts file

const appPath = process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production' ? process.resourcesPath : __dirname;


  const execPath =path.join(appPath, 'externals/bin/datapod');
  console.log(execPath)

Compiles succesffully, when i tried to run this app, i got the same error. I unpacked the app in /tmp/.moun-angular***/resources/app.asar with

npx asar extract /tmp/.mount_angulaG6ARST/resources/app.asar extrractedApp

The contents of the folder does have externals/bin/datapod file but couldnt run.

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered May 17 '20 at 21:54

Add this snippet to your electron-builder.json.

  "extraResources": [
    {
      "from": "src/bin",
      "to": "bin",
      "filter": "**/*"
    }
  ],

At this point in production the file will be copied to the apps root bin folder. Below is a function I created to execute the file in both development and production mode.

  const root = process.cwd();

  getBinaryPath(binaryName: string) {
    const binariesPath = this.isProduction() ? path.join(root, 'resources', 'bin') : path.join(root, 'src', 'bin');
    return path.resolve(path.join(binariesPath, binaryName));
  }

Packaging an executable binary with angular-electron

1 Answers1