installing nodejs npm and grunt gives errors

Question

I'm not familiar with Python, NodeJS, NPM or Grunt, but I needed to install it because I want to try out a Github project.

I downloaded NodeJS from node.org and installed and tested it as described on this website. It seems to work because entering node and running a console.log worked.

I tried installing NPM with the following line

sudo npm install npm -g

..as said on the NPM website. This seemed to work.

Following directions from the Getting Started guide from the Grunt website had me updating NPM

npm update -g npm

and installing the CLI

npm install -g grunt-cli

which resulting in the following message:

/usr/local/bin/grunt -> /usr/local/lib/node_modules/grunt-cli/bin/grunt
grunt-cli@0.1.13 /usr/local/lib/node_modules/grunt-cli
├── resolve@0.3.1
├── nopt@1.0.10 (abbrev@1.0.5)
└── findup-sync@0.1.3 (lodash@2.4.1, glob@3.2.11)

The second step of the directions on the github page "run npm install" turned out to be problematic. That results in these errors:

MacBook-Pro-van-Paul:~ Paul$ sudo npm install
npm ERR! install Couldn't read dependencies
npm ERR! Darwin 14.0.0
npm ERR! argv "node" "/usr/local/bin/npm" "install"
npm ERR! node v0.10.33
npm ERR! npm  v2.1.10
npm ERR! path /Users/Paul/package.json
npm ERR! code ENOPACKAGEJSON
npm ERR! errno 34

npm ERR! package.json ENOENT, open '/Users/Paul/package.json'
npm ERR! package.json This is most likely not a problem with npm itself.
npm ERR! package.json npm can't find a package.json file in your current directory.

npm ERR! Please include the following file with any support request:
npm ERR!     /Users/Paul/npm-debug.log

Like I said, I have no experience whatsoever with using Python or any of the other programs. I've tried searching for a similar problem, but I can't really tell if any of the problems are the same and if any solution might work for mine. So sorry if this is duplicate, I am not aware.

But what am I doing wrong here and what do I need to do to resolve this?

Answer 1

Try this.

Create new blank folder for your project.Go to your project folder and create manually npm folder (don't use command line).

Then try again create new project.

Hope this help.

Answer 2

Your problem has nothing to do with Python, nor does the project you're trying to work with.

npm install will look for a local package.json file and install dependencies from the list supplied in there. After you clone the project you mentioned, make sure you cd to the location of package.json and try npm install again.