elm-make: elm-package.json: openBinaryFile: does not exist

Question

• I do a fresh installation: npm i elm@0.18 -g
• I try to build using: elm-make ./src/scripts/MainModule.elm
• I get:

elm-make: elm-package.json: openBinaryFile: does not exist (No such file or directory)

But the elm-package.json file is right there in the directory where elm-make is called from.

Thoughts?

Note: I'm using nvm, in case it matters.

Answer 1

The problem was that package authors were updating packages to support elm .19 by changing elm-package.json to elm.json but not bumping up major versions of their packages.

Answer 2

@HParker is right, the only way to reproduce it is following these steps:

1. Run elm-make and let it install all the dependencies
2. Remove elm-package.json file
3. Run elm-make again

If it's not your case you can debug what's going using strace, e. g.

strace -yfv elm-make 2>&1 | grep elm-package.json

Example output:

[pid 32319] openat(AT_FDCWD, "elm-package.json", O_RDONLY|O_NOCTTY|O_NONBLOCK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
[pid 32319] write(2<pipe:[427229]>, "elm-package.json: openBinaryFile"..., 76elm-package.json: openBinaryFile: does not exist (No such file or directory)) = 76

If it tries to open elm-package.json in current working directory you will see AT_FDCWD variable, if not you should see the full path.

Answer 3

I am able to reproduce the error by deleting elm-package.json, but leaving the elm-stuff/ directory. You should be able to fix this by deleting your elm-stuff/ directory and letting elm-make rebuild the project for you.

For reference, issue here: https://github.com/elm-lang/elm-make/issues/171