ng build --watch broken

[jonnysamps]

OS?

Mac OSX (El Capitan)

Versions.

angular-cli: 1.0.0-beta.16
node: 6.7.0 (I also tried it on 5.12.0 and 4.6.0)
os: darwin x64

Repro steps.

1. npm install -g angular-cli@latest
2. ng new build-watch
3. cd build-watch
4. ng build -w

The log given by the failure.

Path must be a string. Received null
TypeError: Path must be a string. Received null
 at assertPath (path.js:7:11)
 at Object.resolve (path.js:1148:7)
 at Class.run (/Users/jonathansamples/projects/build-watch/node_modules/angular-cli/tasks/build-webpack-watch.js:14:26)
 at Class.run (/Users/jonathansamples/projects/build-watch/node_modules/angular-cli/commands/build.js:50:26)
 at Class.<anonymous> (/Users/jonathansamples/projects/build-watch/node_modules/angular-cli/lib/models/command.js:152:17)
 at tryCatch (/Users/jonathansamples/projects/build-watch/node_modules/rsvp/dist/lib/rsvp/-internal.js:215:12)
 at invokeCallback (/Users/jonathansamples/projects/build-watch/node_modules/rsvp/dist/lib/rsvp/-internal.js:230:13)
 at publish (/Users/jonathansamples/projects/build-watch/node_modules/rsvp/dist/lib/rsvp/-internal.js:198:7)
 at flush (/Users/jonathansamples/projects/build-watch/node_modules/rsvp/dist/lib/rsvp/asap.js:85:5)
 at _combinedTickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:67:7)
 at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:98:9)

[denkomanceski]

same happens on Windows. There is one main reason why we would use ng build -watch over ng serve.. we need the generated map files on the disk instead of in-memory on the webpack dev server so we will be able to debug from webstorm..

[coryrylan]

@denkomanceski @jonnysamps to get around this run the following:
ng build --watch -o dist/ Adding the out param seems to fix it. We use it as well because we proxy the site and need physical files on disk.

[jonnysamps]

Good tip @splintercode. Works like a charm.

[AnthoniG]

Unfortunately it does not seem to work for me.

I have a directory called test. Inside this directory are two other directories. One for my electron program and the other an angular app built using ng new.

Now I've set my angular-cli.json to output to "outDir": "../electron/src/gui"

When I do a normal ng build, it creates the files as it should. However if I use ng build --watch with that directory and change anything, it does not update anything.

Btw: I am using windows7 64bit