Fail to install stub on windows 10 platform

[johngrabner]

I believe the intention of your module is to install a non functioning stub on windows 10 environment.
pi-spi does not build and therefore does not install.

Microsoft Windows Version 10.0.10586 2015 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\John>node -v
v4.4.5

C:\Users\John>npm install natevw/pi-spi
|

[email protected] install C:\Users\John\node_modules\pi-spi
node-gyp rebuild

C:\Users\John\node_modules\pi-spi>if not defined npm_config_node_gyp (node "C:\Program Files (x86)\nodejs\node_modules\npm\bin\node-gyp-bin....\node_modules\node-gyp\bin\node-gyp.js" rebuild ) else (node "" rebuild )
gyp ERR! configure error
gyp ERR! stack Error: Can't find Python executable "python", you can set the PYTHON env variable.
gyp ERR! stack at failNoPython (C:\Program Files (x86)\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\lib\configure.js:401:14)
gyp ERR! stack at C:\Program Files (x86)\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\lib\configure.js:356:11
gyp ERR! stack at FSReqWrap.oncomplete (fs.js:82:15)
gyp ERR! System Windows_NT 10.0.10586
gyp ERR! command "C:\Program Files (x86)\nodejs\node.exe" "C:\Program Files (x86)\nodejs\node_modules\npm\node_modules\node-gyp\bin\node-gyp.js" "rebuild"
gyp ERR! cwd C:\Users\John\node_modules\pi-spi
gyp ERR! node -v v4.4.5
gyp ERR! node-gyp -v v3.3.1
gyp ERR! not ok
npm ERR! Windows_NT 10.0.10586
npm ERR! argv "C:\Program Files (x86)\nodejs\node.exe" "C:\Program Files (x86)\nodejs\node_modules\npm\bin\npm-cli.js" "install" "natevw/pi-spi"
npm ERR! node v4.4.5
npm ERR! npm v2.15.5
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE

npm ERR! [email protected] install: node-gyp rebuild
npm ERR! Exit status 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the [email protected] install script 'node-gyp rebuild'.
npm ERR! This is most likely a problem with the pi-spi package,
npm ERR! not with npm itself.
npm ERR! Tell the author that this fails on your system:
npm ERR! node-gyp rebuild
npm ERR! You can get information on how to open an issue for this project with:
npm ERR! npm bugs pi-spi
npm ERR! Or if that isn't available, you can get their info via:
npm ERR!
npm ERR! npm owner ls pi-spi
npm ERR! There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! Please include the following file with any support request:
npm ERR! C:\Users\John\npm-debug.log

C:\Users\John>

---

the npm-debug.log contains the following

[snipped] edit by @natevw — I moved this to a gist

[natevw]

Thanks, yes that is the intention. However despite it saying:

This is most likely a problem with the pi-spi package, npm ERR! not with npm itself.

You can see that the original error is:

Error: Can't find Python executable "python", you can set the PYTHON env variable

It may be that node has changed its recommendation for build script, but my guess is that your Win10 machine is not set up for installing any sort of native module right now. On OS X and Windows, pi-spi still needs to be able to compile. The problem is not with npm, or with pi-spi, but with your Windows build environment.

To fix it:

• I don't think you need the node-gyp module explicitly installed globally like the first paragraph at the upcoming link says (node-gyp is already part of npm afaict) but skip over that to take a look at the "On Windows" section a bit lower down at https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp#installation.
• There's also a guide (from MS themselves!) available at https://github.com/Microsoft/nodejs-guidelines/blob/master/windows-environment.md#compiling-native-addon-modules that looks pretty good.

(This does bring up a point that perhaps there's some way we could configure this package to be even more of a stub, i.e. a JS-only stub, on the unsupported platforms. But I would recommend if you're going to do any significant amount of node.js work on Windows, you'll want to get your native build environment properly configured there anyway, since you're likely to run into another native addon sooner or later.)

[natevw]

Based on what I gather from this thread, the remaining issue here seems more related to a misconfigured environment, so I think this is not something I can fix. Please feel free to re-open if I'm wrong and there's still followup needed here.