microsoft/node-api-dotnet

Path to Microsoft.JavaScript.NodeApi.DotNetHost.dll in electron binary is incorrect

sumeet-singh04 opened this issue · 4 comments

sumeet-singh04 commented

When electron apps are packaged with ASAR enabled, all binaries get placed inside app.asar archive, but when accessed those need to be accessed via app.asar.unpacked directory if the node module does not use path or fs to resolve file names.

For now I am doing the below inside init.js to get things working on my end, but it would be nice to have this handled within the node-api-dotnet library.

let managedHostPath = __dirname + `/${targetFramework}/${assemblyName}.DotNetHost.dll`
  managedHostPath = managedHostPath.indexOf('app.asar.unpacked') < 0 ? 
    managedHostPath.replace('app.asar', 'app.asar.unpacked') : managedHostPath;
jasongin commented

I'm not sure about putting this kind of electron-specific logic in the library. Why isn't this a problem for any other npm package that loads binaries?

jasongin commented

Apparently it is a common problem, and is the reason the hazardous package was created. However that reportedly has problems with newer Electron builds.

jasongin commented

A potential solution here could be to offer a more general way to customize the initialization. Something like this:

const initDotnet = require('node-api-dotnet/init');
const dotnet = initDotnet({
    targetFramework: 'net8.0',
    binDir: 'path/to/asar.unpacked',
});

The optional binDir would be used instead of __dirname as the base path for locating the .NET hosting binaries.

Once initialized, any other calls to require('node-api-dotnet') return the existing already-initialized instance.