Webdev + dart install + Flutter + Windows

[davidmorgan]

After a long investigation here dart-lang/build#4330 :)

webdev as it is today will have problems if run using "dart install" and the Flutter SDK on Windows.

This is because

• "dart install" means an AOT compile, which doesn't automatically know how to find the dart binary
• on Windows the Flutter "bin" directory contains "dart.bat", not "dart.exe"

in addition to this it looks like dart.bat has problems correctly handling stdout/stderr, so possibly the right way to support this case is to find dart.bat in path then go from there to where Flutter keeps dart.exe.

Builders that find the Dart binary and launch it, for example to launch the frontend server, will have a similar problem if the builder is compiled with AOT. But I think webdev does not do this yet :)

[davidmorgan]

Another option if running dart.bat is that apparently launching the process as .normal instead of .detachedWithStdio stops the .bat file from creating new stdin/stdout.

[nshahan]

@davidmorgan
I can't quite tell from this issue and discussion, is there an actionable fix we need to make or is this still an open question about how to handle launching webdev in these environments?

[davidmorgan]

I haven't tried it, but dart install webdev on Flutter SDK + Windows should work after updating this

webdev/webdev/lib/src/util.dart

Line 35 in 3cde56a

? (Process.runSync('where.exe', ['dart.exe']).stdout as String)

to look for dart.bat as well (needed for Flutter SDK because that's what's on the path) then address the issue with the bat file by either: 1) not using it, find the dart.exe based on where the bat file is (again, Flutter SDK specific), or 2) launch it with .normal instead of .detachedWithStdio.