Shell commands to git in build.jl don't work on Windows

[kdayday]

Haven't figured out a direct solution yet.

[jd-lara]

@kdayday can you provide more detail? All out build tests are passing in the CI, so it is likely your local git.

[kdheepak]

@kdayday can you tell us which git commands?

[kdayday]

Yep, sorry, here's more info. It appears that using "run()" or accessing the shell through ";" doesn't work on Windows the way you'd expect for something called a "shell", discussed here:
JuliaLang/julia#23703
Not only do git commands not work, but other basic commands don't either, e.g. "echo hello" gets an error:
"ERROR: IOError: could not spawn echo hello: no such file or directory (ENOENT)"
I get the same "no such file or directory" error for the "git clone" call in build.jl, as well as with "dir", etc.

Two leads:

1. It looks like the proper way of dealing with calls like "echo" in Julia's shell on Windows is "cmd /c echo hello", and this works for me. However, "cmd /c git init" gives me a new error: "'git' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file". So maybe at that point, it is a local git problem, or there is a different call besides "cmd" that I haven't found.
2. It looks like the expected shell calls work if you run Julia from Git Bash:
   https://discourse.julialang.org/t/usable-shell-on-windows-yay/5988
   That seems wrong to assume users are working from Git Bash, and won't solve the problem for me in Jupyter Notebooks. I didn't go further to verify if I could get things working from Git Bash.

The general point being, these "run()" calls may be breakable across platforms, at least that's what it looks like for a newbie like me. In this specific case, maybe the question is whether and how to include the test data.

[kdheepak]

Thanks for the detailed information. The build.jl just downloads a data git repository, if you don't need to run tests or examples you can comment it out and bypass it for now. We'll add a more portable fix soon.

[jd-lara]

@kdheepak I can't reproduce the error in my windows machine. Seems that this can be fixed of the user has PoweShell

[kdheepak]

I think this will not be an issue if git bash, powershell or windows subsystem for linux is used. But that will be a small percent of people. I'll add a fix for Windows CMD.

…

On Fri, Dec 21, 2018, 5:29 PM Jose Daniel Lara ***@***.*** wrote: @kdheepak <https://github.com/kdheepak> I can't reproduce the error in my windows machine. Seems that this can be fixed of the user has PoweShell — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#129 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABuqga93unAF861B4_eOb1KbnH5ECn1eks5u7Yr8gaJpZM4ZfJ6c> .

[jd-lara]

I will close, this issue since it is not related to PowerSystems. This is an issue of the user set-up in Windows. cc. @kdayday @kdheepak