Delay hook absolute path cannot be created error MSB3191: Unable to create directory: The given path's format is not supported

[saper]

Full log: https://gist.github.com/saper/08ce8416f944a7fed3dc
addon.gypi used
generated libgit2.vcxproj
Source being built: https://github.com/saper/nodegit/tree/41c9e13f25441726a2493fd9279fc00db0087da9
Environment: @appveyor full log

node-gyp is installed globally before just npm install on the package (nodegit).

Error message:

error MSB3191: Unable to create directory 
"C:\projects\nodegit\vendor\Release\obj\libgit2\C:\projects\nodegit\node_modules\node-gyp\src". 
The given path's format is not supported.

It looks like the '<(node_gyp_dir)/src/win_delay_load_hook.c' formula doesn't mix here well...

Btw. is it normal that .vcxproj files are created in the source tree and not in the build directory? relative paths fixed

Related: #636 #637 #708

[saper]

Some investigation:

1. Does not matter if using MSBuild 12.0 (from VS2013) or MSBuild 14.0 (from VS2015).
2. win_delay_hook seems to be added to all targets by default (in all projects I have seen)
3. Out of few attempts to compile win_delay_hook in the nodegit project, only one fails.
4. This errors occurs in the Visual C++-specific MakeDirsForCl target.

For nodegit it creates directories only for one of the targets (https://github.com/saper/nodegit/blob/7b30e1d3a6180db36a13503be525252435bbb85e/vendor/libgit2.gyp#L14) out of few in the project.

For node-sass this target is not needed.

[saper]

MakeDirForCl uses several properties to create directories and activates only if one of those are present. ObjectFileName is one of such properties and this one is set in https://gist.github.com/saper/1f9e9a7c68bfff6c1fe5#file-libgit2-vcxproj-L53 to $(IntDir)%(RelativeDir)/

[saper]

So it seems to me the only issue left to clarify is why %(RelativeDir)% is absolute:)

[panuhorsmalahti]

I'm also getting ths.

[saper]

So the absolute %(RelativeDir) for the Windows delay hook is caused by #637. I have worked around this in the node-git project by not using %(RelativeDir) at all, but this is broken for projects that need it.

[ThePhD]

This bug has negatively affected me twice and has cost me a serious amount of time: I use %(RelativeDir) to help differentiate my OBJ file builds in my C++ projects. You can imagine my surprise when I finally figured out Node.js was hooking into, using, and turning %(RelativeDir) into an absolute dir.

I am new to the Node community, but if anyone has any ideas for how I can fix this, I would not mind hacking on node-gyp to help fix this. This is the second time it's come out of nowhere and really negatively affected me, wasting quite a few hours peeling through npm logs and trying all sorts of native installs before pinning this down.

[rvagg]

I think this might be something to take up at https://github.com/refack/GYP