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JavaScript

Martin Coutts
Martin Coutts
18,154 Points
Posted by Martin Coutts
Martin Coutts
18,154 Points

Gulp not working

Wondering if anyone else has dealt with this issue, I'm trying to used gulp in my project, at the moment there is just a simple task to copyHtml over from the src folder to the dist folder but I am getting this error

[15:48:25] Using gulpfile ~/Documents/Web Dev Projects/agasBakery/gulpfile.js
/usr/local/lib/node_modules/gulp/bin/gulp.js:129
    gulpInst.start.apply(gulpInst, toRun);
                   ^

TypeError: Cannot read property 'apply' of undefined
    at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/gulp/bin/gulp.js:129:20
    at _combinedTickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:131:7)
    at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:180:9)
    at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:695:11)
    at startup (bootstrap_node.js:191:16)
    at bootstrap_node.js:612:3

the file the error is pointing to says error on line 129 but it's a bin file with only this in it 

#!/usr/bin/env node

require('gulp-cli')();
David Perkins
David Perkins
9,607 Points
David Perkins
David Perkins
9,607 Points

In your Terminal run...

gulp -v

... and paste here what you get back so that i can try and diagnose the issue for you 👍🏻

3 Answers

lauralouise
lauralouise
14,853 Points
lauralouise
lauralouise
14,853 Points

Gulp 4 (i.e. gulp-cli) uses a VERY different syntax than older gulp files. Gulp-CLI is NOT backwards compatible and contains breaking changes. You can install gulp CLI globally and still install gulp 3 locally in your folder to use the older version.

Martin Coutts
Martin Coutts
18,154 Points
Martin Coutts
Martin Coutts
18,154 Points

This was a massive oversight on my part, installed gulp version 3.9.1 globally and it worked perfectly. I'll need to get on to youtube and educate myself on the new syntax in version 4. Thank you.

Martin Coutts
Martin Coutts
18,154 Points
Martin Coutts
Martin Coutts
18,154 Points

gulp -v [07:18:51] CLI version 3.9.1 [07:18:51] Local version 4.0.0

From what I read online the issue was the cli not being the same as gulp however I tried updating the packages and npm said they were all up to date

lauralouise
lauralouise
14,853 Points
lauralouise
lauralouise
14,853 Points

FWIW -- if you're going to be working with frameworks like React or Vue going forward, you might want to skip learning Gulp 4 syntax and instead devote your time to learning WebPack, which in my experience is much more widely used in React/Vue development. since Gulp 4 is still so new, Gulp 3 is still used widely, especially since every member of a development team needs to be running the same version of Gulp. For your own projects, if you don't want to get into WebPack (it's a lot to learn) you can stick with Gulp 3 if you like. Also using Create-React-App has Webpack config baked in, so if you're doing any React stuff you can just use that and not even bother with setting up your own build tool.