Can't build create-react-app project with cust

Question

I'm trying

PUBLIC_URL=http://example.com npm run build

with a project built using the latest create-react-script.

However, the occurrences of %PUBLIC_URL% in public/index.html are replaced with an empty string, not the expected value PUBLIC_URL.

public/index.html contains code like

<script src="%PUBLIC_URL%/static/js/jarvis.widget.min.js"></script>

Hours of searching the internet and stack overflow show that very little is written about PUBLIC_URL. I cloned create-react-app from GitHub and have been browsing the code but have not yet been enlightened.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

People like me who are looking for something like this in in build:

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://dsomething.cloudfront.net/static/js/main.ec7f8972.js">

Then setting https://dsomething.cloudfront.net to homepage in package.json will not work.

1. Quick Solution

Build your project like this:
(windows)

set PUBLIC_URL=https://dsomething.cloudfront.net&&npm run build

(linux/mac)

PUBLIC_URL=https://dsomething.cloudfront.net npm run build

And you will get

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://dsomething.cloudfront.net/static/js/main.ec7f8972.js">

in your built index.html

2. Permanent & Recommended Solution

Create a file called .env at your project root(same place where package.json is located).
In this file write this(no quotes around the url):

PUBLIC_URL=https://dsomething.cloudfront.net

Build your project as usual (npm run build)
This will also generate index.html with:

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://dsomething.cloudfront.net/static/js/main.ec7f8972.js">

3. Weird Solution

Add this in your package.json
"homepage": "http://://dsomething.cloudfront.net",

Then index.html will be generated with:

<script type="text/javascript" src="//dsomething.cloudfront.net/static/js/main.ec7f8972.js">

Which is basically the same as:

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://dsomething.cloudfront.net/static/js/main.ec7f8972.js">

in my understanding.

Github Issue Github Comment

Answer 2

This problem becomes apparent when you try to host a react app in github pages.

How I fixed this,

In in my main application file, called app.tsx, where I include the router. I set the basename, eg, <BrowserRouter basename="/Seans-TypeScript-ReactJS-Redux-Boilerplate/">

Note that it is a relative url, this completely simplifies the ability to run locally and hosted. The basename value, matches the repository title on GitHub. This is the path that GitHub pages will auto create.

That is all I needed to do.

See working example hosted on GitHub pages at

https://sean-bradley.github.io/Seans-TypeScript-ReactJS-Redux-Boilerplate/

Answer 3

Not sure why you aren't able to set it. In the source, PUBLIC_URL takes precedence over homepage

const envPublicUrl = process.env.PUBLIC_URL;
...
const getPublicUrl = appPackageJson =>
  envPublicUrl || require(appPackageJson).homepage;

You can try setting breakpoints in their code to see what logic is overriding your environment variable.

Answer 4

If the other answers aren't working for you, there's also a homepage field in package.json. After running npm run build you should get a message like the following:

The project was built assuming it is hosted at the server root.
To override this, specify the homepage in your package.json.
For example, add this to build it for GitHub Pages:

  "homepage" : "http://myname.github.io/myapp",

You would just add it as one of the root fields in package.json, e.g.

{
  // ...
  "scripts": {
    // ...
  },
  "homepage": "https://example.com"
}

When it's successfully set, either via homepage or PUBLIC_URL, you should instead get a message like this:

The project was built assuming it is hosted at https://example.com.
You can control this with the homepage field in your package.json.

Answer 5

As documented here create-react-app will only import environment variables beginning with REACT_APP_, so the PUBLIC_URL, I believe, as mentioned by @redbmk, comes from the homepage setting in the package.json file.

Answer 6

That is not how the PUBLIC_URL variable is used. According to the documentation, you can use the PUBLIC_URL in your HTML:

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="%PUBLIC_URL%/favicon.ico">

Or in your JavaScript:

render() {
  // Note: this is an escape hatch and should be used sparingly!
  // Normally we recommend using `import` for getting asset URLs
  // as described in “Adding Images and Fonts” above this section.
  return <img src={process.env.PUBLIC_URL + '/img/logo.png'} />;
}

The PUBLIC_URL is not something you set to a value of your choosing, it is a way to store files in your deployment outside of Webpack's build system.

To view this, run your CRA app and add this to the src/index.js file:

console.log('public url: ', process.env.PUBLIC_URL)

You'll see the URL already exists.

Read more in the CRA docs.