Truffle artifacts are not being generated when compiling

Question

I am new to smart contract development and I am trying to deploy my first contract. When running the truffle compile for the first time I can see that a build folder was generated on my project however after running truffle migrate the artifacts are not being generated inside the build folder.

xxxs-iMac dApp % truffle compile


Compiling your contracts...
===========================
> Everything is up to date, there is nothing to compile.

Other threads suggest a problem with writing permission however since the folder build is being created I assume this is not the issue. This is the first time I am deploying a smart contract so I also think it maybe something on my dev setup although i have correctly installed truffle and ganache dependencies via npm.

Truffle config :

    module.exports = {
    networks: {
        development: {
            host: "127.0.0.1",
            port: 8545,
            network_id: "*", // Match any network id
        },
    },
    plugins: ["solidity-coverage"],
};

2_deploy_contracts.js file:

const Voting = artifacts.require("./Voting");

module.exports = function (deployer) {
    deployer.deploy(Voting);
};

Answer 1

Most probably truffle cannot find where the contracts are.

You can define the location of the contract in the truffle-config.js with the following param:

contracts_directory: './contracts',

Answer 2

Please check your compiler version. Then make contract and compiler version the same. If you are working with react follow these steps:

1. Check solidity smart contract version from top of your contract (eg. pragma solidity ^0.5.16)
2. Check compiler version if it is greater or less than the contract version change the version of the compiler (from VS code, right click in the contract file and then select "change workspace compiler version)
3. Then remove the node module from your project directory
4. Now reinstall nodule module (npm install)
5. Now migrate contract (truffle migrate --reset)
6. Start the project (npm start)

Answer 3

Check where your contracts are. They should be under the "contracts" directory in order for truffle to find the contracts. The "contracts" directory should not be under any sub directory, otherwise you have to explicitly mention it in the truffle-config.js

Answer 4

Try deleting your generated ABIs in /src/abis. After that, run truffle compile --all.

Answer 5

Truffle isn't able to find the location of the contracts folder. You have to add the below line in truffle-config.js file:

contracts_directory: './contracts'

After that again execute truffle compile, and it will create artifacts in build\contracts folder.