Both email and url are optional either way. Npm also sets a top-level “maintainers” field with your npm user info. The optional files field is an array of file patterns that describes the entries to be included when your package is installed as a dependency. File patterns follow a similar syntax to.gitignore, but reversed: including a file, directory, or glob pattern (.,./.,. Syntax: - npm edit @version npm - explore. Spawn a subshell in the directory of the installed package specified. Syntax: - npm explore - npm - help - search. This command will search the npm markdown documentation files for the terms provided, and then list the results, sorted by relevance.
- The wantedversion is the latest safe version that can be taken (according to the semantic version and the ^or prefix). The latestversion is the latest version available in the npm registry. All the dependencies can be safely updated to the wantedversion by using the following command: npmupdate.
- This command installs a package, and any packages that it depends on. If the package has a package-lock or shrinkwrap file, the installation of dependencies will be driven by that, with an npm-shrinkwrap.json taking precedence if both files exist. See package-lock.json and npm-shrinkwrap. A package is. A) a folder containing a program described by a package.json file.
Today I was listening to the NodeUp episode 70, which is all about the npm command line client. And there is tons of useful information in this episode. It is all about where npm is at the moment and what the plans are for the future. Especially the recent changes inside of the command line client are a heavy discussed topic and I highly recommend to listen to this episode, when you are dealing with npm on a daily basis.
One thing that is mentioned and really gets me excited is the change regarding the functionality to run scripts via npm which was introduced in the latest major version of npm – [email protected].
So let us reassess how to run scripts via npm, have a look at what has changed in version 2.0.0 and check why this is such a big deal.
Running scripts via npm
The configuration file for any project based on node and npm is the
package.json
. This file includes meta information like name, version and author of the depending project, but also defines all dependencies, which need to be installed via calling npm install
. If you are not familiar with this file, there is an excellent interactive cheat sheet out there and you may want to check it out.One thing to notice is that you can also run scripts and execute commands via npm. To do so you can define an optional object as the
scripts
property inside of the package.json
and define your wished commands. @substack wrote a great article about how to use this functionality extensively.There is not much magic about this.
And then you can use
npm run
to kick it off – pretty straight forward.This functionality had one downside so far. It was not able to pass arguments to the
npm run
command. And that is why you had to hardcode the arguments, which made the whole thing less flexible and harder to use. The only solution for having similar commands with different arguments was to define specific named scripts inside of the package.json
including different arguments.Passing arguments to npm run
Since version 2.0.0 it is now possible to pass arguments to the scripts defined in the
package.json
. And this is a big improvement on flexibility and makes the whole thing much more powerful. The package.json
above including two scripts running the echo
command can be combined into one and can accept the wished arguments.Package Json Dependencies Syntax
The syntax to pass arguments to the defined scripts is as follows. You have to use
npm run
and then devided by two dashes(--
) you can pass any arguments you like to the command.Setting up Grunt and gulp without the global dependency
Using the
echo
command might not seem really useful, but we will come to a much more useful example now. I am doing mostly frontend development and that is why in almost every project that I work on either Grunt or gulp is included. Grunt and gulp are task runners, that come with huge plugin registries to help automate any task you can think of.When you check the getting started guide of both projects you will find the instruction to install them globally.
This is absolutely fine when you are working alone and these tools are only supposed to be executed on your machine. But when you work together with other colleagues on a project or your process includes a continuous integration system, then every global dependency can be quite troublesome. It simply moves the entry barrier a bit higher and increases the complexity to get everything up and running.
So let us have a look how to avoid that. First step is to install the needed modules in our project and not globally anymore.
By calling
npm install
npm will install the module and depending, if it has the bin
property defined, it will create a .bin
folder inside of the node_modules
folder. This means that this folder will include all defined command line interfaces of your installed modules. In this case the .bin
folder includes the binaries gulp
and grunt
.If you want to use either Grunt or gulp via the
npm run
command now, you can set them up inside of your package.json
.And then you can easily run your defined tasks with npm.
But wait, it comes even better!
To make it a bit nicer npm provides a nifty feature, when setting up custom scripts. It puts
./node_modules/.bin
in the PATH
environment, when it executes the script.This means, we can make the
package.json
a bit cleaner.For me this is pure awesomeness!
It means not only dropping a global dependency but rather simplifying the whole work and setup flow.
Getting everything up and running is not
- installing node (which will install npm also)
- installing dependencies
- installing global dependencies
- and run e.g. Grunt
anymore.
It becomes
![Npm dependency version syntax free Npm dependency version syntax free](https://www.carlrippon.com/static/f6b79a2c83ed467c4901fed2d8224a68/c73e5/upgrading-npm-dependencies.jpg)
- installing node
- installing dependencies
- and run everything via npm scripts
Feel connect app for mac. only.
If you want to play around with this I set up an example repository, which includes Grunt and gulp ready to use without any global installation.
Sum up
For me it is clear, that I will drop any project required global dependency that can be installed via npm in the future, because having less global dependencies just means less troubles and quicker setup.
And that is it for now and if you have any comments or ideas on that, please let me know. I hope you enjoyed it. :)
How can we safely upgrade the npm dependencies in our project? What do the funny
^
and ~
characters mean in front of the dependency package versions? How can we do a major version upgrade on an npm dependency in our project? We’ll find out in this post.Version parts
npm package versioning follows semantic versioning. So, a package version has 3 parts - Major.Minor.Patch
- Patch. This is incremented when a bug fix is made that won’t break consuming code
- Minor. This is incremented when features are added that won’t break consuming code
- Major. This is incremented when breaking changes are made
What does the ^
and ~
mean?
A version often has a
^
in front of it (e.g. ^16.8.6
). This means that the latest minor version can be safely installed. So in this example, ^16.12.1
can be safely installed if this was the newest version in 16.x
.Sometimes a version has a
~
in front of it (e.g. ~16.8.6
). This means that only the latest patch version can be safely installed. So in this example, ^16.8.12
can be safely installed if this was the newest version in 16.8.x
.So, npm install
installs the latest safe version of the dependencies?
Yes and no!
If the packages have already been installed into the
node_modules
folder, then npm install
won’t update any packages.Borderlands 1 fov fix. If the packages haven’t been installed and a
package-lock.json
file exists, then npm install
will install the exact dependency versions specified in package-lock.json
.npm install
will install the latest safe version of the dependencies if they don’t exist in the node_modules
folder and, there is no package-lock.json
file. However, you may think the latest safe version hasn’t been installed because package.json
is unchanged, but if you check the packages in the node_modules
folder, the latest safe version will have been installed.So, how do I safely update all the dependencies?
Firstly, the dependencies that are out of date can be discovered by running the following command:
The dependencies will be listed out:
The wanted version is the latest safe version that can be taken (according to the semantic version and the
^
or ~
prefix). The latest version is the latest version available in the npm registry.All the dependencies can be safely updated to the wanted version by using the following command:
![Npm Npm](https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/article/overview-and-functionality-of-npm-node-package-manager/Images/image004.jpg)
As well as updating the packages in the
node_modules
folder, the package.json
and package-lock.json
files will be updated.If we don’t want to update all of the packages, then the package names can be specified at the end of the command:
React is updated in the above example.
Updating all dependencies with major changes
So, how do we upgrade dependencies when there has been a major version change?
Npm Semver Syntax
Perhaps the safest way is as follows:
- Check the changelog of the dependent package for breaking changes that could affect our app
- If we think we are safe to do the upgrade, run the following command:
- If multiple packages go together, you can list them all out. The example below will update React to the latest version:
Npm Get Current Package Version
- Verify the app isn’t broken by doing some tests
- Repeat the process for other packages where there is a major version change
Is there a quicker way of just updating all the dependencies, including major version changes? So, like
npm update
but for major version updates as well?Yes, there is a tool called npm-check-updates that will do this. Just run the following command:
Npm Dependency Version Syntax Pdf
This will update the dependencies to the latest versions (including major version changes) in the
package.json
file. If we are happy to go ahead with the upgrades we need to run the following command:This will then upgrade the packages in the
node_modules
folder, and the package-lock.json
file will be updated as well.Wrap up
- Use
npm outdated
to discover dependencies that are out of date - Use
npm update
to perform safe dependency upgrades - Use
npm install <packagename>@latest
to upgrade to the latest major version of a package - Use
npx npm-check-updates -u
andnpm install
to upgrade all dependencies to their latest major versions