The package.json docs say:
A package.json file must contain "name" and "version" fields.
This is also mentioned here.
I can see why that would be a requirement for node modules that are published to the registry, but is that still a hard requirement for private packages that are built and then deployed to customers?
It seems like I can remove both of those fields from my private module, but I want to verify that nothing will go wrong. If I'm never executing npm publish, then npm won't care about my versionless package, but maybe something else makes a big deal about it.
I'm guessing the docs should just be updated to reflect that it's a requirement only for node modules that are published.
Related
I've run into a situation where I need to access a transitive dependency in a stable way. In other words, I'd like to declare a dependency whose version is "whatever library Foo is already using".
Specifically, I'm setting up an Eleventy site and want to use markdown-it-anchor with it. Both libraries involve slugifying text, for which markdown-it-anchor allows you to specify a custom function. To keep everything consistent, I want to tell markdown-it-anchor to use the same slugifying function as Eleventy. Eleventy doesn't export its slugifying function, but it's just using #sindresorhus/slugify, so I can import that directly.
The problem came in when I added a direct dependency on #sindresorhus/slugify — I added a dependency with a splat version, on the assumption that npm would simply resolve it to the version of #sindresorhus/slugify which was already present in node_modules/. Instead, it resolved to the latest version. I tried playing around with editing package.json and even package-lock.json manually, but npm is very firm about installing Eleventy's version of #sindresorhus/slugify where I can't reach it and not installing the same version for my own use unless I duplicate the version specifier in my package.json.
What I want is to be able to freely update Eleventy in the future and have reasonable confidence that markdown-it-anchor will continue to be passed the correct version of #sindresorhus/slugify without having to manually verify each time that Eleventy hasn't bumped their dependency. Is there any way to accomplish that?
Well, I kind of got this to work. I say "kind of" because I'm depending on the splat version ("*") of my transitive dependency, which is pretty fragile. Getting it to work at all was pretty ugly, too, so there are multiple ways in which this isn't a "proper" solution.
Opened up package-lock.json and looked at the transitive dependency's dependencies (and transitive dependencies). Fortunately, for #sindresorhus/slugify, this isn't too bad.
Rearranged node_modules/ to move the transitive dependency to the top level (where my package can find it), and all of it's dependencies to where it can find them, without introducing new version conflicts. Again, in my case, this wasn't too bad.
Edited both package-lock.json and node_modules/.package-lock.json to reflect the moved packages' new locations.
Ran npm ci both to verify that I hadn't made any terrible mistakes and to make sure package-lock.json and node_modules/.package-lock.json were formatted the way it liked. (The only change it made was to reorder the packages to keep their directories sorted.)
Manually added a dependency on the (now formerly) transitive dependency with a splat version.
Ran npm install and verified that it didn't actually install or rearrange anything.
After all that, #sindresorhus/slugify works as expected when used directly from my site's build. There are a couple of serious caveats, though:
I'm not sure what npm's behavior will be if/when Eleventy updates its dependency on #sindresorhus/slugify. It may well simply update the latter where it's already located, in which everything will be fine. Otherwise, it probably won't.
I'm also not sure what npm's behavior will be if/when #sindresorhus/slugify gets added as a dependency anywhere else. It may well leave the existing version where it is and install new, conflicting versions under the …/node_modules/ folder of whatever packages require them, in which case everything will be fine. Otherwise, it probably won't.
In other words, I discovered a way to put a fair amount of effort into creating a situation which seems to work, but may not actually do what I originally wanted. 😅
After updating NPM to version 5, I found package-lock.json file with package.json.
What is the difference between this two files?
What are the advantages of package-lock.json?
A package.json file: lists the packages that your project depends on. allows you to specify the versions of a package that your project can use using semantic versioning rules.
According to the npm docs,
package-lock.json is automatically generated for any operations where npm modifies either the node_modules tree, or package.json . It describes the exact tree that was generated, such that subsequent installs are able to generate identical trees, regardless of intermediate dependency updates.
This file is intended to be committed into source repositories, and serves various purposes:
Describe a single representation of a dependency tree such that teammates, deployments, and continuous integration are guaranteed to install exactly the same dependencies.
Provide a facility for users to "time-travel" to previous states of node_modules without having to commit the directory itself.
To facilitate greater visibility of tree changes through readable source control diffs.
Basically package-lock.json is used to optimize the installation process by allowing npm to skip repeated metadata resolutions for previously-installed packages.
Before npm 5.x.x, package.json was the source of truth for a project. What lived in package.json was law. npm users liked this model and grew very accustomed to maintaining their package file. However, when package-lock was first introduced, it acted contrary to how many people expected it to. Given a pre-existing package and package-lock, a change to the package.json (what many users considered the source of truth) was not reflected in the package-lock.
Example: Package A, version 1.0.0 is in the package and package-lock. In package.json, A is manually edited to version 1.1.0. If a user who considers package.json to be the source of truth runs npm install, they would expect version 1.1.0 to be installed. However, version 1.0.0 is installed, despite the fact that v1.1.0 is listed is the package.json.
Example: A module does not exist in the package-lock, but it does exist in the package.json. As a user who looks to package.json as the source of truth, I would expect for my module to be installed. However since the module is not present in package-lock, it isn’t installed, and my code fails because it cannot find the module.
Read more about package-lock.json in the Official npm Documentation!
package.json records only your direct dependencies and their versions.
package-lock.json records not only your direct dependencies and exact versions, but also those of all dependencies of your dependencies - the entire dependency tree, in other words, with exact versions.
It's the fact that package-lock.json records the exact versions of all dependencies of a project, including sub-dependencies, that ensures that builds will be identical each time. (This is why npm ci bases its build on package-lock.json, not package.json.)
Builds based on package.json (as with npm i) cannot guarantee that all sub-dependencies are the exact same versions each build (e.g., if the subdependency of one of your dependencies releases an update, but the version of your direct dependency doesn't change), even if exact version numbers for direct dependencies are specified in the package.json.
Using the search I already found some great answers to similar questions, but still I am not sure if I understood it correctly.
From these answers I learned that dependencies are required to run the application while devDependencies are only required while developing (like unit tests).
But how about this: My application depends on jQuery, but during a build step (with the help of my devDependencies), everything is bundled into one file. In this case, should I list jQuery as dependency or as devDependency?
To make my point more clear take a module like this:
define(['jquery'], function($) {
// use jQuery in this module
})
Later on, this module will be compiled into somehing like application.build.js which then contains this module and the jQuery dependency.
Since the end result is the same, there doesn't seem to be a definite rule here, but I found a couple of discussions on the matter:
If you're building an application
https://github.com/webpack/webpack/issues/520
A browser app built by [insert build tool/bundler] has no runtime node dependencies, and thus all frontend dependencies should be listed as devDependencies. The dependencies vs devDependencies naming convention stems historically from node being a server side package manager (...) It is as far as I can tell harmless to list frontend dependencies under dependencies, but it is wrong.
(...) as a general recommendation for everyone, move everything into devDependencies until it is actually needed under dependencies.
If you're building a library:
https://github.com/inuitcss/inuitcss/issues/225
In many frontend projects, all code served to the browser is compiled, there are no runtime dependencies. This would mean that there are no dependencies, only devDependencies – all dependencies are included in the build done during development.
One could also argue that dependencies are required for development as well, so it would be okay to list everything unter dependencies.
I think the fact that we have the optional distinction indicates a reasonable way to use them. It makes sense (to me) that the dependencies designation would represent the 'minimum viable' code to use and as an indicator of what's nonessential for something to work.
As I see it, anything that goes on to become part of the production code is a dependency.
Epilogue
Personally, I agree more with the last quote. It makes sense that dependencies tells us what the application code needs to run, and devDependencies what the developer needs to build/deploy/whatever the application/library.
One caveat though is that if someone npm installs your library to use the bundle as a module in their own application, they will download a lot of dependencies they don't actually need.
I'm coming from a background much more familiar with composer. I'm getting gulp (etc) going for the build processes and learning node and how to use npm as I go.
It's very odd (again, coming from a composer background) that a composer.lock-like manifest is not included by default. Having said that, I've been reading documentation on [shrinkwrap], [npm-lockdown], and [npm-seal]. ...and the more documentation I read, the more confused I become as to which I should be choosing (everyone thinks their way is the best way). One of the issues I notice is that npm-seal hasn't changed in 4 years and npm-lockdown in 8 months -- this all leads me to wonder if this because it's not needed with the newest version of npm...
What are the benefits / drawbacks of each?
In what cases would I use one over another in Project A, but use a different one in Project B?
How will each impact our development workflow?
PS: Brownie points if you include the most basic implementation example for each. ;)
npm shrinkwrap is the most standard way how to lock your dependencies. And yes, npm install does not create it by default which is a pity and it is something that npm creators definitely should change.
npm-lockdown is trying to do the same things as npm shrinkwrap, there are two minor points in which npm-lockdown is better: it handles optional dependencies better and it validates checksums of the package:
https://www.npmjs.com/package/lockdown#related-tools
Both these features seem not so relevant for me; I'm quite happy with npm shrinkwrap: For example, npmjs guarantees that once you upload certain package at certain version, it stays immutable - so checking sha checksums is not so hot (I've never encountered an error caused by this).
seal is meant to be used together with npm shrinkwrap. It adds the 'checksum checking' aspect. It looks abandoned and quite raw.
Good question - I'm going to skip everything but shrinkwrap because it is the de-facto way to do this, per NPM's docs.
Long story short the npm-shrinkwrap.json file is akin to your lock files you are used to in every other package manager, though NPM allows different versions of the same package to play nice together by isolation - literally scoping and copying different entire versions to node_modules at different levels of the tree. If two projects that are parent-child to each other use the exact same version, NPM will copy the version to only the parent and the child will traverse up the tree to find the package.
Best practice is simply to update package.json for your direct dependencies, run npm install, verify that things are working while developing, then run npm shrinkwrap when you are just about to commit and push. NOTE: make sure to rm npm-shrinkwrap.json before running npm install during active development - if your direct dependencies have changed, you want package.json to be used, and not the lock! Also include node_modules in your .gitignore or equivalent in your source control system. Then, when you are deploying and getting to run the project, run npm install like normal. If npm finds an npm-shrinkwrap.json file, it will use that to recursively pull all locked modules, and it will ignore package.json in both your project and all dependent projects.
You might find shrinkpack useful – it checks in the tarballs which npm install downloads and bundles them into your repository, before finally rewriting npm-shrinkwrap.json to point at that local bundle instead.
This way, your project is totally locked down, completely available offline, and much quicker to install.
Is there any way to rename an NPM module that has already been published? I want to change the name of my module to more accurately match the API it exposes but would not like to leave people who have already installed it in the lurch.
There isn't any exposed way to do that. When I've encountered this in the past the approach I took was:
npm deprecate %ProjectName%#"<=put-latest-version-here" "WARNING: This project has been renamed to %NewProjectName%. Install using %NewProjectName% instead."
npm Deprecate instructions
In simple words no you can't. But npm provides you a different solution called npm deprecate.
What it does is it marks a particular version or version ranges of that package as deprecated. So next if someone tries to install this package they get a warning package deprecated along with your custom message, in which you can easily specify your new package name.
Usage:
npm deprecate my-package-name#"< latest-version" "your message"
Your message can be any thing like:
WARNING: This project has been renamed to your-new-package-name. Install using new-package-name instead.
In less than 24 hours i ran following command to delete wrong package.
npm unpublish <wrong package name> --force
From the documentation:
Registry data is immutable, meaning once published, a package cannot
change. We do this for reasons of security and stability of the users
who depend on those packages.
However newly published packages - within 72 hours - can be unpublished by running:
npm unpublish <package_name> -f
This will remove the package from the NPM registry if it was published less than 72 hours ago. Then you can change your package's name and publish it again.
Caution: You need to wait 24 hours if you try to republish package
with the same name
Someone has built a handy little npm plugin for doing this easily 😊
https://www.npmjs.com/package/#tiaanduplessis/pkg-rename
Install the package using npm -g install #tiaanduplessis/pkg-rename
Rename your npm module in the package.json file and save it
run pkg-rename old-package-name
From the documentation:
This will get the latest version of the old package from npm and deprecate this and all previous published versions with a message:
WARNING: This project has been renamed to new-package-name. Install using new-package-name instead.
You can also add the --publish flag to publish the new package name as part of the same action.
pkg-rename old-package-name --publish
Remember, rename the package in package.json first, then run the pkg-rename command.
I once was in this situation. I published a package with the name bowser-or-node instead of browser-or-node.
There's no way to rename a package, you have to deprecate and publish a new package.
Although there's one other option. If you just published your package (less than 24 hours from time of publish) and if you're sure you're okay with deleting the package and publish a new one with the right name, you can go ahead and do it. But NPM won't allow you to delete the package once it's been 24 hours since the time of publish.
Fortunately I figured out that I published with the wrong name in less than 20 minutes. So I just deleted and published again with a new name.
Something marvelous just happened to me: I managed to rename a package. It was originally known as stdout-renderer, but I changed every possible occurence of the name, and republished it after having deprecated the original and voila it shows up under its new name (cli-artist) undeprecated in the newly updated list. I'm not sure which field to change, but I would imagine it be in package.json because that's the only one where the casing matched in my case.
hope that helps!