After almost a day of battle with discrepancies between package.json based on package-lock.json I finally made my project to run again (on Node 10) and I want to keep it in that way.
I want to update my package.json to contain the versions listed in package-lock.json. Is there an automatic way to do this? I can find any about it (or maybe I am looking for the wrong keywords)
Related
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.
I have a single package that I install updates for occasionally. All the other packages I'm fine with. However, upon installing a new package, NPM always removes exif-js and angularsortablejs packages from my library, therefore breaking my project which relies on those two. As a temporary fix, I thankfully have those stored in a node modules back up. I copy the folders back across to the project and it works fine.
Going forward, how do I update individual packages so that NPM doesn't feel the need to remove, what I believe to be, unrelated packages?
"dependencies": {
"angular-sortablejs": "^2.6.0",
},
Note, exif-js isn't listed in the dependencies, it's used be a script in the assets by using var _exifJs = require('exif-js');
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.
I'm having a problem where some recent update (in the last week) to a dependency of a dependency is causing a breaking error in Safari. I have all of my versions set to exact in package.json but their dependencies are obviously going to pull using semvar version ranges. My old package-lock.json has invalid checksums now so that isn't working.
How do I rebuild my node_modules using the lowest specified versions of dependencies (ignoring semvar/version ranges)? I want to get the exact specified packages for all dependencies without automatically pulling a more recent version.
By way of example: foo" = "~1.0.1,
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.