Each dependency optionally has a dependencies property and a requires property. These are not necessarily both present, and their contents do not necessarily overlap. I assume requires holds anything listed in the package.json for that package, but I can't find any reference which properly describes the dependencies property.
Packages at each level are shared by other packages on that branch of the dependency tree. If a child package uses a different version of a package then it will be duplicated at that point of the tree.
I've deduced this with a little poking around the contents of a package-lock.json and by inferring from npm dedupe.
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. 😅
What I am trying to do:
So, I am installing a package which has a dependency numbro (another package). For my use case, I need to use that package and initialize it with some value. (set default currency)
However, I am not able to use that package in my code. As from inspecting package-json.lock, I can see that the package isn't there as direct project dependency but is present inside handontable's dependencies.
I thought, I can add numbro directly inside my package.json file to initialize some values but from what it seems, adding it direct and setting default value there doesn't solves the issue.
To check further, I created a dummy angular project with only handontable and handontable/angular to see, if I can reproduce the issue there. However, after npm install, I could use numbro package in the dummy project and the reason being it was present as direct project dependency in package-json.lock file.
The versions of numbro, handontable, handontable/angular and angular are all same in both projects but why is it that in one project I can use the the sub-dependency in my angular project but in another I cannot ?
Original Project:
Dummy Fiddle project:
(installed as direct project dependency)
So, I fixed it with some help from handsontable support team. I deleted node_modules folder and package-json.lock file both.
After which npm install did the trick.
I had tried deleting node_modules folder earlier but doing that alone doesn't resolved the issue.
I have to npm packages, one (say, "parent") depending on the other ("child"). My child package has a number of .js files, say main.js and other.js. The former is listed as main in the child's package.json.
Both of these should be included in the package. When I inspect the package generated with npm pack, it looks fine. When I add the published package as a dependency of the parent and inspect its contents in parent/node_modules/, both files are also present, as expected. I then publish parent as a separate package, with the child listed as a dependency.
However, when I then start a new project with the parent as a dependency, and I then install that project's node_modules/client, I see main.js but not other.js! This happens regardless of whether I install it through Yarn or npm. What could be the cause of this?
Well... There was a deeper root cause, so this is probably not going to help anybody, but just in case. The problem was that a different version of this package was getting installed when it was a nested dependency. The reason for this is that the dependency was a prerelease version, specified like ^0.0.1-<commit hash>. Since the commit hash can start with a number, I had an older version whose commit hash actually started with a higher number, and thus ended up getting installed when the parent specified the child dependency using a caret ^, but not when I directly added the child dependency.
Specifying the exact version as a dependency in the parent solved the issue.
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 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.