I have a custom node module, that I can't publish on NPM.
I'd like to use it as any module I have on NPM.
Is it possible without the awful thing of copying the folder into the node_modules?
The answer is: YES, IT's POSSIBLE.
Let's assume your module has a dist folder, with the built source
(for example I run gulp on my src folder and procude the dist folder).
you simply got to run npm pack ./dist in your library.
this will produce a tgz archive with your library named your-library-version
then you can install your module in your project by simply running
npm i path-to/your-library-version.tgz
And you're done.
Let's say my library fodler is C:\ngx-mat-lib
so my tgz will be in this folder, since the dist folder should be a child of ngx-mat-lib.
In my project I'll run
npm i C:/ngx-mat-lib/ngx-mat-lib-0.0.1.tgz
Note: using forward slashes to avoid doubling them
Related
I'm working on creating a local repository that will contain all packages I use in my project, so I can have those packages installed on a machine that does not have access to the internet. I think of the repository that I could clone on the machine and run yarn install to have all the packages available in the project from the local repository. How can I do that? Similar question was asked here Using npm how can I download a package as a zip with all of its dependencies included in the package
There's not enough information in your question to fully understand your situation, but if you commit your node_modules directory to the repository, the modules will be there without the user having to run npm or yarn to install them. This assumes the user will run code from the repo workspace and that there aren't any modules that require a compilation step or other build step that may be platform-specific. But if they're all plain ol' JavaScript modules, you should be fine.
If you want to have all the modules as a separate repo rather than checking in node_modules, I can offhand think of two ways this might work.
Have the packages repo be a check-in of a fully installed node_modules directory. Then make that repo a Git submodule of the main repo that gets cloned as node_modules in the main repo.
Use npm pack to create .tgz files for each package you need. Store those files in the packages repo. Clone that repo into a known path on your target machine. Have the main repo install via path names. For example, if you run npm install /var/packages/foo-1.0.0.tgz, it will add a line to your package.json that might look something like this: "foo": "file:../../../var/packages/foo-1.0.0.tgz". In that case, npm install will install from that path rather than over the network.
In Ubuntu, I have a directory with my code /code which has my packages.json and such. My NPM prefix is /usr via npm prefix -g. I am trying to install packages globally so as to not create a node_modules directory in /code, but really as long as node_modules is not in /code, that will also work.
While in /code, I run npm install -g. I see a .staging directory created under my global prefix (eg, /usr/lib/node_modules/.staging) but then NPM takes another step and begins creating a /code/node_modules directory.
If I instead just run npm install -g <package> it correctly ends up in /usr/lib/node_modules/<package>. But I do not want to have to run npm install -g <package> for every package I need.
Why is NPM doing that and how can I make it stop doing that? At the very least, I would like the node_modules directory to NOT be in my /code directory (this is due to some environment constraints I can't change).
Globally installed packages are (almost always) not going to be used by your code. That's not how node or npm (conventionally) works. There isn't a shared global node_modules that programs all look in. (OK, there kinda is, but you don't want to use it if you can avoid it. Read on.) Having a local node_modules helps you avoid dependency hell. Global modules are for CLI tools that end up in your PATH and things like that.
You don't explain why you don't want a local node_modules for your project, so I will mention that if it is simply because it somehow bothers you, then please please please just get over it. You will be vastly happier. Type npm install and move on.
That said, for legacy reasons, your code in /code will look in /node_modules if there is no /code/node_modules. This is true for CommonJS modules that use require(). If you are using ESM modules via import, you may need to read the docs.
So, if you are using CommonJS/require(), you could have a directory structure like /project-name/code. You could have your index.js or whatever other code in the code subdirectory, while your package.json could be in project-name. Run npm install from /project-name and it will create a node_modules directory there rather than in the code subdirectory, and your Node.js files in code will find those modules.
If you don't like that, then for other options, you can review the relevant docs. At the time of this writing, those options include a NODE_PATH environment variable, $HOME/.node_modules, $HOME/.node_libraries, and $PREFIX/lib/node. However it all comes with this caveat that I implore you to abide by if you can:
It is strongly encouraged to place dependencies in the local node_modules folder. These will be loaded faster, and more reliably.
I have a very simple web project and I'm using npm init to create the package.json file for the project. My project structure is below:
ProjectFolder
--app /this is the folder for js files
--css
--scss
--lib /this is for files like jQuery
--index.html
When adding a node package, it will create a node_modules folder like this:
ProjectFolder
--node_modules
--app /this is the folder for js files
--css
--scss
--lib /this is for files like jQuery
--index.html
Let's say I add jquery through npm install and make it a dependency. Is it good practice to link to the jquery file in node_modules from my index.html or move the jquery file to my lib folder?
Is there a way to move the jquery file to my lib folder when installing?
I don't want to move the node_modules folder to the server and want to know the best practice.
Your package.json is essentially your link. It contains a list of the packages you are dependent on and their versions. If you install something using npm install it has to be a published npm package on an npm repository somewhere (either public or private). It downloads a zipped version of the npm package and unzips it into node_modules. Anything in there is automatically then available to your app. Hope that helps.
I have created a css folder in my public folder of my project. Is it handy to npm install bulma-start directly in the css folder? Currently project links to Bulma via CDN link but I want to install it on my local machine so the project can run it locally. Can you please recommend the best procedures for installing all dependancies correctly?
Using bulma-start is bit different as compared to working with other npm packages so here are the steps I've followed to work with bulma-start.
Create another folder say temp.
Initiate npm package there by using npm init
Install bulma-start by using npm install bulma-start.
Copy paste all the files inside the node-modules to wherever you want to work with this project.
Again do npm install to install the dependencies of bulma-start i.e. bulma etc.
Feel free to delete temp.
Is it handy to npm install bulma-start directly in the css folder?
bulma-start is a complete package to start working, this includes the whole js, sass, CSS folders and scripts to start working. So bulma-start should be considered as the parent folder of your project.
Is there a way using npm to treat a file in the project as a node-module without linking it and it having it's own package.json?
Ideally I could just have a sub-module definition within my main app package.json and be able to install things to a specific module that way.
Here's an example
/app
/index.js
/file.js
/action.js
What I'd like
npm set-as-module ./action.js "action"
Then within any file in my project I can call
var action = require("action")
Then when I want to install specific dependancies for action I could do this
npm install underscore --save --sub=action
This this kind of feature exist within NPM? Anything close to it?
This would offer the following perks
Easy to branch out or publish into full module
ability to require with module string instead of path
I created something to do this
https://github.com/reggi/npm-link-file
npm install npm-link-file -g
npm-link-file ./action.js "action"
It does not handle linked dependancies.