I had the exact same question as Do I need both package-lock.json and package.json? (tldr; "what's the difference between package.json and package-lock.json?") and found some really great answers in there. However it leaves me with a few other very similar-related questions that I don't see answered elsewhere.
For instance, what if package.json and package-lock.json conflict with one another? Say package.json says to use some-lib-2.* (any 2.x version of some-lib) but package-lock.json is configured to use some-lib-1.18.4? Is there an error? Is preference given to either file as the "source of dependency truth"?
I like the idea of one file to manage my specific dependencies, and so I feel like I'm leaning towards:
Not specifying libraries or version in package.json at all; and
Using package-lock.json to specify the exact versions of each module/library my project uses
Is this possible to do? If so are there any special configurations that I need to make? Do I track both files in version control, or is there ever any reasons why I would not want to track these in git/VCS?
You use the the command line (npm install [optional args]) to update both files
NPM -- and your command line invocation -- decide what the acceptable ranges of dependency versions there are for module and define those ranges in package.json. It then picks a version within that range -- uses it for buildtime/runtime -- and writes that exact version in package-lock.json
So you want to place both files in version control so you have repeatable builds and any developers checking out your project will immediately be able to build the project with the same versions of the same dependencies
And the only time you edit package.json directly is if you don't want to allow a range of versions for a particular dependency and want to cherry pick the exact version to use. You make the edit, you save, you run npm install [options] and package-lock.json will be updated to use that version as well
For what it's worth, this is terribly confusing and advocates the anti-pattern of not managing your dependencies. It allows developers to think its OK to just pull in the latest version of a given dependency, even if that version changes from build to build. That leads to bug creep in your application, non-repeatable builds and all sorts of headaches.
I would strongly advocate for always specifying the exact version you want for all your direct dependencies: no more ranges or wildcards please.
Related
My Node/Electron project has a dependency graph sort of like this:
My Project
aaa#^4.0
bbb#^5.6
ccc#^1.0.0
ddd#^0.8
ccc#^1.0.1
eee#^4.4
eee#^4.3
npm install resolves this to the following node_modules:
aaa#4.0
bbb#5.6
ccc#1.0.1
ddd#0.8
eee#4.4
It figures that ccc#1.0.0 and 1.0.1 are compatible and deduplicates them, as it should. However, runtime errors indicate that they are, in fact, not compatible at all. That is, bbb#5.6 does not work with ccc#1.0.1 and requires 1.0.0.
Now, I could use --legacy-bundling so both versions would be installed, as nested modules in those that depend on them, but I don't want to do that for all dependencies. Specifically, there must be only one copy of eee at runtime.
How can I disable the deduplication for either aaa and all its dependencies or just for bbb? Preferably in NPM, but I'm willing to switch to Yarn or another tool if needed.
Edit: the question originally used ccc versions 1.0 and 2.0, but I was wrong, npm did in fact view those as not compatible and already installed them the way I wanted. My problem was with Webpack after all. So I've updated the question to the current version, which is still a possible scenario.
I've found that it can be achieved by
editing package-lock.json
and changing .["packages"]["node_modules/bbb"]["dependencies"]["bbb"]
from "^1.0.0"
to "1.0.0",
then running npm ci.
I have no idea if this is the proper way to do it, but at least running npm i doesn't overwrite the change.
Now I'm running into the problem that Webpack doesn't resolve bbb's import to the nested ccc, but that's outside of the scope of this question...
I generally run the npm install command on my local dev machine (OSX) in order to collect all of my node modules in one place so I can look through them, get completion in my IDE, etc.
However, I'm new to using yarn, and it seems with the lockfile that some versions of packages are locked to be specific to my development environment, so when I yarn down my package.json in an alpine docker container it tells me things like
warning fsevents#1.1.2: The platform "linux" is incompatible with this module.
Which I'm guessing means that the package was locked to a specific version or set of dependencies which is specific to OSX.
This doesn't seem to be breaking any functionality yet, but I'm concerned that it might down the line. Any ideas on how to maintain yarn for cross-platform development? Or is what I'm seeing here totally benign?
Not really an answer but...
Your example is not an issue specific to yarn, yarn.lock or npm and package-lock.json for that matter. The fsevents package is specifically for MacOS file system events. As such, it won't work on any other platform (e.g. Linux).
If you are using this package directly, you may want to consider a replacement that is cross-platform.
If this warning is coming up because of a dependency to your project, you may want to make sure that it (and it's dependencies) are cross-platform as well.
Oftentimes platform-specific packages exist to make up for a feature that is either incompatible or not present on that platform. So long as you (or your dependency) are handling this correctly, in a per-platform way, you should be fine. These packages are listed in package.json as optional because they are expected to fail on platforms they are not designed for (hence the warning).
For more information on this, Yarn has a good explanation of dependency types which includes optional dependencies:
This is useful for dependencies that won’t necessarily work on every
machine and you have a fallback plan in case they are not installed...
https://yarnpkg.com/lang/en/docs/dependency-types/
If I have a project written in node, with a package.json and a number of directories/sub-directories, is there any way of checking that all modules listed in package.json are actually being used in the project?
Take the scenario of multiple people committing to the project, adding npm packages here and there, adopting new ones as the project progresses, but never removing the old ones.
If your objective is to remove existing packages that are not listed in the dependency list you can use npm prune. See https://www.npmjs.org/doc/cli/npm-prune.html.
Sorry, I misunderstood your question. You can try using npm-check. See https://www.npmjs.org/package/npm-check.
npm allows us to specify bundledDependencies, but what are the advantages of doing so? I guess if we want to make absolutely sure we get the right version even if the module we reference gets deleted, or perhaps there is a speed benefit with bundling?
Anyone know the advantages of bundledDependencies over normal dependencies?
For the quick reader : this QA is about the package.json bundledDependencies field, not about the package.
What bundledDependencies do
"bundledDependencies" are exactly what their name implies. Dependencies that should be inside your project. So the functionality is basically the same as normal dependencies. They will also be packed when running npm pack.
When to use them
Normal dependencies are usually installed from the npm registry.
Thus bundled dependencies are useful when:
you want to re-use a third party library that doesn't come from the npm registry or that was modified
you want to re-use your own projects as modules
you want to distribute some files with your module
This way, you don't have to create (and maintain) your own npm repository, but get the same benefits that you get from npm packages.
When not to use bundled dependencies
When developing, I don't think that the main point is to prevent accidental updates though. We have better tools for that, namely code repositories (git, mercurial, svn...) or now lock files.
To pin your package versions, you can use:
Option1: Use the newer NPM version 5 that comes with node 8. It uses a package-lock.json file (see the node blog and the node 8 release)
Option2: use yarn instead of npm.
It is a package manager from facebook, faster than npm and it uses a yarn.lock file. It uses the same package.json otherwise.
This is comparable to lockfiles in other package managers like Bundler
or Cargo. It’s similar to npm’s npm-shrinkwrap.json, however it’s not
lossy and it creates reproducible results.
npm actually copied that feature from yarn, amongst other things.
Option3: this was the previously recommended approach, which I do not recommend anymore. The idea was to use npm shrinkwrap most of the time, and sometimes put the whole thing, including the node_module folder, into your code repository. Or possibly use shrinkpack. The best practices at the time were discussed on the node.js blog and on the joyent developer websites.
See also
This is a bit outside the scope of the question, but I'd like to mention the last kind of dependencies (that I know of): peer dependencies. Also see this related SO question and possibly the docs of yarn on bundledDependencies.
One of the biggest problems right now with Node is how fast it is changing. This means that production systems can be very fragile and an npm update can easily break things.
Using bundledDependencies is a way to get round this issue by ensuring, as you correctly surmise, that you will always deliver the correct dependencies no matter what else may be changing.
You can also use this to bundle up your own, private bundles and deliver them with the install.
Other advantage is that you can put your internal dependencies (application components) there and then just require them in your app as if they were independent modules instead of cluttering your lib/ and publishing them to npm.
If/when they are matured to the point they could live as separate modules, you can put them on npm easily, without modifying your code.
I'm surprised I didn't see this here already, but when carefully selected, bundledDependencies can be used to produce a distributable package from npm pack that will run on a system where npm is not configured. This is helpful if you have e.g. a system that's not networked / not on the internet: bring your package over on a thumb drive (or whatever) and unpack the tarball, then npm run or node index.js and it Just Works.
Maybe there's a better way to bundle up your application to run "offline", but if there is I haven't found it.
Operationally, I look at bundledDependencies as a module's private module store, where dependencies is more public, resolved among your module and its dependencies (and sub-dependencies). Your module may rely on an older version of, say, react, but a dependency requires latest-and-greatest. Your package/install will result in your pinned version in node_modules/$yourmodule/node_modules/react, while your dependency will get their version in node_modules/react (or node_modules/$dependency/node_modules/react if they're so inclined).
A caveat: I recently ran into a dependency that did not properly configure its dependency on react, and having react in bundledDependencies caused that dependent module to fail at runtime.
I'm having problems following the 'official' recommendation to check in all external dependencies into git (article http://www.mikealrogers.com/posts/nodemodules-in-git.html linked fron FAQ)
How do you make sure that not only top-level dependencies are checked-in? Most npm modules do currently not follow the recommendation. They all have their node_modules in .gitignore . Just Deleting their .gitignore seems risky.
For compiled module the article recommends to check-in only the sources and run 'npm rebuild' and deploy time. Unfortunately 'npm rebuild' does not do a 'clean make' for all modules (despite bugfix https://github.com/isaacs/npm/issues/1872 being included in npm version 1.0.106 i'm using). This means that I have to prevent compile targets from being checked in (otherwise i would have object code compiled for the developer machine on the production machine without being overwritten by npm rebuild). But: how do i do this? Unfortunately the modules don't have a common compile output directory, so just git-ignoring "node_modules//build" and "/node_modules//out/" (as mentioned in this good article eng.yammer.com/blog/2012/1/4/managing-nodejs-dependencies-and-deployments-at-yammer.html won't help in every case.
Short version: how do you make sure that production servers use the exact same version of all dependent modules as you use during development?
UPDATE: there is now npm shrinkwrap which solves the problem of locking down exact dependency versions, even of dependencies' dependencies! More info here.
Checking in node_modules can be problematic, as the environment it's running on may differ from user to user - so what is compiled on some environment may not work on another. Plus it would fill up your changelogs and repositories with 3rd party code. Which I take it is the conslusion you've come to with your short version of the question, so let me address that.
Short version: how do you make sure that production servers use the exact same version of all dependent modules as you use during development?
Inside your package.json, there will be dependencies: {}, if it is not there, then add it. To accomplish what you want, add your dependencies as the key, and their exact versions as the value. E.g. dependencies: { docpad: '2.5.0', mocha: '1.1.0' }
However, generally (it depends on the author) upgrades to the revision number (the x.x.X number) are just bugfixes and safe. You can allow minor changes by doing dependencies: { docpad: '2.5.x', mocha: '1.1.x' } which saves you from having to update your package.json and do a release everytime there is a bugfix release. You can even do things like 2.x if you wish.
This is the solution I've come to use for all of my modules, as it ensures that even 6 months later or whatever the module will still work - whereas doing something like >= 2.0.0 means when v3 of a dependency comes out, your module will probably be unusable at that time. Ensuring you stick to specific versions "guarantees" stability over time.
For reference you can see how I've done it in my open-source node.js modules here
About the .gitignore of your dependencies (in "node_modules"), npm 1.1 ignores the .gitignore files, so that they are not installed;
npm 1.1 will exclude .gitignore files from the things it installs.
npm 1.0 did not have this feature, so you have to be careful about that.
Deleting them recursively is fine:
find node_modules -name .gitignore | xargs rm
But, in npm 1.1, you never have to do this, because it excludes them
from the install automatically.
That's coming from the chief himself (Isaac), and it's here and seems to cover pretty much everything. The "extraneous" problem I have must be something silly I've done, I'll try a clean setup.