I am trying to use my own package (let's call it database) in a project of mine.
However since I am developing database next to the project myself, I don't want to push a version of database to the registry, then pull again on the project to have the latest version. This is not a fast workflow given that both projects are in the same VS workspace.
What I need is to reference the local project while development and when it is about production, then I need to actually use an external package. Is there a way that allows me to use a different package version of the same package depending on the environment?
I wish there was a NodeJS / Typescript IDE that just manages packages, building dependencies etc. for me. E.g when I build my project, it would build database first. I know there are project references in typescript 3.0, however I am not sure how well they work with npm packages.
Thanks for any help.
Go to your package database directory
and run npm link to create a global symlink, it would be like you have installed the database globally.
Go to your project to run npm link database to use the local global package.
You don't need to update your project's dependency when you update the database since the global package is just a local symbol link to your database.
When you are ready to go production, run npm unlink database to remove the local symbol link, and reinstall the package from the registry for the project, you need to publish it first of course.
Related
I am using a sigmajs library for creating node based graph visualisations. But the library package had a few bugs, so I modified a few files in the source code of the library and fixed them.
I have hosted my graphs on django server, and whenever I host it, the sigma package in the package.json gets loaded dynamically each time. The static library files on my machine which I had modified and fixed bugs don't get loaded. So,I get the same old package and not the modified one.
How do I access the modified library package dynamically when I host the server.
My advice is that of copying your fixed version of the library on server and install it from local path instead of remote npm repository like this:
npm install --save /path/to/fixed/lib/dir/in/server.
See this answer: npm local install
Pay attention that your fixed lib won't be sync with official one.
I don't know how you modify the library but i suggest to fork the official repository and syncronize your local one with remote one as for example explaind here sync forked repo github.
In this way you can sync to official repo while you mantain your fix and you will install your modified local one. Eventually consider to open issues and PR on sigmajs official repo to apply your fix directly to official library. If they will be accepted you can then install directly official version.
I want to try and make some changes to a package published in npm? (I've suggest some changes as an issue but I think they are simple enough for me to attempt them).
https://www.npmjs.com/package/bt-presence#contributing--modifying
The author supplies some information on how to modify the package, but not really enough for someone doing it for the first time.
Where should I clone the GitHub repo to? The folder where the package is installed? I tried it in my home folder and that would not build (unmodified).
The command npm run build - where is this run from? The root folder of the package where the package.json is?
Will I need to modify the package.json?
In general what is the best way to develop something like this for npm? I've worked on packages before but they were simply Javascript.
If you want to work on the bt-presence package in isolation, you can put the cloned repository anywhere. If you want to use your modified version of bt-presence in combination with an application, my recommended approach is to register bt-presence as a dependency in the application's package.json file with the version set to a relative path to your bt-presence repository; then running npm install in the application will make a symlink from node_modules/bt-presence in the application to your bt-presence repository.
npm run build should indeed be run from the root folder that contains the package.json of bt-presence.
If you just want to change the code of bt-presence, you won't need to modify its package.json. You would only modify the package.json if you need to change any of the settings in there, e.g, if you need to add additional dependencies to your version of bt-presence.
None of the above is really specific to TypeScript. (Some JavaScript packages have build processes too if they need to transform or package the JavaScript files in some way.)
Per this answer, when you reference a local dependency in package.json the local package will be copied to node_modules. This is not ideal when I'm developing a package and just referencing it from another project as I want to verify the library works correctly within another project. It seems every time I make a change to the library, I have to go back to my consuming project, delete the node_modules/my-library folder and rerun npm install each time for it to copy the library back. If I don't delete the folder first it doesn't seem to copy the latest version over.
If I develop directly inside node_modules/my-library it's not ideal because that folder isn't version controller, unlike the local folder referenced in package.json.
Another option would be to create an example project within the my-library repo, but I'd prefer to go that route as a last resort.
You can use npm link to develop your library and have another project use the local version like so.
For example;
In the my-library directory run npm link.
Then in the project you want to use my-libray run npm link my-library.
This will also work with yarn link.
I have a custom npm module that I am working on, and it has a GitHub repo. I'm also working on a project that uses the custom module. When working on the larger project, it is nice to use npm link so I can make changes to the module and see them right away in the main project.
To deploy to staging or production, I use shrinkwrap and shrinkpack so I can do an npm install after every deploy (some of the dependencies need binaries, and dev systems aren't the same as production systems, so they do need to be installed and not just kept in source control). Edit: I'm crossing this out as the answer below technically solves my issue, even though it doesn't solve for this particular point, but that wasn't as important as the rest of it.
Of course, since the module is linked to my main project and not listed in package.json, a deploy and install misses it entirely. I can go ahead and list it in package.json and have it point to the appropriate GitHub repo, but then every time I need to test a change in the main project I would have to commit and push those changes, then update the main project, kill and restart the app...that would get tiresome pretty quickly.
I guess I need something like the opposite of "devDependencies"; something where I can have it not install the module on dev, but do install it from GitHub when doing npm install on staging or production. Other than remembering to manually change package.json every time I need to go back and forth, is there a better way to do this?
you can specify a github repository as your package to install, in your package.json file:
{
dependencies: {
"my-library": "githubusername/my-library"
}
}
this will work in your production environment.
in your development environment, use "npm link".
from within the "my-library" folder, run npm link directly. that will tell npm on your local box that "my-library" is avaialable as a link.
now, in your project that uses "my-library", run npm link my-library. this will create a symlink to your local development version of "my-library", allowing you to change code in that repository and have it work in your other project that needs it.
once you are ready to push to production, push "my-library" to your github repository, and then you can npm install on your servers, like normal.
I'm used to deploy code depending on Composer (PHP's NPM cousing), that sports .json and .lock files. The first one describes the package and your version constraints, and the second one lists exactly what was installed. Always there's a lock file and you run composer install you're sure to receive the same set of packages; running composer update will re-read the json file, install new versions, and update the lock file.
That's awesome for production deployment, since you don't need to checkout your dependencies to your versioning system and you're sure to have the exact same set of dependencies in production as you have in development.
My question is: how to best automate deployment of NPM-dependent code? Is it possible to achieve a method similar to Composer? I've noticed that npm install only installs what's first available in the package.json file. After the first run, i.e. if you change a version constraint you must manually npm update that package - and that would render automate deployment useless, as there's no way to check in to versioning "update this package here to a new version"...
npm shrinkwrap is a analog of composer.lock file. It will generate a npm-shrinkwrap.json, that have all deps with version in it, so you can use it to deploy to production env. Also you can try a various libs from npm to lock versions or search for updates of it without changing packages.json.