How do I install the latest available version of an npm package? '#latest' sure doesn't fetch the latest - I assume it means the latest stable or something.
I've been using a hack for a while because I cannot seem to find any info on this:
npm i extract-text-webpack-plugin#X
The 'X' causes it to fail and dump all possible versions where I then copy and paste the correct one instead of the 'X'. Kinda ridiculous.
I've tried 3rd party packages like 'latest-version' but they all fail to get the very latest version.
There doesn't seem to be an official to do this. For example at the time of writing the latest version of extract-text-webpack-plugin is 2.0.0-beta.4. However doing:
npm i extract-text-webpack-plugin#latest
Will install '1.0.1'
I can see the latest version by doing
npm info pkg versions --json (without --json it will cut off when there are many versions)
For lack of an actual tool I guess its going to be some grep work.
Version 1.0.1 is the 'latest' version of that package - published to the npm registry at least (tagged as latest)
From the docs for cli/dist-tag. Emphasis mine.
Tags can be used to provide an alias instead of version numbers.
For example, a project might choose to have multiple streams of development and use a different tag for each stream, e.g., stable, beta, dev, canary.
By default, the latest tag is used by npm to identify the current version of a package, and npm install (without any # or # specifier) installs the latest tag. Typically, projects only use the latest tag for stable release versions, and use other tags for unstable versions such as prereleases.
By default, other than latest, no tag has any special significance to npm itself.
If you want the beta releases, then install from GitHub, or use the tags explicitly.
$ npm install webpack/extract-text-webpack-plugin
This is made pretty clear by reading the manual.
Even more clear:
latest is an implicit tag, attached to any published version of a package that was not published with an explicit tag (--tag).
Installing xyz#latest simply looks up the release tagged as latest in the registry. In the case of this package, that's release 1.0.1. That's it. There's nothing special going on here. #latest does not pull the most recent version published to npm
The versions listed as betas were tagged differently. Obviously none of them were tagged as latest, so trying to use #latest to get one is pointless.
From the registry:
'dist-tags': { latest: '1.0.1', beta: '2.0.0-beta.4' }
Again, use the GitHub releases for the bleeding edge, or use the versions/tags explicitly.
$ npm install extract-text-webpack-plugin#beta
Here you go, made especially for you:
recent-version
recent-version-cli
Condense this into a shell script, and you're good to go:
$ npm install extract-text-webpack-plugin#$(recent-version extract-text-webpack-plugin)
Use npm update as long as you have the package installed:
npm update <package>
Related
Instead of installing the latest version of an NPM package using
npm install x#latest
is there a way to view the latest stable version? something like this:
npm view x#stable version
I am looking for a programmatic/command line solution.
https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/view
Utilizing the following syntax returns the semver/value of the latest stable version only:
npm view <name> dist-tags.latest
You'll need to replace the <name> part with the actual package name.
Example:
npm view babel-cli dist-tags.latest
Running the command above currently prints 6.26.0 to the console, whilst the latest non-stable version available is the npm registry is currently 7.0.0-beta.3
Notes:
The command above will report the same version which would get installed when running:
npm install <name>#latest
Caveat: For either of the two commands to get the truly stable latest version they are reliant on the author/owner of the package having correctly managed their dist-tags. An excerpt from the docs (at the link provided) reads:
Publishing a package sets the latest tag to the published version unless the --tag option is used. For example, npm publish --tag=beta.
I know it's possible to specify a minimum version of node for a package to allow itself to be installed without warning.
There is also a question about [installing only the latest version your package is compatible with and nothing newer.]
However, in my case I am trying to make my package be compatible with hardware that is not able to run versions of node newer than 0.10.x. Specifically, this is hardware using ARMv5 processors, for which support was dropped in newer versions of V8. To do that, I need some polyfills, for example, os-homedir. I don't want to actually require that any such packages are installed if not needed because they are marked as deprecated, and in the above example the npmjs page for it is marked as not even in use, although I currently am able to npm install it.
How can I specify that a particular modular is only required if the version of nodejs present on the system is 0.10.x or older?
What you are asking for is somewhat anti-semver, since you always have to install a specific version of your package. By calling npm install <package> you are simply asking for the latest version. Having npm roll back to older versions based on campatiblity might be confusing and not very "semver".
The current solution for this is the following:
Specify in your package.json the following:
{
"engines" : {
"node" : ">=0.10.3"
}
}
now installing this package on a version of node older than 10.3 will cause it to fail. The user then must run npm view <package> versions and then install the appropriate version of the package by running npm install <package>#<version>
Here is an example command for installing npm v2 instead of latest (which is v3):
npm install -g npm#latest-2
How does this syntax work?
Usually I use either latest or explicit version, but haven't seen such syntax before.
I've tried something similar with other packages, for example:
npm install express#latest-4
but it fails with error No compatible version found: express#latest-4
These are called tags, and they're intended to allow developers to label particular versions of their packages in a more human readable way.
By default, all versions are tagged as latest, but say you have a beta version that you want some users to test - rather than making them specify a particular version to install, you can tag your betas with npm publish --tag beta. This will then allow them to run npm install mypkg#beta to get the latest beta version.
You can also tag a version after you've already published by using npm dist-tag add <pkg>#<version> [<tag>].
See https://docs.npmjs.com/getting-started/using-tags for more info.
I use npm to install some command line tools. Having the itch to always be up to date, I found the command npm -g outdated.
What is the difference between the columns wanted and latest?
The documentation states:
The resulting field 'wanted' shows the latest version according to the
version specified in the package.json, the field 'latest' the very
latest version of the package.
However I don't find it clear at all.
For example on my system I get:
Package Current Wanted Latest Location
cordova 5.3.1 5.3.3 5.3.1 lib
npm 3.3.4 3.3.4 3.3.3 lib
How can wanted be higher than latest? It seems to contradict:
the field 'latest' the very latest version of the package
Which version should I update to (I only use the command-line, not any node.js code)?
The wanted field makes no sense in the context of a --global run as there is no package.json to define which version you require.
Which version should I update to (I only use the command-line, not any node.js code)?
The latest version seems as a good choice if you like to live on the edge.
The wanted column seems like a bug, it is reported in github many times.
Update (after checking source)
The documentations seems a bit misleading so lets clarify:
The resulting field 'wanted' shows the latest version according to the version specified in the package.json...
As there is no global package.json, the version constrain used is '*' (set here).
Then the wanted version is the latest version of the package according to semver.
the field 'latest' the very latest version of the package.
Thats not true, what you get is the dist-tag "latest", that usually matches the latest version (see here). There are some packages that uses those tags to manage what get shown (like npm).
Which version should I update to (I only use the command-line, not any node.js code)?
It seems that the edge is wanted.
Update:
On my machine currently npm -g outdated shows:
Package Current Wanted Latest Location
babel-cli 6.1.18 6.2.0 6.2.0
generator-rise 1.7.0 2.1.0 2.1.0
npm 3.3.6 3.5.0 3.4.1
The version 3.5.0 exists as a release on github but has not yet been published to npm. So it is somehow getting picked up from there but glossing over the npm source I couldn't find any evidence to support this argument.
From the official documentation:
The resulting field 'wanted' shows the latest version according to the
version specified in the package.json, the field 'latest' the very
latest version of the package.
To elaborate:
npm allows you to specify a range of versions in your package.json, examples are available here. The maximum version that can be accommodated in the specified range is the wanted column.
This may be different from the version installed (if at all) because package.json may have changed in the meanwhile, or the author may have pushed a new minor release in between.
Considering your example, cordova#5.3.3 is marked as “wanted”, but “latest” is cordova#5.3.1 because npm uses dist-tags to manage its latest and next release channels.
npm update will install the newest version, but npm install cordova (with no semver range) will install whatever’s tagged as latest.
link to documentation
I can see the version of generator-webapp that I want in github but when I do an npm install, it seems to be giving me an older version.
I note that the version number in the packages.json hasn't been updated in the last few changes. I don't know if that is a factor.
The version you install with npm must be published on npmjs.com
For example, last published generator-webapp version is 0.5.1
If you want the last version from github
Use that npm install git+https://isaacs#github.com/npm/npm.git (with the repo you want of course)