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 Having the itch to always be up to date, I found the command npm -g outdated.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On my machine currently npm -g outdated shows: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
Related
I am using nodist version 0.8.8 which is the latest one. By using this I installed latest node version 10.7.0 and latest NPM version 6.1.0. I assured it by reading the following document.
https://nodejs.org/en/download/releases/
Nw I surfed in Google to find whether NPM 6.2.0 is available? If it is I want to know the corresponding node version for it.
Node.js and NPM versions aren't directly connected, otherwise they would have matching versions.
Semantic versioning assumes that minor versions don't introduce breaking changes:
Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the:
MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes,
MINOR version when you add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner, and
PATCH version when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes.
This means that if NPM 6.1.0 works with Node 10.7.0, NPM 6.2.0 works with it, too.
Node version requirements are usually listed in package.json engines section, which can be checked locally or in GitHub repository.
npm package.json doesn't contain this section, so actual Node version that is suitable for it has to be deduced.
npm code base currently uses ES6 but no higher. Latest Node 6 release covers 99% of ES6 spec, it's expected that NPM 6.2.0 is fully workable with Node 6.14 or higher. Generally, it's certain that latest even major version (Node 10, as of now) doesn't have problems with latest NPM release.
You can use nvm which is node version manager
With nvm you have the option to install the latest npm compatible with your currently installed node
use this link to install nvm:
https://github.com/creationix/nvm
Node and npm are independent tools. You can very well install different versions of either.
Use
npm i -g npm#latest
to get the latest npm installed with your node.
use node -v and npm -v to get respective version informations.
In the package.json of my reactjs webpack project I specified the version number of a dependency that I wanted to download through a npm install as ^0.0.130 where the latest version of that dependency is 0.0.145.
But when I hit the npm install its downloading 0.0.130, not the latest version.
But when I specified the version number as ^0.0.145 its downloading the latest version of 0.0.145.
I cannot figure out why its not downloading the latest version though i used caret sign (^) with the eailer number.
Can anyone help me to figure out why this is not happening in the right way.
^0.0.145 matches the most recent ^0.x.x version
To upgrade to latest version for the 1.0.0 major release you will need to use something like^1.0.0
Yes, That can be happen.
After a component is publishing using npm publish command the latest version is usually the highest version number. But if a component is published using npm publish --tag latest that version is marked as the latest one. So though you published new versions after that the latest version will be the eariler version.
In above scenario they published 0.0.130 as the latest version using npm publish --tag latest. So though they published new versions after that, ^0.0.130 is the latest one.
0.0.145
.......
.......
.......
0.0.131
0.0.130 --------latest
0.0.129
0.0.128
0.0.127
I'm trying to npm i --save and save the package installed as "*" (keeping to the latest).
Tried:
npm i --save something#latest
npm i --save something#*
And I'm out of ideas..
If you really want to have something#* or something#latest in package.json then instead of running npm install to put it there, you should just put it there yourself and then just run: npm install with no other arguments.
Keep in mind that it may install incompatible versions in the future. What npm puts by default is using semver ranges to make sure that you install only compatible versions in the future. If you test your code with e.g. version 1.2.3 then it should still work with 1.2.4 and probably with 1.3.0 but it most likely may not work with 2.0.0 - because in semver the ony reason for a major bump are incompatible changes - see: http://semver.org/
Semantic Versioning 2.0.0
Given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, increment the:
MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes,
MINOR version when you add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner, and
PATCH version when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes.
Additional labels for pre-release and build metadata are available as extensions to the MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH format.
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>
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)