How do I npm install for current directory and also subdirectories with package.json files? - node.js

Question

I have a an application which is a web game server and say for example I have node_modules which I use in directory ./ and I have a proper package.json for those. it happens that in directory ./public/ I have a website being served which itself uses node_modules and also has a proper package.json for itself.
I know I can do this by navigating the directories. But is there a command or way to automate this so that it is easier for other developers to bootstrap the application in their system?

Answer 1

Assuming you are on Linux/OSX, you could try something like this:
find ./apps/* -maxdepth 1 -name package.json -execdir npm install \;
Arguments:
./apps/* - the path to search. I would advise being very specific here to avoid it picking up package.json files in other node_modules directories (see maxdepth below).
-maxdepth 1 - Only traverse a depth of 1 (i.e. the current directory - don't go into subdirectories) in the search path
-name package.json - the filename to match in the search
-execdir npm install \; - for each result in the search, run npm install in the directory that holds the file (in this case package.json). Note that the backslash escaping the semicolon has to be escaped itself in the JSON file.
Put this in the postinstall hook in your root package.json and it will run everytime you do an npm install:
"scripts": {
"postinstall": "find ./apps/* -name package.json -maxdepth 1 -execdir npm install \\;"
}

Answer 2

For cross-platform support (incl. Windows) you may try my solution.
Pure Node.js
Run it as a "preinstall" npm script
const path = require('path')
const fs = require('fs')
const child_process = require('child_process')
const root = process.cwd()
npm_install_recursive(root)
function npm_install_recursive(folder)
{
const has_package_json = fs.existsSync(path.join(folder, 'package.json'))
if (!has_package_json && path.basename(folder) !== 'code')
{
return
}
// Since this script is intended to be run as a "preinstall" command,
// skip the root folder, because it will be `npm install`ed in the end.
if (has_package_json)
{
if (folder === root)
{
console.log('===================================================================')
console.log(`Performing "npm install" inside root folder`)
console.log('===================================================================')
}
else
{
console.log('===================================================================')
console.log(`Performing "npm install" inside ${folder === root ? 'root folder' : './' + path.relative(root, folder)}`)
console.log('===================================================================')
}
npm_install(folder)
}
for (let subfolder of subfolders(folder))
{
npm_install_recursive(subfolder)
}
}
function npm_install(where)
{
child_process.execSync('npm install', { cwd: where, env: process.env, stdio: 'inherit' })
}
function subfolders(folder)
{
return fs.readdirSync(folder)
.filter(subfolder => fs.statSync(path.join(folder, subfolder)).isDirectory())
.filter(subfolder => subfolder !== 'node_modules' && subfolder[0] !== '.')
.map(subfolder => path.join(folder, subfolder))
}