Can I somehow skip local installation of Gulp to the project?
I installed Gulp globally, added it to package.json as a dependency. But still Gulp wants to be installed locally also with the Local gulp not found in ... message. If I do local install, Gulp is copied into my project by node.
Is there a way to skip local installation of Gulp? I want to be able to run it across the whole server from command line and manage it installation globally.
One clean way to do this is without have it locally is to install gulp globally like as you did and then run in your directory the command :
npm link gulp
It will create a symbolic link in your node_modules folder to your global gulp install. You need to be careful on the versions since all your symlinks and therefore your local project(s) will use the global one, no matter of the defined version in the package.json, which could cause errors on a deployed environment.
This is also applicable for every node package, and allow you to update the local install you've created that way of multiple projects at once.
Related
I am starting to learn React Native and I am very new to npm package manager. I read that npm can install packages localy or globaly but I am trying to understand what does that mean.
I am reading this page https://docs.npmjs.com/getting-started/installing-npm-packages-locally, can someone explain to me what does this mean please.
If you want to depend on the package from your own module using something like Node.js' require, then you want to install locally, which is npm install's default behavior. On the other hand, if you want to use it as a command line tool, something like the grunt CLI, then you want to install it globally.
Since I am very new to npm, React Native, Node (never used it), I am confused by the very first sentence in this quote. What does it mean "my own module?
If I want to use CRNA, I guess, I would have to install it globally?
If I am to install a package, say CRNA locally or globally, where do I see it installed on my MacBook Pro?
The difference between local and global install is that local install puts it into the node_modules directory of your project (this is what is referred to as "your own module") while global puts it into a system directory (the exact location depends on your OS, on OSX it should be /usr/local/lib/node_modules).
Basically:
Local install ties the installed module to your project: other projects on your computer do not get it but if your project is copied to another computer the module will be installed there too
global install ties it to your computer: you can use it on all of
your projects on your computer but if your project is copied to
another computer the installed module will not be there
And yes, CRNA should be installed globally as it is a general tool not a project's library dependence.
When you install package globally npm install -g <package name> modules drops in {prefix}/lib/node_modules.
Locally - npm install <package name> - drops package in the current working directory.
If you are going to require module in your project you have to install it locally.
If you want to run in from command line you need to install it globally.
If you need more extenden explanation take a look
Since I am very new to npm, React Native, Node (never used it), I am confused by the very first sentence in this quote. What does it mean "my own module?
If you have package.json file, then everything in the same folder is treated as "module". You add dependencies to it by doing npm install --save foo (--save option adds it under dependencies in your package.json).
If I want to use CRNA, I guess, I would have to install it globally?
Not sure what "CRNA" is. But general rule is that mostly everything (libraries...) are installed locally. Which means that they are added to your package.json and installed in same folder under node_modules.
Only case when you want to install something globally (can be added to package.json but is NOT installed in the same folder under node_modules but probably in your home directory), by doing npm install --global bar (--global installs it globally). Is when tool (not library) is project independent, as you can access it from everywhere. Something like create-react-app.
TLDR:
Local are dependencies (libraries) installed in same folder and (usually) added in your package.json as dependencie.
Global are tools installed in your user home folder and (usually) NOT added in your package.json as dependencie.
Let first start with how nodejs finds package.
Suppose you have some folder structure like-
root
-pixel
-project1
-project2
So, if your are working on project1 and required some npm package, nodejs tries to find a folder named node_modules in current directory. If fails, it goes parent(pixel folder) and tries to find node_modules and goes recursively upto root(which is global).
So, if there any package installed globally, you don't need to install it in your current working directory.
So, why don't we install all packages globally? Isn't it saves our harddisk memory?
Yes, true. But as npm packages are updating and changing its version everytime, its necessary to use specific package in your current working package to avoid collusion.
Then how global packages is useful?
Its good idea to install some cli packages to run directly from command line i.e webpack to easy our task.
I am rather new to Node but am working on a project behind a very restrictive firewall so I cannot use npm to install packages (no proxy either). I am trying to use express and have been able to include it by just storing the files locally and requiring the local file path but I do not know how to structure the project so that node can find and include all of the dependencies for express (which I also have manually downloaded from github and stored locally within the project). Does anyone know how to do a completely manual global or local install of individual node dependency packages?
Simply download the files and place them in a 'node_modules' folder in the root of your app. Then use 'npm init' to create a package.json. Add your dependencies in the dependencies list in that file.
Then run simply 'npm install'.
Is there anyway to install dependencies which are not installed globally? For example: i got gulp installed globally, then I have some app with gulp inside package.json. When i run:
npm install
it will download and install gulp in node_modules in my app root folder, even if it is already in node.js global.
It would be nice, because I made template for new projects, with lots of dependecies. I dont want to keep over 20000 files in each project root folder...
Gulp is actually required to be installed both locally and globally.
require can only find locally installed modules. Globally installed modules are generally required for command line. But if you have a require statement in your file (which it is in case of gulpfile.js) it will need that module be installed locally.
A possible solution for not having to keep same dependencies in two places could be to put them in a parent node_modules folder
My Projects
node_modules
gulp
Project A
...
Project B
...
Since require looks for modules in parent directories successively from current level this shall work.
In my package.json file, I have bower listed as a dependency. After I run npm install, bower gets installed locally. When I try to run bower after installing it locally I get an error
"bower" is not recognized as an internal or external command
It seems the only way to resolve this is to install bower globally. Why should I have to do this? If my project contains a local copy of bower, why won't node use it?
Installing locally makes bower available to the current project (where it stores all of the node modules in node_modules). This is usually only good for using a module like so var module = require('module'); It will not be available as a command that the shell can resolve until you install it globally npm install -g module where npm will install it in a place where your path variable will resolve this command.
Edit: This documentation explains it pretty thorougly.
You can execute your local instance by typing the line below in cmd:
node_modules/bower/bin/bower <bower args>
We use both PHP and JavaScript, so we have composer and npm.
Each of the projects we work on have different packages both for runtime of the package as well as build/dev tools.
As there are version constraints in each project, installing version x of a package globally (that would be run from the command line), would cause us issues, we install all the tooling in each package. Much easier to define in the appropriate composer.json / package.json files.
But running the CLI tools is a pain if you have to constantly add an additional path to the command.
To that end, we have recommend to the team that the following paths are added to your $PATH in the appropriate .bashrc (or equivalent):
./vendor/bin:./node_modules/.bin
(EDIT: For Windows, the paths would be .\vendor\bin;.\node_modules\.bin;)
So, whilst in project X, we have access to the CLI tools for that project. Switch to project Y, and we get that projects tools.
Sure, you are going to get duplications, but each project is maintained by different teams (and some people are in multiple teams), so again, having 1 version in the global setup is an issue there.
Usually you install NPM modules globally if you want them included in your path to be ran from the command line. Since it is installed locally you will have to run it from the node_modules folder.
I am new to Node and I don't fully understand yet what installing locally means exactly. I know I need to install gulp both globally as well as locally but in my case I have a number of projects in separate folders under a development folder and I wonder if I really need to install the livereload extension locally in each separate project folder (which is what the documentation seems to suggest) would it not be easier to install it globally; or locally in the main development folder. Can someone explain how this works and what options I'd have.
Similarly I wonder whether if I install gulp locally in the development folder will this be available to each of it's children or whether I'd again need/want to install it in each project folder locally.
Here is an, albiet old, article on the node js blog that goes over locally vs globally. http://blog.nodejs.org/2011/03/23/npm-1-0-global-vs-local-installation
The basics are that if you want to require require('gulp-livereload') inside of your code it should be a local (dev) dependency. If you wish to interact with the module via the cli then install globally. For example you might have both gulp and nodemon installed globally.
The point of local install is that someone can bring down your project, type 'npm install' and get all of the dependencies local to that app.
So to answer your question install gulp-livereload locally. But other modules such as gulp, nodemon, etc you would have both global and local.
As an extra help if you want to install gulp as a project dependency but have it globally as well you can run 'npm link gulp' in order to keep them in sync.
Also, you can have just one global version while, using the local one, you can use for a specific project the specific version used while developing it.