#PACKAGE.JSON CARET MEANING HOW TO#
#PACKAGE.JSON CARET MEANING INSTALL#
#PACKAGE.JSON CARET MEANING UPDATE#

#PACKAGE.JSON CARET MEANING HOW TO#

How to check if an npm package is installed globally or locally?.

Difference between -save and -save-dev in Node.js.

What is the meaning of -save in npm install?.

What is tilde (~) and caret (^) in package.json?.

How to remove event listeners in Node.js?.

#PACKAGE.JSON CARET MEANING UPDATE#

How to update Node.js to the latest version on Mac?.Everything You Wanted To Know About package-lock.Your package can exist without package-lock.json but you should understand what you're doing, and you shouldn't create ease of management or contribution for 'as long as it works'. What is the purpose of package-lock.json?, Why is package-lock.json longer?, Why do packages work perfectly without package-lock.json?, Do I need to use the two in my package?, What are the differences? - I believe all these questions (and probably more) have been answered. However, there are better solutions than deleting the lock file. Several misconceptions lead to this solution. has also been a popular recommended solution to some errors. However, these packages are prone to bugs (from new releases of their dependencies). Some packages work effectively without this file despite the benefit it brings. While package-json shows you express, package-lock.json would show you a dependency of express.

It locks all versions of the dependencies and sub dependencies (and sub, sub, sub) that your package would need. It doesn't only lock the version of the packages in the package.json. It ensures similar dependencies in various environments where the package is being worked on.

#PACKAGE.JSON CARET MEANING INSTALL#

The major benefit of this file is that when your package is working perfectly (with all the dependencies used) on your system, you are sure that any attempt to install the package on another system would work exactly. This means that you should also commit package-lock.json to your source control. If this file is absent, npm would then work with the caret symbol. This means when you run npm install on another system, npm checks this file to install the exact versions of the dependencies. With package-lock.json, the versions of all dependencies your package would need are locked ( -lock). Remember the caret symbol in package.json dependencies? You could manually remove that symbol when you install a dependency, but that would be stressful. You'll find this file a bit similar to package.json - holding some information about your file, but there's more to it. Here's a typical example of a package-lock.json file: But when you install a package, you'd notice the package-lock.json file (usually very long) automatically created. After doing this, a package.json file is created. The common method of starting a package is npm init. npm released the package-lock.json file to solve this issue. Ok, the bad side is that latest versions may contain bugs or may contain incompatible codes for your codebase. Bad: you always get to use the latest versions of packages.Good: you always get to use the latest versions of packages.This feature comes with a good and a bad side effect.Ī higher major version of a package with 1.3.5 can be 1.4.7, 1.9.3 but cannot be 2.0.0 or more. When you run npm install on that other system, with the symbol there, npm would check if there is a higher major version, and if there is, that version is installed. Let's say you pushed that project to a repository and cloned it on another system. The package would be saved in package.json's dependencies object with a value of '^ '. When you install a package with npm like this: This symbol signifies to npm that higher major versions of this package can be installed.

You'd also notice the caret symbol ( ^) used in front of the dependencies' version numbers. Package.json holds important information of your package.

devDependencies: It contains dependencies which are not required for your package to be used during production.

dependencies: It contains dependencies which would be required by your package to work.

scripts: It contains a list of custom scripts which can be run with npm.

In cases where your package is required without a path to a file (like this: require('package-name')), the main file is used.

main: The path to the default file which Node.js uses as a starting point for your package.

description: The purpose of your package.

It contains meta-information about the package like versioning information, what the package is about, dependencies of the package, how to set up the package and so much more. This is a file usually found in packages. In this article, we'd answer all the questions above. What is the purpose of package-lock.json? Why is package-lock.json longer? Why do packages work perfectly without package-lock.json? Do I need to use the two in my package? What are the differences? Package.json and package-lock.json are two very common files you'll find in most packages.

Package.json caret meaning