Node.js – How to override nested NPM dependency versions

node.jsnpm

I would like to use the grunt-contrib-jasmine NPM package. It has various dependencies. Part of the dependency graph looks like this:

─┬ grunt-contrib-jasmine@0.4.1
 │ ├─┬ grunt-lib-phantomjs@0.2.0
 │ │ ├─┬ phantomjs@1.8.2-2

Unfortunately, there's a bug in this version phantomjs which prevents it from installing correctly on Mac OS X. This is fixed in the latest version.

How can I get grunt-lib-phantomjs to use a newer version of phantomjs?

Some additional context:

grunt-contrib-jasmine explicitly requires version "~0.2.0" of grunt-lib-phantomjs, which explicitly requires version "~1.8.1" of phantomjs.
Adding phantomjs to my package's dependencies first has no effect; both versions are installed and grunt-contrib-jasmine still uses the older versions (see: When installing a package with NPM, can you tell it to use a different version of one of its dependencies?).

Best Answer

You can use npm shrinkwrap functionality, in order to override any dependency or sub-dependency.

I've just done this in a grunt project of ours. We needed a newer version of connect, since 2.7.3. was causing trouble for us. So I created a file named npm-shrinkwrap.json:

{
  "dependencies": {
    "grunt-contrib-connect": {
      "version": "0.3.0",
      "from": "grunt-contrib-connect@0.3.0",
      "dependencies": {
        "connect": {
          "version": "2.8.1",
          "from": "connect@~2.7.3"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

npm should automatically pick it up while doing the install for the project.

(See: https://nodejs.org/en/blog/npm/managing-node-js-dependencies-with-shrinkwrap/)

Related Solutions

Node.js – How to update NodeJS and NPM to the next versions

See the docs for the update command:

npm update [-g] [<pkg>...]

This command will update all the packages listed to the latest version (specified by the tag config), respecting semver.

Additionally, see the documentation on Node.js and NPM installation and Upgrading NPM.

The following original answer is from the old FAQ that no longer exists, but should work for Linux and Mac:

How do I update npm?
npm install -g npm
Please note that this command will remove your current version of npm. Make sure to use sudo npm install -g npm if on a Mac.

You can also update all outdated local packages by doing npm update without any arguments, or global packages by doing npm update -g.

Occasionally, the version of npm will progress such that the current version cannot be properly installed with the version that you have installed already. (Consider, if there is ever a bug in the update command.) In those cases, you can do this:
curl https://www.npmjs.com/install.sh | sh

To update Node.js itself, I recommend you use nvm, the Node Version Manager.

Node.js – Find the version of an installed npm package

npm list for local packages or npm list -g for globally installed packages.

You can find the version of a specific package by passing its name as an argument. For example, npm list grunt will result in:

projectName@projectVersion /path/to/project/folder
└── grunt@0.4.1

Alternatively, you can just run npm list without passing a package name as an argument to see the versions of all your packages:

├─┬ cli-color@0.1.6 
│ └── es5-ext@0.7.1 
├── coffee-script@1.3.3 
├── less@1.3.0 
├─┬ sentry@0.1.2 
│ ├── file@0.2.1 
│ └── underscore@1.3.3 
└── uglify-js@1.2.6

You can also add --depth=0 argument to list installed packages without their dependencies.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Node.js – How to update NodeJS and NPM to the next versions

How do I update npm?

Node.js – Find the version of an installed npm package

Related Topic