Jitesh Chawla

What is NPM?

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Jitesh Chawla
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3 min read

NPM stands for the Node Package Manager. It is responsible for handling the dependencies required for the node. It helps to install modules/packages on your system.

Installation

You should have node.js installed in your system. Npm is pre-installed in it.

Initializing the Node Directory

npm init

In my system, I am using gitbash as a terminal. When you initialize the npm, You will have a series of questions including author name, license, name, etc. All this file will be saved in the file named package.json. If you want to skip all the question, you can do that by using the command

npm init --y

OR

npm init --yes

Package.json

  1. It is a manifest file with app info. 2.It contains dependencies such as name, version, etc. 3.It help to update the version of dependencies using

This is how package.json may look like

{
  "name": "npmapp",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC",
  }

Now if you want to change just the author name and want to skip the other question simultaneously, You can do it by following the steps

npm config set init-author-name "Hans Zimmer"

npm  init

You can set the other defaults as well such as version, using npm config set

A package.json will be made with the author's name as Hans Zimmer. Note that you have to delete the existing package.json file to get another package.json file

How to get Default

npm config get init-author-name

It will Return you Hans Zimmer.

Local Packages

Installation

npm install lodash --save

OR

npm install --save lodash

Uninstallation

npm uninstall lodash --save

OR

npm uninstall --save lodash

Dev dependencies

Installation

npm install gulp gulp-sass --save-dev

Uninstallation

npm uninstall gulp gulp-sass --save-dev

Global Packages

Nodemon is one of the global package.

Installation

npm install -g nodemon

Uninstallation

npm uninstall -g nodemon

Find the root folder of global package

npm root -g

Listing packages

npm list

npm list --depth 0

npm list --depth 1

Thank you

npmNode.js