We need to integrate Karma test runner into TeamCity and for that I'd like to give sys-engineers small script (powershell or whatever) that would:
pick up desired version number from some config file (I guess I can put it as a comment right in the karma.conf.js
)
check if the defined version of karma runner installed in npm's global repo
if it's not, or the installed version is older than desired: pick up and install right version
run it: karma start .\Scripts-Tests\karma.conf.js --reporters teamcity --single-run
So my real question is: "how can one check in a script, if desired version of package installed?". Should you do the check, or it's safe to just call npm -g install
everytime?
I don't want to always check and install the latest available version, because other config values may become incompatible
To check if any module in a project is 'old' you should do:
npm outdated
'outdated' will check every module defined in package.json and see if there is a newer version in the NPM registry.
Here is an example, showing that xml2js (that is in node_modules/ in the current directory) is outdated, because a newer version exists (0.2.7):
xml2js@0.2.7 node_modules/xml2js current=0.2.6
If you want to check for outdated modules and install newer version then you can do:
npm update
(for all modules) or npm update xml2js
(only checks/updates xml2js)
Have a look at the NPM docs:
- https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/outdated
- https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/update
npm outdated
will identify packages that should be updated, and npm update <package name>
can be used to update each package. But npm update <package name>
will not update the versions in your package.json which is an issue.
The best workflow is to:
- Identify out of date packages
- Update the versions in your package.json
- Run
npm update
to install the latest versions of each package
Check out npm-check-updates
to help with this workflow.
- Install npm-check-updates
- Run
npm-check-updates
to list what packages are out of date (basically the same thing as running npm outdated
)
- Run
npm-check-updates -u
to update all the versions in your package.json (this is the magic sauce)
- Run
npm update
as usual to install the new versions of your packages based on the updated package.json
There is also a "fresh" module called npm-check
:
npm-check
Check for outdated, incorrect, and unused dependencies.
It also provides a convenient interactive way to update the dependencies.
This way it is not necessary to update your local package.json
file.
Note that this will update your package to the latest version.
And with npm list (package_name)
you can find out the current version of your local packages.
One easy step:
$ npm i -g npm-check-updates && ncu -a && npm i
That is all. All of the package versions in package.json
will be the latest.
Edit:
What is happening here?
Installing a package that checks updates for you.
Use this package to update all package versions in your package.json
(-a is short for --updateAll).
Install all of the new versions of the packages.
When installing npm packages (both globally or locally) you can define a specific version by using the @version
syntax to define a version to be installed.
In other words, doing:
npm install -g karma@0.9.2
will ensure that only 0.9.2 is installed and won't reinstall if it already exists.
As a word of a advice, I would suggest avoiding global npm installs wherever you can. Many people don't realize that if a dependency defines a bin file, it gets installed to ./node_modules/.bin/. Often, its very easy to use that local version of an installed module that is defined in your package.json. In fact, npm scripts will add the ./node_modules/.bin onto your path.
As an example, here is a package.json that, when I run npm install && npm test
will install the version of karma defined in my package.json, and use that version of karma (installed at node_modules/.bin/karma) when running the test
script:
{
"name": "myApp",
"main": "app.js",
"scripts": {
"test": "karma test/*",
},
"dependencies": {...},
"devDependencies": {
"karma": "0.9.2"
}
}
This gives you the benefit of your package.json defining the version of karma to use and not having to keep that config globally on your CI box.
Check outdated packages
npm outdated
Check and pick packages to update
npx npm-check -u
npm oudated img
npx npm-check -u img
npm install -g npm-check-updates
ncu -f your-intended-package-name -u