What's the difference between tilde(~) and car

Question

After I upgraded to latest stable node and npm, I tried npm install moment --save. It saves the entry in the package.json with the caret(^) prefix. Previously, it was a tilde(~) prefix.

1. Why are these changes made in npm?
2. What is the difference between tilde(~) and caret(^)?
3. What is the advantages over others?

Answer 1

~ : Reasonably close to

   ~1.1.5: 1.1.0 <= accepted < 1.2.0

^: Compatible with

   ^1.1.5: 1.1.5 <= accepted < 2.0.0

   ^0.1.3: 0.1.3 <= accepted < 0.2.0

   ^0.0.4: 0.0.4 <= accepted < 0.1.0

Answer 2

The version number is in syntax which designates each section with different meaning. syntax is broken into three sections separated by a dot.

major.minor.patch 1.0.2

Major, minor and patch represent the different releases of a package.

npm uses the tilde (~) and caret (^) to designate which patch and minor versions to use respectively.

So if you see ~1.0.2 it means to install version 1.0.2 or the latest patch version such as 1.0.4. If you see ^1.0.2 it means to install version 1.0.2 or the latest minor or patch version such as 1.1.0.