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195 lines
8.2 KiB
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<title>developers</title>
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<h1><a href="../doc/developers.html">developers</a></h1> <p>Developer Guide</p>
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<h2 id="DESCRIPTION">DESCRIPTION</h2>
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<p>So, you've decided to use npm to develop (and maybe publish/deploy)
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your project.</p>
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<p>Fantastic!</p>
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<p>There are a few things that you need to do above the simple steps
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that your users will do to install your program.</p>
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<h2 id="About-These-Documents">About These Documents</h2>
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<p>These are man pages. If you install npm, you should be able to
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then do <code>man npm-thing</code> to get the documentation on a particular
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topic, or <code>npm help thing</code> to see the same information.</p>
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<h2 id="What-is-a-package">What is a <code>package</code></h2>
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<p>A package is:</p>
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<ul><li>a) a folder containing a program described by a package.json file</li><li>b) a gzipped tarball containing (a)</li><li>c) a url that resolves to (b)</li><li>d) a <code><name>@<version></code> that is published on the registry with (c)</li><li>e) a <code><name>@<tag></code> that points to (d)</li><li>f) a <code><name></code> that has a "latest" tag satisfying (e)</li><li>g) a <code>git</code> url that, when cloned, results in (a).</li></ul>
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<p>Even if you never publish your package, you can still get a lot of
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benefits of using npm if you just want to write a node program (a), and
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perhaps if you also want to be able to easily install it elsewhere
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after packing it up into a tarball (b).</p>
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<p>Git urls can be of the form:</p>
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<pre><code>git://github.com/user/project.git#commit-ish
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git+ssh://user@hostname:project.git#commit-ish
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git+http://user@hostname/project/blah.git#commit-ish
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git+https://user@hostname/project/blah.git#commit-ish</code></pre>
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<p>The <code>commit-ish</code> can be any tag, sha, or branch which can be supplied as
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an argument to <code>git checkout</code>. The default is <code>master</code>.</p>
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<h2 id="The-package-json-File">The package.json File</h2>
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<p>You need to have a <code>package.json</code> file in the root of your project to do
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much of anything with npm. That is basically the whole interface.</p>
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<p>See <code><a href="../doc/json.html">json(1)</a></code> for details about what goes in that file. At the very
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least, you need:</p>
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<ul><li><p>name:
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This should be a string that identifies your project. Please do not
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use the name to specify that it runs on node, or is in JavaScript.
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You can use the "engines" field to explicitly state the versions of
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node (or whatever else) that your program requires, and it's pretty
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well assumed that it's javascript.</p><p>It does not necessarily need to match your github repository name.</p><p>So, <code>node-foo</code> and <code>bar-js</code> are bad names. <code>foo</code> or <code>bar</code> are better.</p></li><li><p>version:
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A semver-compatible version.</p></li><li><p>engines:
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Specify the versions of node (or whatever else) that your program
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runs on. The node API changes a lot, and there may be bugs or new
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functionality that you depend on. Be explicit.</p></li><li><p>author:
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Take some credit.</p></li><li><p>scripts:
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If you have a special compilation or installation script, then you
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should put it in the <code>scripts</code> hash. You should definitely have at
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least a basic smoke-test command as the "scripts.test" field.
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See <a href="../doc/scripts.html">scripts(1)</a>.</p></li><li><p>main:
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If you have a single module that serves as the entry point to your
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program (like what the "foo" package gives you at require("foo")),
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then you need to specify that in the "main" field.</p></li><li><p>directories:
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This is a hash of folders. The best ones to include are "lib" and
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"doc", but if you specify a folder full of man pages in "man", then
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they'll get installed just like these ones.</p></li></ul>
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<p>You can use <code>npm init</code> in the root of your package in order to get you
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started with a pretty basic package.json file. See <code><a href="../doc/init.html">init(1)</a></code> for
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more info.</p>
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<h2 id="Keeping-files-out-of-your-package">Keeping files <em>out</em> of your package</h2>
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<p>Use a <code>.npmignore</code> file to keep stuff out of your package. If there's
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no .npmignore file, but there <em>is</em> a .gitignore file, then npm will
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ignore the stuff matched by the .gitignore file. If you <em>want</em> to
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include something that is excluded by your .gitignore file, you can
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create an empty .npmignore file to override it.</p>
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<h2 id="Link-Packages">Link Packages</h2>
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<p><code>npm link</code> is designed to install a development package and see the
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changes in real time without having to keep re-installing it. (You do
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need to either re-link or <code>npm rebuild -g</code> to update compiled packages,
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of course.)</p>
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<p>More info at <code><a href="../doc/link.html">link(1)</a></code>.</p>
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<h2 id="Before-Publishing-Make-Sure-Your-Package-Installs-and-Works">Before Publishing: Make Sure Your Package Installs and Works</h2>
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<p><strong>This is important.</strong></p>
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<p>If you can not install it locally, you'll have
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problems trying to publish it. Or, worse yet, you'll be able to
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publish it, but you'll be publishing a broken or pointless package.
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So don't do that.</p>
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<p>In the root of your package, do this:</p>
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<pre><code>npm install . -g</code></pre>
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<p>That'll show you that it's working. If you'd rather just create a symlink
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package that points to your working directory, then do this:</p>
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<pre><code>npm link</code></pre>
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<p>Use <code>npm ls -g</code> to see if it's there.</p>
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<p>To test a local install, go into some other folder, and then do:</p>
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<pre><code>cd ../some-other-folder
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npm install ../my-package</code></pre>
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<p>to install it locally into the node_modules folder in that other place.</p>
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<p>Then go into the node-repl, and try using require("my-thing") to
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bring in your module's main module.</p>
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<h2 id="Create-a-User-Account">Create a User Account</h2>
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<p>Create a user with the adduser command. It works like this:</p>
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<pre><code>npm adduser</code></pre>
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<p>and then follow the prompts.</p>
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<p>This is documented better in <a href="../doc/adduser.html">adduser(1)</a>.</p>
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<h2 id="Publish-your-package">Publish your package</h2>
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<p>This part's easy. IN the root of your folder, do this:</p>
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<pre><code>npm publish</code></pre>
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<p>You can give publish a url to a tarball, or a filename of a tarball,
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or a path to a folder.</p>
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<p>Note that pretty much <strong>everything in that folder will be exposed</strong>
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by default. So, if you have secret stuff in there, use a
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<code>.npmignore</code> file to list out the globs to ignore, or publish
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from a fresh checkout.</p>
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<h2 id="Brag-about-it">Brag about it</h2>
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<p>Send emails, write blogs, blab in IRC.</p>
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<p>Tell the world how easy it is to install your program!</p>
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<h2 id="SEE-ALSO">SEE ALSO</h2>
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<ul><li><a href="../doc/faq.html">faq(1)</a></li><li><a href="../doc/npm.html">npm(1)</a></li><li><a href="../doc/init.html">init(1)</a></li><li><a href="../doc/json.html">json(1)</a></li><li><a href="../doc/scripts.html">scripts(1)</a></li><li><a href="../doc/publish.html">publish(1)</a></li><li><a href="../doc/adduser.html">adduser(1)</a></li><li><a href="../doc/registry.html">registry(1)</a></li></ul>
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</div>
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<p id="footer">developers — npm@1.1.49</p>
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