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Omkar Bhavare
Omkar Bhavare

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What is npm?

πŸ” What is npm? πŸ“¦

npm is an open-source repository of tools & libraries created by the developers. It serves as a central-hub for JavaScript Community, offering a vast collection of resusable code packages to enhance and accelerate their projects.

🀝 Benefits of npm

  • Easy Package Management: npm simplifies the process of managing external libraries and tools, making it easy to add, update, and remove dependencies in your project.
  • Code Reusability: Access to a vast repository of packages enables developers to reuse existing, well-tested code, saving time and effort in building common functionalities.
  • Version Control: npm helps ensure version consistency by allowing developers to specify the exact versions or version ranges of dependencies, reducing compatibility issues.
  • Community Collaboration: npm fosters community collaboration by allowing developers to share their code, contributing to a collaborative ecosystem of shared knowledge and resources.

πŸ› οΈ How NPM Works: A Step-by-Step Guide πŸš€

1.Project Initialization: Developers kickstart a new project by running npm init in the project directory. This command generates a package.json file that acts as a manifest for the project, containing metadata and dependency information.

npm init
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2.Developers specify these dependencies in the package.json file and install them using the npm install command.

npm install lodash
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3.NPM automatically creates a node_modules directory where it stores the installed packages. These dependencies are recorded in the package.json file under the dependencies section.

"dependencies": {
  "lodash": "^4.17.21"
}
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4.NPM uses semantic versioning to define package versions. Developers can specify version ranges in the package.json file to allow for flexibility in updating packages.

"dependencies": {
  "lodash": "^4.17.21"
}
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5.The package-lock.json file provides specific version information for each package that is currently being used in a project.

{
  "name": "my-blog",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "lockfileVersion": 2,
  "dependencies": {
    "lodash": {
      "version": "4.17.21",
      "resolved": "https://registry.npmjs.org/lodash/-/lodash-4.17.21.tgz",
      "integrity": "sha512-...
      "dev": true
    }
  }
}

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Coming up next: πŸ”

  1. Semantic Versioning:
  2. Dependency vs DevDependency:
  3. Local & Global Package Installation:

Stay tuned for more insights into the world of JavaScript development! πŸš€πŸ“¦

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