npm check and update package if needed

To check if any module in a project is 'old':

npm outdated

'outdated' will check every module defined in package.json and see if there is a newer version in the NPM registry.

For example, say xml2js 0.2.6 (located in node_modules in the current project) is outdated because a newer version exists (0.2.7). You would see:

[email protected] node_modules/xml2js current=0.2.6

To update all dependencies, if you are confident this is desirable:

npm update

Or, to update a single dependency such as xml2js:

npm update xml2js

npm outdated will identify packages that should be updated, and npm update <package name> can be used to update each package. But prior to [email protected], npm update <package name> will not update the versions in your package.json which is an issue.

The best workflow is to:

1. Identify out of date packages
2. Update the versions in your package.json
3. 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• Run npm-check-updates to list what packages are out of date (basically the same thing as running npm outdated)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Check for outdated, incorrect, and unused dependencies.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 with npm-check -u.

One easy step:

$ npm i -g npm-check-updates && ncu -u && npm i

That is all. All of the package versions in package.json will be the latest major versions.

Edit:

What is happening here?

1. Installing a package that checks updates for you.

2. Use this package to update all package versions in your package.json (-u is short for --updateAll).

3. Install all of the new versions of the packages.