CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jsversion
chikitin
chikitin

Reputation: 781

Figuring out the node version of an existing Node.js Application

I have a old Node.js application that I need to rebuild it to run it using my current Node installed. I have the node_modules folder. However, I cannot figures it was created using what version of Node. I searched for the term 'engine', but I had not success. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 108

Answers (1)

dpopp07
dpopp07

Reputation: 741

The engines property can be used to define which versions of Node your application can run on, but it is optional. Without it, there is no way of knowing what version on Node the app was developed on. You could have switched Node versions during development and if there were no breaking changes, the application would have no idea.

Something you could try to do is look at the dependencies in your node_modules/ folder - if the dependencies are the same versions that you installed when originally developing, they might have engines properties in their package.json files that you could look at and piece together a picture of what Node version the application was developed for.

If you are trying to update the app to use a modern Node version, an easy way forward is to simply run the app, see what breaks, look up documentation to see what has changed between versions, and update your code until it works as expected.

TL;DR - There is no definitive way of knowing what the Node version was when the app was developed, unless it was documented by the developer.

Upvotes: 1

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