CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jsjsonnpm
Nicky
Nicky

Reputation: 3817

How to disable local package dependency for `npm install --prefix`?

I have a project with at its root the following simplified package.json file:

package.json

{
  "name": "parent-project",
  "dependencies": {
    ...
  }
}

In a subfolder that we'll call child-project, another package.json resides:

child-project / package.json

{
  "name": "child-project",
  "dependencies": {
    ...
  }
}

Some code that I depend on uses the command npm --prefix ./child-project install to install dependencies in child-project. However, this always has the undesirable side-effect of altering child-project/package.json like so:

{
  "name": "child-project",
  "dependencies": {
    ...
    "parent-project": "file:.." // <- I don't want this!
  }
}

When I execute cd ./child-project && npm install all is fine and child-project/package.json remains untouched, so my hunch is that it has to do with --prefix but documentation on --prefix is very obscure.

Is there a way to disable this behaviour and prevent NPM from altering the child-project/package.json?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1130

Answers (1)

Mostafa Fakhraei
Mostafa Fakhraei

Reputation: 3687

Seems like there are some issues with the --prefix.

However, I couldn't find any issue while I was testing with different modules which have sub-packages.

Hence, according to one of the npm contributors, it is going to be refactored or removed in a future release, which means it is not the best choice to use it at least for now. So I recommend you go through the traditional way and avoid using --prefix.

I think we're gonna close this as a wontfix as --prefix is not the best flag to be promoting. We do eventually want to refactor or remove it but for now we should at least not be promoting it.

Upvotes: 2

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