Download source from npm without installing it

Question

How can I download the source code of a package from npm without actually installing it (i.e. without using npm install thepackage)?

Answer 1

Based on Gustavo Rodrigues's answer, fixes "package" directory in .tgz, adds latest minor version discovery.

#!/bin/bash

if [[ $# -eq 0 ]] ; then
    echo "Usage: $0 jquery bootstrap@3 tinymce@4.5"
    exit 64 ## EX_USAGE
fi

set -e ## So nothing gets deleted if download fails

for pkg_name in "$@"
do

    ## Get latest version, also works with plain name
    url=$( npm v $pkg_name dist.tarball | tail -n 1 | cut -d \' -f 2 )
    tmp_dir=$( mktemp -d -p . "${pkg_name}__XXXXXXXXX" )

    ## Unpacks to directory named after package@version
    curl $url | tar -xzf - --strip 1 --directory $tmp_dir
    rm -rf $pkg_name
    mv $tmp_dir $pkg_name
done