Is there a way to automatically build the package.json file for Node.js projects

Question

Is package.json supposed to be manually edited? Couldn\'t a program like npm just look through the files, see the \"require\" statements, and then use that to put the necess

Answer 1

Command line:

npm init

will create package.json file

To install , update and uninstall packages under dependencies into package.json file:

Command line :

npm install <pkg>@* --save 

will automatically add the latest version for the package under dependencies into package.json file

EX:

npm install node-markdown@* --save

Command line:

npm install <pkg> --save

also will automatically add the latest version for the package under dependencies into package.json file

if you need specific version for a package use this Command line:

npm install <pkg>@<version> --save

will automatically add specific version of package under dependencies into package.json file

EX:

npm install koa-views@1.0.0 --save

if you need specific range of version for a package use this Command line:

npm install <pkg>@<version range>

will automatically add the latest version for the package between range of version under dependencies into package.json file

EX:

npm install koa-views@">1.0.0 <1.2.0" --save

For more details about how to write version for package npm Doc

Command line:

npm update --save

will update packages into package.json file and will automatically add updated version for all packages under dependencies into package.json file

Command line:

npm uninstall <pkg> --save

will automatically remove package from dependencies into package.json file and remove package from node_module folder

Answer 2

You can now use Yeoman - Modern Web App Scaffolding Tool on node terminal using 3 easy steps.

First, you'll need to install yo and other required tools:

$ npm install -g yo bower grunt-cli gulp

To scaffold a web application, install the generator-webapp generator:

$ npm install -g generator-webapp  // create scaffolding 

Run yo and... you are all done:

$ yo webapp  // create scaffolding 

Yeoman can write boilerplate code for your entire web application or Controllers and Models. It can fire up a live-preview web server for edits and compile; not just that you can also run your unit tests, minimize and concatenate your code, optimize images, and more...

Yeoman (yo) - scaffolding tool that offers an ecosystem of framework-specific scaffolds, called generators, that can be used to perform some of the tedious tasks mentioned earlier.

Grunt / gulp - used to build, preview, and test your project.

Bower - is used for dependency management, so that you no longer have to manually download your front-end libraries.

Answer 3

Based on Pylinux's answer, below is a solution for Windows OS,

dir node_modules > abc.txt
FOR /F %k in (abc.txt) DO npm install --save

Hope it helps.

Answer 4

First off, run

npm init

...will ask you a few questions (read this first) about your project/package and then generate a package.json file for you.

Then, once you have a package.json file, use

npm install <pkg> --save

or

npm install <pkg> --save-dev

...to install a dependency and automatically append it to your package.json's dependencies list.

(Note: You may need to manually tweak the version ranges for your dependencies.)