debashish2014/local-package-publisher

A utility app for publishing your npm packages locally for testing

local-package-publisher

A utility app for publishing your npm packages locally for testing, which works !!

About

You have created this awesome npm package and you want to test it locally, before publishing to NPM repository. What are the options you have?

Well, below are some of the possible options, but each of them has some caveat, and as a result, it found out need for this project.

1. Symbolic Linking :

   At the root directory of your npm package under test, run the command npm link. It would create a symbolic link to the entire folder to the global namespace. So, a folder will be created in the directory where global packages are stored with the name that is same as that of the value of name property in package.json.

   To test/consume this package, at the root of the target project, run npm link [name], where [name] is the value of name property in package.json which is being consumed.

   Cons: Every file in the directory gets linked, which can create problems and can interfere with the build process if the linked package is consumed in another project.

2. Local NPM Repository :

   You can publish the package under test to a local npm repository hosted using these awesome projects like CNPM,Sinopia, Verdaccio, local-npm etc.

   Cons: You will need to change the registry which npm is pointing to by running npm set registry http://localhost:[port].

   For most of us this might not be a feasible option due to several reasons, but if it does then it is indeed an option worth considering.

3. Manual Process :

   You can first run npm pack command at the root directory of the project under test. It will generate a tar file with the name [package-name]-[version].tgz.

   Then, unzip the tar file content to a directory, separate from your project.

   Go, to this new directory where the tar contents have been extracted, and run npm link from the directory root. Rest of the steps are same as option 1.

   Cons: The process is a bit cumbersome and involves a lot of steps.

I have found out the third option i.e. Manual Process to be most elegant, even though it requires more steps since it relies on npm pack and it ensures that the content it packs will be same as that of when it will be actually published to NPM repository.

This project is an effort to automate this manual process.

Installation

npm install --save-dev local-package-publisher

To install the package locally to the project

or

npm install -g local-package-publisher

To install the package globally

Usage

Say, you have created a project with the name my-awesome-new-package

To publish this package, go to root directory of the project and run below command:

local-package-publisher -p

or

local-package-publisher --publish

Once you run this command it will give you below success message.

my-awesome-new-package package published successfully to global

This command will publish the package globally. It will also create a directory .local-pack with a setings.json file in it, in your project. Please do not delete it.

You can safely add below line to .gitignore as well.

.local-pack

Thats it !! Now whenever you do any modification in the project and you want to publish the changes, just run the local-package-publisher -p command again.

Now, to consume this published package, just go the root directory of the project where you want to consume it, and run below command. It needs to be done only once.

npm link my-awesome-new-package

Note: No need to run above command again and again.

Once, you are done and you want to remove the published package from global, run below command in the root directory of my-awesome-new-package project:

local-package-publisher -u

or

local-package-publisher --unpublish

Once you run this command it will give you below message.

my-awesome-new-package package has been removed from global

Credit

local-package-publisher wouldn't be possible without using the modules from the following authors:

• Sindre Sorhus
• Josh Junon
• JP Richardson
• TJ Holowaychuk
• Moxystudio
• Forbes Lindesay
• KARASZI István

License

Licensed under MIT

Copyright (c) 2019-2020 Debashish Pal

local-package-publisher's Issues

Breaks with `npx`

I tried publishing 2 packages with npx local-package-publisher -p and the second time there was problem accessing the cache.

I then tried to install the package globally but the cache is still broken and now I don't know how to fix it.

Publish fails on Windows

When I try to publish on Windows, I get no such file or directory errors. I'm guessing this is a path issue, where somehow it's not recognizing the OS and not converting /'s to 's or something?

The specific error is:

C:\Users\{userName}\AppData\Roaming\npm/node: line 8: C:\Users\{userName}\AppData\Roaming\npm/node_modules/node/bin/node: No such file or directory

Windows 11 Pro; version 10.0.22000 Build 22000

Is there a workaround for this?

Add possibility to specifiy folder to publish

Hey,

this is a really useful library, thanks for sharing it!

However, for my current problem I'm trying to locally publish an Angular library, so the contents to be published lie under dist/. I think the easiest would be, to have another CLI option to specify the path to be published. Do you think this is possible to be added?

Thanks in advance
Alex

Temp folder issue (Mac Os X).

Hi guys.
Following the documentation, I tried to globally publish a package name super running local-package-publisher --publish in the project root directory.
I'm on Mac Os X (with node version v15.14.0) and get an error like the following:

super package published successfully to global
To consume this package, run npm link super in target project
node:internal/bootstrap/switches/does_own_process_state:112
  rawMethods.chdir(directory);
             ^

Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, chdir '/Volumes/x/dev/super' -> '/var/folders/vf/9bptzv4d4cxfym7g6bt9yyrw0000gn/T/tmp-60750SDC706yNP5V'
    at process.wrappedChdir (node:internal/bootstrap/switches/does_own_process_state:112:14)
    at process.chdir (/Users/me/.nvm/versions/node/v15.14.0/lib/node_modules/local-package-publisher/node_modules/graceful-fs/polyfills.js:22:11)
    at /Users/me/.nvm/versions/node/v15.14.0/lib/node_modules/local-package-publisher/index.js:138:17
    at new Promise (<anonymous>)
    at linkDirGlobal (/Users/me/.nvm/versions/node/v15.14.0/lib/node_modules/local-package-publisher/index.js:129:12)
    at /Users/me/.nvm/versions/node/v15.14.0/lib/node_modules/local-package-publisher/index.js:324:13 {
  errno: -2,
  code: 'ENOENT',
  syscall: 'chdir',
  path: '/Volumes/x/dev/super',
  dest: '/var/folders/vf/9bptzv4d4cxfym7g6bt9yyrw0000gn/T/tmp-60750SDC706yNP5V'
}

The .local-pack folder is created and contains the settings.json file with the following content:

{"TempPath":"/var/folders/vf/9bptzv4d4cxfym7g6bt9yyrw0000gn/T/tmp-60750SDC706yNP5V"}

It's like there is a problem with the temp folder, it doesn't seem to be created.

Any idea? Thanks!

Hangs on publish

When I try to use this tool it hangs when I try to publish my package. I left it running for 3 hours last night.

It creates the <package>-<version>.tgz file in the root folder of the package.

Unfortunately, it never builds the .local-pack folder and it does not seem to create the npm link for my project to use, because in my project that consumes it, I use npm link <package> and then npm install <package> and it is still pulling from the externally published registry with the previous version.

Installs all the dev dependencies when publishing

Actual behavior:
With package.json looking similiar to this:

  "name": "@mynamespace/mypackage",
  "description": "....",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "main": "dist/index.js",
  "module": "dist/index.es.js",
  "files": [
    "dist"
  ],
  "peerDependencies": {
    "classnames": "^2.2.6",
    "dinero.js": "^1.8.0",
    "@material-ui/core": "^4.9.5",
    "@material-ui/icons": "^4.9.1",
    "@material-ui/lab": "^4.0.0-alpha.46",
     .........
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "classnames": "^2.2.6",
    "dinero.js": "^1.8.0",
    "axios": "^0.21.1",
    "prop-types": "^15.7.2",
    "react-responsive": "^8.2.0",
    "lodash.throttle": "^4.1.1",
    "js-cookie": "^2.2.1",
    "moment": "^2.28.0",
    "react-html-parser": "^2.0.2",
     "react": "^16.13.0",
    "react-dom": "^16.13.0",
    "react-i18next": "^11.8.5",
    "react-responsive": "^8.2.0",
     .......

it seems to be installing all the dev dependencies when publishing.

Expected behavior: install only peers if missing.

Broken on Win 11;

Still having an issue similar to #5 #3 where I get
Error: EPERM: operation not permitted, unlink 'C:\Users\Benjy\AppData\Local\Temp\tmp-21752-ol0DdkWDa11N\mypackage-ui-1.0.27.tgz' Failed to publish package to global

Also, when I go to the temp folder tmp-21752-ol0DdkWDa11N it's empty;

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