npm check and update package if needed

To check if any module in a project is 'old':

npm outdated

'outdated' will check every module defined in package.json and see if there is a newer version in the NPM registry.

For example, say xml2js 0.2.6 (located in node_modules in the current project) is outdated because a newer version exists (0.2.7). You would see:

[email protected] node_modules/xml2js current=0.2.6

To update all dependencies, if you are confident this is desirable:

npm update

Or, to update a single dependency such as xml2js:

npm update xml2js

To update package.json version numbers, append the --save flag:

npm update --save

npm outdated will identify packages that should be updated, and npm update <package name> can be used to update each package. But prior to [email protected], npm update <package name> will not update the versions in your package.json which is an issue.

The best workflow is to:

1. Identify out of date packages with npm outdated
2. Update the versions in your package.json
3. Run npm update to install the latest versions of each package

Check out npm-check-updates to help with this workflow.

• Install npm-check-updates
• Run npm-check-updates to list what packages are out of date (basically the same thing as running npm outdated)
• Run npm-check-updates -u to update all the versions in your package.json (this is the magic sauce)
• Run npm update as usual to install the new versions of your packages based on the updated package.json