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install-if-needed

v1.0.4

Published

installs the given modules if needed

Downloads

723

Readme

install-if-needed

stable

Installs the given list of modules and saves them into their respective fields in your nearest package.json. Dependencies that already exist in your package.json will be skipped.

var install = require('install-if-needed')

install({
  dependencies: ['through2'],
  devDependencies: ['[email protected]', 'standard']
}, function(err) {
  if (err)
    console.error("There was an error installing.")
})

You can pass { stdio: 'inherit' } to preserve logging and colors, acting like the usual npm install command.

Usage

NPM

install(opt[, cb])

Looks at package JSON and installs any of the specified dependencies that are not listed in their respective field.

  • cwd the directory for the closest package.json, (default process.cwd())
  • package optional package data, if not defined will search for closest package.json
  • save whether to --save, --save-dev and --save-optional (default true)
  • dependencies dependencies to install
  • devDependencies dev dependencies to install
  • optionalDependencies optional dependencies to install
  • command the command to spawn when installing, defaults to 'npm'

Other options are passed to spawn-npm-install.

On complete, cb is called with (err) status. All dependencies also accept a single string instead of an array.

Alternatively, opt can be a string or array, which is the same as listing it in dependencies.

//e.g.
//  npm install tape --save
install('tape', done)

Motivation

This helps build CLI tooling that auto-installs modules as needed. For example, a tool which stubs out an empty test file for tape:

#!/usr/bin/env node
var install = require('install-if-needed')
var fs = require('fs')
var template = fs.readFileSync(__dirname + '/template.js')

install({
  devDependencies: 'tape'
}, function(err) {
  if (err) throw err
  fs.writeFile(process.argv[2], template)
})

And the CLI might be as simple as:

quick-tape tests/simple.js

License

MIT, see LICENSE.md for details.