I've been developing a later-to-be-release Open Source project with Node as a CLI tool. The CLI itself works great I only need to test if it works while on another project, so for that I installed the projects globally npm install -g without errors, but for the life of me I can't use the CLI.
I get the following error:
The odd thing is that the directory and file does exist in the global npm folder:
This is the project's package.json:
Am I not understanding how making a npm/node CLI works? What I'm missing?
EDIT 1:
This is my index.js file:
And this is the commander.js file:
EDIT 2:
After creating a test project as #AngYC suggested I could use the test cli successfully, while inspecting the difference I found this. Inside C:\Users\Ivan\AppData\Roaming\npm the .cmd of both projects are quite different:
EDIT 3 (Solution):
After fiddling around I found out that the file that really needed the shebang (#!/usr/bin/env node) was only index.js file and not the commander.js one. Removing the shebang in that file solved the problem
You may want to try to link your local package to your global executable list.
https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/link
All you have to do is run npm link in the folder you got your tool and it should make the command available globally.
Try to uninstall cli run npm rm -g cli or sudo npm rm -g cli. Then you run: npm install cli -g
If the problem persist, you might want to remove you npm package globally, probably there might be some conflicting things running.
Type this: %appdata% (either in explorer, run prompt, or start menu).
You can simply remove all globally installed npm packages by deleting the contents of:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\npm
Then you might also want to clear all the your cache run npm cache clear or npm cache clear --force as the case might be.
Then you reinstall all your packages that were install globally again.
If problem still persist, check this:
When you run npm root -g, it yields C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules, or even, you should check your path maybe the executable binaries and .cmd files end up in C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\npm instead of C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules, you will need to add that path to the PATH env. variable.
I hope this resolves your issue.
I have a project which I will have to deploy to client Windows systems where it will not be possible to connect to internet. I currently have a folder in D:\NODE which contains node.exe and npm.cmd and a node_modules folder. To be able to run node from command line I have added D:\NODE to PATH variable.
I can have most of the modules installed locally inside node_modules of my project. However there's one - node-windows - which needs to be installed globally to work.
Following suggestion below I went to node-windows (installed globally) and packaged it up (npm pack), which created a tarball. I have then copied that file with my project and tried to install it on the test machine globally like this: npm install -g node-windows-0.1.5.tgz
I can see that it got installed in the global directory. However when I try to run the command which uses this module it complains that it cannot find it: Error: Cannot find module 'node-windows'
When I list the modules (npm list -g) it is clearly there in the list...
What do you think? And thank you.
You can install packages on a system without internet connection by packing them using built-in functionality in npm. This way, the node modules will be installed properly.
Create a package.json.
In your package.json, list all the modules you need under bundledDependencies (docs on npm).
Run npm install to install your node files before packing.
Create a tarball with npm pack.
Copy the tarball over to the machine without internet connection.
Install the modules with npm install <filename>.
Update
Regarding your comments, it looks like your globally installed node modules isn't found.
Try using the npm link command (docs on npm link):
cd yourAppFolder
npm link node-windows
1 - In system with internet access install module with this command:
npm install [module name]
2 - go to %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules[module name]\
(e.g C:\Users\janson\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\grunt-cli)
3 - run npm pack
4 - this should result in a [module name]-x.y.z.tgz file
5 - run npm i -g [module name]-x.y.z.tgz in offline system
Can someone tell me where can I find the Node.js modules, which I installed using npm?
Global libraries
You can run npm list -g to see which global libraries are installed and where they're located. Use npm list -g | head -1 for truncated output showing just the path. If you want to display only main packages not its sub-packages which installs along with it - you can use - npm list --depth=0 which will show all packages and for getting only globally installed packages, just add -g i.e. npm list -g --depth=0.
On Unix systems they are normally placed in /usr/local/lib/node or /usr/local/lib/node_modules when installed globally. If you set the NODE_PATH environment variable to this path, the modules can be found by node.
Windows XP - %USERPROFILE%\AppData\npm\node_modules
Windows 7, 8 and 10 - %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules
Non-global libraries
Non-global libraries are installed the node_modules sub folder in the folder you are currently in.
You can run npm list to see the installed non-global libraries for your current location.
When installing use -g option to install globally
npm install -g pm2 - pm2 will be installed globally. It will then typically be found in /usr/local/lib/node_modules (Use npm root -g to check where.)
npm install pm2 - pm2 will be installed locally. It will then typically be found in the local directory in /node_modules
The command npm root will tell you the effective installation directory of your npm packages.
If your current working directory is a node package or a sub-directory of a node package, npm root will tell you the local installation directory. npm root -g will show the global installation root regardless of current working directory.
Example:
$ npm root -g
/usr/local/lib/node_modules
See the documentation.
For globally-installed modules:
The other answers give you platform-specific responses, but a generic one is this:
When you install global module with npm install -g something, npm looks up a config variable prefix to know where to install the module.
You can get that value by running npm config get prefix
To display all the global modules available in that folder use npm ls -g --depth 0 (depth 0 to not display their dependencies).
If you want to change the global modules path, use npm config edit and put prefix = /my/npm/global/modules/prefix in the file or use npm config set prefix /my/npm/global/modules/prefix.
When you use some tools like nodist, they change the platform-default installation path of global npm modules.
On windows I used npm list -g to find it out. By default my (global) packages were being installed to C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Roaming\npm.
If you are looking for the executable that npm installed, maybe because you would like to put it in your PATH, you can simply do
npm bin
or
npm bin -g
If a module was installed with the global (-g) flag, you can get the parent location by running:
npm get prefix
or
npm ls -g --depth=0
which will print the location along with the list of installed modules.
Not direct answer but may help ....
The npm also has a cache folder, which can be found by running npm config get cache (%AppData%/npm-cache on Windows).
The npm modules are first downloaded here and then copied to npm global folder (%AppData%/Roaming/npm on Windows) or project specific folder (your-project/node_modules).
So if you want to track npm packages, and some how, the list of all downloaded npm packages (if the npm cache is not cleaned) have a look at this folder. The folder structure is as {cache}/{name}/{version}
This may help also https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/cache
In earlier versions of NPM modules were always placed in /usr/local/lib/node or wherever you specified the npm root within the .npmrc file. However, in NPM 1.0+ modules are installed in two places. You can have modules installed local to your application in /.node_modules or you can have them installed globally which will use the above.
More information can be found at https://github.com/isaacs/npm/blob/master/doc/install.md
To get a compact list without dependencies simply use
npm list -g --depth 0
The easiest way would be to do
npm list -g
to list the package and view their installed location.
I had installed npm via chololatey, so the location is
C:\MyProgramData\chocolatey\lib\nodejs.commandline.0.10.31\tools\node_modules
C:\MyProgramData\ is chocolatey repo location.
As the other answers say, the best way is to do
npm list -g
However, if you have a large number of npm packages installed, the output of this command could be very long and a big pain to scroll up (sometimes it's not even possible to scroll that far back).
In this case, pipe the output to the more program, like this
npm list -g | more
I was beginning to go mad while searching for the real configuration, so here is the list of all configuration files on linux:
/etc/npmrc
/home/youruser/.npmrc
/root/.npmrc
./.npmrc in the current directory next to package.json file (thanks to #CyrillePontvieux)
on windows:
c/Program\ Files/nodejs/node_modules/npm/npmrc
Then in this file the prefix is configured:
prefix=/usr
The prefix is defaulted to /usr in linux, to ${APPDATA}\npm in windows
The node modules are under $prefix tree, and the path should contain $prefix/bin
There may be a problem :
When you install globally, you use "sudo su" then the /root/.npmrc may be used!
When you use locally without sudo: for your user its the /home/youruser/.npmrc.
When your path doesn't represent your prefix
When you use npm set -g prefix /usr it sets the /etc/npmrc global, but doesn't override the local
Here is all the informations that were missing to find what is configured where. Hope I have been exhaustive.
You can find globally installed modules by the command
npm list -g
It will provide you the location where node.js modules have been installed.
C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Roaming\npm
If you install node.js modules locally in a folder, you can type the following command to see the location.
npm list
Echo the config: npm config ls or npm config list
Show all the config settings: npm config ls -l or npm config ls --json
Print the effective node_modules folder: npm root or npm root -g
Print the local prefix: npm prefix or npm prefix -g
(This is the closest parent directory to contain a package.json file or node_modules directory)
npm-config | npm Documentation
npm-root | npm Documentation
npm-prefix | npm Documentation
Expanding upon other answers.
npm list -g
will show you the location of globally installed packages.
If you want to output that list to a file that you can then easily search in your text editor:
npm list -g > ~/Desktop/npmfiles.txt
From the docs:
In npm 1.0, there are two ways to install things:
globally —- This drops modules in {prefix}/lib/node_modules, and puts executable files in {prefix}/bin, where {prefix} is usually
something like /usr/local. It also installs man pages in
{prefix}/share/man, if they’re supplied.
locally —- This installs your package in the current working directory. Node modules go in ./node_modules, executables go in
./node_modules/.bin/, and man pages aren’t installed at all.
You can get your {prefix} with npm config get prefix. (Useful when you installed node with nvm).
From the docs:
Packages are dropped into the node_modules folder under the prefix.
When installing locally, this means that you can
require("packagename") to load its main module, or
require("packagename/lib/path/to/sub/module") to load other modules.
Global installs on Unix systems go to {prefix}/lib/node_modules.
Global installs on Windows go to {prefix}/node_modules (that is, no
lib folder.)
Scoped packages are installed the same way, except they are grouped
together in a sub-folder of the relevant node_modules folder with the
name of that scope prefix by the # symbol, e.g. npm install
#myorg/package would place the package in
{prefix}/node_modules/#myorg/package. See scope for more details.
If you wish to require() a package, then install it locally.
You can get your {prefix} with npm config get prefix. (Useful when you installed node with nvm).
Read about locally.
Read about globally.
Windows 10: When I ran npm prefix -g, I noticed that the install location was inside of the git shell's path that I used to install. Even when that location was added to the path, the command from the globally installed package would not be recognized. Fixed by:
running npm config edit
changing the prefix to 'C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\npm'
adding that path to the system path variable
reinstalling the package with -g.
In Ubuntu 14.04 they are installed at
/usr/lib/node_modules
For Windows 7, 8 and 10 -
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules
Note:
If you are somewhere in folder type cd .. until you are in C: directory. Then, type cd %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules. Then, magically, %USERPROFILE% will change into Users\YourUserProfile\.
I just wanted to clarify on ideas referred by Decko in the first response. npm list -g will list all the bits you have globally installed. If you need to find your project related npm package then cd 'your angular project xyz', then run npm list. It will show list of modules in npm package. It will also give you list of dependencies missing, and you may require to effectively run that project.
Btw, npm will look for node_modules in parent folders (up to very root) if can not find in local.
If you're trying to access your global dir from code, you can backtrack from process.execPath. For example, to find wsproxy, which is in {NODE_GLOBAL_DIR}/bin/wsproxy, you can just:
path.join(path.dirname(process.execPath), 'wsproxy')
There's also how the npm cli works # ec9fcc1/lib/npm.js#L254 with:
path.resolve(process.execPath, '..', '..')
See also ec9fcc1/lib/install.js#L521:
var globalPackage = path.resolve(npm.globalPrefix,
'lib', 'node_modules', moduleName(pkg))
Where globalPrefix has a default set in ec9fcc1/lib/config/defaults.js#L92-L105 of:
if (process.env.PREFIX) {
globalPrefix = process.env.PREFIX
} else if (process.platform === 'win32') {
// c:\node\node.exe --> prefix=c:\node\
globalPrefix = path.dirname(process.execPath)
} else {
// /usr/local/bin/node --> prefix=/usr/local
globalPrefix = path.dirname(path.dirname(process.execPath))
// destdir only is respected on Unix
if (process.env.DESTDIR) {
globalPrefix = path.join(process.env.DESTDIR, globalPrefix)
}
}
If you have Visual Studio installed, you will find it comes with its own copy of node separate from the one that is on the path when you installed node yourself - Mine is in C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\NodeJs.
If you run the npm command from inside this directory you will find out which node modules are installed inside visual studio.
Does npm install only install packages in the directory you run it from? Because that's my current experience with it. At first, I ran npm install xml in a command prompt at C:/Users/ME. Running require("xml"); in a node instance that was run from C:/Users/ME works, and running npm ls lists the xml package...
But if I move to any other directory, neither of them do.
Is this the expected behavior (doesn't sound right), a Windows thing, or am I missing some kind of install option?
Yes, this is normal behavior.
npm install (in package directory, no arguments):
Install the dependencies in the local node_modules folder.
In global mode (ie, with -g or --global appended to the command), it
installs the current package context (ie, the current working
directory) as a global package.
By default, npm install will install all modules listed as
dependencies. With the --production flag (or when the NODE_ENV
environment variable is set to production), npm will not install
modules listed in devDependencies.
NPM Install Docs
npm installs modules either below the current directory (in a node_modules sub-directory) or if you use the -g flag when running it, it install modules in the global location which is determined via OS and configuration and then node.js will be able to find the module no matter where it is being loaded from.
So, this will install a module globally:
npm install -g xml
When using require(), if you want require to look in the current directory to load a module, then you have to do it like require("./module");, otherwise it will not look for the modules install in the current directory.
You need to do npm install -g xml. This would install the packages globally.
'-g' represents global. Then when you check on other directories, you could list the same package
Note the way you install node is important as well!
You can install node with:
chocolatey (https://chocolatey.org/packages?q=nodejs)
nodeJS website (https://nodejs.org/)
*Knowing where to set your user variables is essential know how for windows developers! The reason I mention this is that the list of chocolatey, and node USER : PATH variables gets so large at one point nodejs and with it npm will just stop working. You need to work within your env. variables in one scenario where that happens. (Can typically happen with multiple versions of SQL Server installed)
If you want an excellent free, offline-available resource on node and npm I suggest devdocs (http://www.devdocs.io) and as well GentlNode's cheat sheets (https://gentlenode.com/journal/cheatsheet) *GentleNode not avail. offline FYI.
There's some key information you haven't received yet. See below:
npm install xml - installs "xml" package and required modules to the local folder you are in when you run the command. Files exist for you to work on in this folder alone(and thus commands only work in this folder) and "xml" cannot be called in cmd/terminal outside of this folder(without rerunning with "-g" param) "xml" is NOT written to package.json file. When and if project is uploaded to github will upload in full if you don't add node_modules to your .gitignore file.
npm install -g xml - install "xml" to your global npm folder, which is referenced to your "user environment variables" (what allows you to call specific functions, methods, and executables from within the command line) Files are NOT installed to your project folder, not recorded in "package.json" file. Will NOT upload anything to github.
npm install --save xml - using "--save" allows you to "install" to this folder, but also to write the package you've included into your project's "package.json" file. Here, your aim is to distribute your software and you want as little files on github/source control as possible that npm knows how to install like jQuery, XML, body-parser, etc. etc.
You would typically use a regular "npm install XML" command for a lightweight, rapid release mini-tool to support a key feature or process improvement you just want to keep on your local machine. In addition, you could npm install "packages" to a folder, and use that as a backup "node folder" mapped to your environment variables.
You would typically use a global "npm install -g XML" command for something like middleware, express, node updates installed VIA npm, and other processes you wish to have access to in cmd/terminal from "anywhere." Once this is established for your core development packages in node, you often just use the proceeding command, read the explanation for more detail.
Lastly, you would use "npm install --save" to write into the "package.json" file the required module(s) you've installed to your project. This would be for those who have worked heavily in node and have used "npm install -g" to already globally install their most common core nodeJS. This will write to the package.json the packages and versions being leveraged in your software currently so that your end-user can download the lightweight version and use npm package management to install all of the module dependencies so the app works correctly on other people's computers.
*Note, this leads to the last command "npm install" which you can run in a given folder where you've downloaded the file directly from github.
Hope that helps a bit more for the given facets of installation using npm!
When and why I have to use -g when install new module?
I use symfony and i have create Bundle for node and install node_modules inside bundle with (for example cd ../mybundle, then)
npm install felixge/node-mysql
when and Why I have to do something link
npm install -g felixge/node-mysql
thanks
From http://blog.nodejs.org/2011/03/23/npm-1-0-global-vs-local-installation/
In general, the rule of thumb is:
If you’re installing something that you want to use in your program, using require('whatever'), then install it locally, at the root of your project.
If you’re installing something that you want to use in your shell, on the command line or something, install it globally, so that its binaries end up in your PATH environment variable.
The -g flag installs packages on your user profile whereas not having this puts it in your current folder. The difference is the scope of the package.