NPMPackageEditor

Provides types and tools for editing package.json files

Installing NPMPackageEditor

NPMPackageEditor can be installed using the npm-cli:

npm install --save @manuth/package-json-editor

Using NPMPackageEditor

General

NPMPackageEditor provides useful tools for creating, editing and analyzing package.json-files.

Usage

Type-Checking for package.json Metadata

Using a code-editor with typescript support provides autocompletion for package.json-metadata.

import { writeFileSync } from "fs";
import { IPackageMetadata, Package } from "@manuth/package-json-editor";

let packageMeta: IPackageMetadata;
packageMeta = {
    name: "example",
    version: "1.0.0"
};

writeFileSync(Package.FileName, JSON.stringify(packageMeta));

Creating a Package-Object

You can create a Package object by passing a path to a package.json file or by passing the package.json-metadata as an object or nothing to create an empty package:

import { join } from "node:path";
import { cwd } from "node:process";
import { Package } from "@manuth/package-json-editor";

let packagePath = join(cwd(), Package.FileName);

// Option 1: Passing nothing
let package = new Package();

// Option 2: Passing the filename
let package = new Package(packagePath); // Loads the metadata from the specified file

// Option 3: Passing the metadata
let package = new Package( // Loads the metadata from the specified object
    {
        name: "example",
        version: "0.0.0",
        author: "John Doe",
        maintainers: [
            {
                name: "John Doe",
                email: "[email protected]"
            },
            "Jane Doe <[email protected]>"
        ]
    });

// Option 4: Passing the filename and the metadata
let package = new Package(packagePath, { name: "example" }); // Loads the metadata from the specified object

Normalizing Meta-Data

Using the Package.Normalize method, some properties of the package are set automatically.

• If bin is a string, it is set to an object with a property named like the package's name and its value set to the original string.
• If man is a string, it is set to an array containing said string.

If the FileName property of the package is set, following properties will be normalized in addition:

• If undefined, description is automatically loaded from the README file
• If the package is located inside a GitHub repository, bugs and homepage are automatically set if they're undefined
• If the package is located inside a git repository, the repository property is set accordingly, if undefined

import { join } from "node:path";
import { Package } from "@manuth/package-json-editor";

let packagePath = join("path", "to", "package", Package.FileName);

let package = new Package(packagePath);
await package.Normalize();
// or
let package = new Package({});
package.FileName = packagePath;
await package.Normalize();
// or
let package = new Package({});
await package.Normalize();

Editing Meta-Data

The Package-class allows you to easily edit the metadata by providing useful abstractions for bug-info, persons (such as author, contributors etc.) and dependencies.

Editing Persons

That way you can always be sure there's an Author property to edit even if no author is specified in the source package.

import { Package } from "@manuth/package-json-editor";

let package = new Package(
    {
        name: "example"
    });

package.Author.Name = "John Doe";
package.Author.EMail = "[email protected]";

Editing Dependencies

Handling dependencies is the key feature of this package.
Dependencies are represented by a class that allows you to easily add, remove, set and manage dependencies.
The dependencies of the Package class are ordered alphabetically out of the box.

import { Package } from "@manuth/package-json-editor";

let package = new Package(
    {
        name: "example",
        dependencies: {
            eslint: "*",
            tslint: "*"
        }
    });

package.Dependencies.Set("eslint", "^7.0.0");
package.Dependencies.Remove("tslint");
package.Dependencies.Add("@typescript-eslint/eslint-plugin", "*");
package.Dependencies.Add("@typescript-eslint/parser", "*");

The DependencyCollection class allows you to easily create dependency-sets for certain purposes and adding them to a Package object or even another DependencyCollection.

import { writeFileSync } from "fs";
import { Package, DependencyCollection } from "@manuth/package-json-editor";

let package = new Package(
    {
        name: "example",
        devDependencies: {
            typescript: "*",
            "@types/node": "*"
        }
    });

let eslintDependencies = new DependencyCollection(
    {
        devDependencies: {
            eslint: "*",
            "@typescript-eslint/eslint-plugin": "*",
            "@typescript-eslint/parser": "*"
        }
    });

let tslintDependencies = new DependencyCollection(
    {
        devDependencies: {
            tslint: "*"
        }
    });

export function installLinter(eslint: boolean)
{
    package.Register(eslint ? eslintDependencies : tslintDependencies);
    writeFileSync("package.json", JSON.stringify(package.ToJSON()));
}

This is especially useful when creating proper package.json files in Yeoman-generators.