We're developing an Electron app with a dependency upon an SDK (that we're also developing). Typically, once the SDK is ready, we do a new release and update the Electron app to use it.
But I'd like to make a local change to the SDK and have the Electron app consume it. This is proving problematic.
The approach I took is to, from the Electron app directory, run
npm install /path/to/sdk/moduleB
i.e. Based on the answers to how to specify local modules as npm package dependencies
However there's a problem. The SDK's sub-modules registers with a core module. i.e. To make an instance available.
When I use a local path to moduleB it cannot find the core module. I don't specify core as a dependency in moduleB. But if I do npm installs a copy under
/path/to/sdk/moduleB/node_modules/core
rather than re-use the module already defined at
./node_modules/core
i.e. Even though they're using the same version.
This behaviour (at least the re-installation of core) makes some sense if you understand how npm resolves the same dependency with different versions.
https://medium.com/learnwithrahul/understanding-npm-dependency-resolution-84a24180901b
and
https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/install
npm install :
Install the package in the directory as a symlink in the current project. Its dependencies will be installed before it’s linked. If sits inside the root of your project, its dependencies may be hoisted to the toplevel node_modules as they would for other types of dependencies.
But it seems the install creates a symlink and npm can't search back up into
./node_modules/core
The only way I've been able to work around this is by copying
/path/to/sdk/moduleB
to
./node_modules/moduleB
Is there a better solution that'll allow me to re-use the
./node_modules/core
dependency?
