why npm install does not respect version in package.json

Question

Nodejs version - 14.17.3
npm version - 6.14.13

I am confused over the difference in package versions -
the one I have declared in package.json is different than the one that is being installed by npm install command.

package.json -

{
  "name": "training-project-metadata",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "module1.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC",
  "devDependencies": {
    "tildify": "^2.0.0"
  },
  "bundleDependencies": [
    "tildify"
  ]
}

If I run npm install command, this is the package-lock.json that is being created -

{
  "name": "training-project-metadata",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "lockfileVersion": 1,
  "requires": true,
  "dependencies": {
    "tildify": {
      "version": "3.0.0",
      "resolved": "https://registry.npmjs.org/tildify/-/tildify-3.0.0.tgz",
      "integrity": "sha512-9ZLMl75qnTLr7oSEmWJbKemFS/fP4TMBiF6PFwGwLpgobebU1ehXoGbadJ+7jT8fjaz2G82JgN9G4taz+o1j1w==",
      "dev": true
    }
  }
}

I even tried removing ^ symbol from package.json to make it exact version - but that didn't help.
What I have found is if I run this command explicitly - only then the correct version 2.0.0 is installed.

npm install tildify@2.0.0 --save-dev

Can anyone please help me understand why it doesn't work for npm install command?

Thank you!

what is bundleDependencies? maybe it tells npm to ignore the specified version in the devDependencies? — Stav Alfi, Sep 14 '21 at 12:05
It just tells which bundles are going to be in tar file - if I plan to use npm pack command — inutan, Sep 14 '21 at 12:06
did you try to delete the package-lock.json file and run npm install again? — Stav Alfi, Sep 14 '21 at 12:13
yes, I did delete package-lock.json and node-modules folder and ran npm install command. — inutan, Sep 14 '21 at 13:34
Does this answer your question? [What's the difference between tilde(~) and caret(^) in package.json?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22343224/whats-the-difference-between-tilde-and-caret-in-package-json) — Arnav Thorat, Apr 27 '22 at 05:14

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 27 '22 at 05:04

The similar things happened to me. For me, I want to install

"@mui/lab": "^5.0.0-alpha.71"

But turns out, npm installed this for me.

5.0.0-alpha.79

That's because you have specified ^ before the version number. I removed the ^ and try npm install again, it installed excatly the version that I want. For more information about the meaning of the symbol, you can find in https://stackoverflow.com/a/25861938/15603575

why npm install does not respect version in package.json

1 Answers1