4

Get into a new directly, after typing those three commands: 

npm install underscore npm install lodash npm install express

I get a node_modules directory with many packages: 

$ ls node_modules accepts cookie-signature encodeurl forwarded lodash mime-db parseurl send underscore array-flatten debug escape-html fresh media-typer mime-types path-to-regexp serve-static unpipe content-disposition depd etag http-errors merge-descriptors ms proxy-addr setprototypeof utils-merge content-type destroy express inherits methods negotiator qs statuses vary cookie ee-first finalhandler ipaddr.js mime on-finished range-parser type-is

While using npm list, I can get a tree strcture:

$ npm list /tmp/play/npm ├─┬ [email protected] │ ├─┬ [email protected] │ │ ├─┬ [email protected] │ │ │ └── [email protected] │ │ └── [email protected] │ ├── [email protected] │ ├── [email protected] │ ├── [email protected] │ ├── [email protected] │ ├── [email protected] │ ├─┬ [email protected] │ │ └── [email protected] │ ├── [email protected] │ ├── [email protected] │ ├── [email protected] │ ├── [email protected] │ ├─┬ [email protected] │ │ ├── [email protected] │ │ └── [email protected] │ ├── [email protected] │ ├── [email protected] │ ├── [email protected] │ ├─┬ [email protected] │ │ └── [email protected] │ ├── [email protected] │ ├── [email protected] │ ├─┬ [email protected] │ │ ├── [email protected] │ │ └── [email protected] │ ├── [email protected] │ ├── [email protected] │ ├─┬ [email protected] │ │ ├── [email protected] │ │ ├─┬ [email protected] │ │ │ ├── [email protected] │ │ │ └── [email protected] │ │ └── [email protected] │ ├── [email protected] │ ├─┬ [email protected] │ │ └── [email protected] │ ├── [email protected] │ └── [email protected] ├── [email protected] └── [email protected]

My question is: from all those dependencies, how does npm list know which ones are my direct dependencies such as undersocre, lodash and express?

note: I don't have a package.json file.

Improve this question

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
4

It builds the list on the basis of the dependencies of the modules. The dependencies of the modules are specified in the package.json of each module in the dependencies field. When you install a module npm adds some additional fields to the module's package.json and one of those is the field _requiredBy to store the dependency link in the other direction as well. If you run the npm list command it goes through all the modules and reads the _requiredBy field in package.json of each module.

If you install a module directly without saving it to your package.json, npm adds #USER to the _requiredBy field to signify that you manually installed it and it is not just a dependency of the other modules. Then npm list shows that module in the root of the tree as well.

Improve this answer
Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

1 Comment

great! wonderful!
0

You can use this command:

npm list --depth=0 2>/dev/null
Improve this answer

Comments

-1

npm list command will print to stdout all the versions of packages that are installed, as well as their dependencies, in a tree-structure.

So you have only installed three packages

npm install underscore npm install lodash npm install express

All other packages are dependency for express package

Improve this answer

Comments

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.