Install node package as editable

[Mandera]

• npm link when inside a repo will install all dependencies locally and create a global link to itself
• To unlink you need to specify name npm unlink name, this will remove global link
• You can link as many repos as you want, they don't override like that one package maker said
• npm link name will link a global package link to local modules.
  • If package exists globally then that will be used
  • If not it will install package from npmjs.com
  • Path example: .\..\..\..\..\Users\ricka\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\genlibrary
• Workflow could work something like this
  • Iterate node repo working dirs and do npm link
  • Set repos as cwd and call npm link name for every repo
• Even better would be it works more similar to Python's
  • Calling install(editable=True) should just handle this
  • npm link in package folder
  • Find first node_modules by iterating parents including self and then npm link / install name
  • Use package path if no node_modules

[Mandera]

Comparing commands

npm install ./name and npm link ./name --save pip list

repos@ C:\Python\general\repos
`-- genvector@0.0.2 -> .\genvector

npm link ./name pip list

C:\Python\general\repos
+-- @babel/code-frame@7.18.6 extraneous
+-- @babel/helper-validator-identifier@7.19.1 extraneous
+-- @babel/highlight@7.18.6 extraneous

...

+-- genvector@0.0.2 extraneous -> .\genvector

Summary

• Install creates package.json and package-lock.json next to node_modules.
• It adds "name": "repos", to the top of the package-lock.json that is /inside/ node_modules (there are two and both install and link has it)
• The one inside node_modules had around half of the lines of that of the one next to it (for install)
  • Cannot deduce what caused the difference
• npm link ./name adds a global link
  • I see no other difference, the package is editable regardless
    • Apparently it's on purpose from: At least as of npm 5, installing a folder now creates a symlink, not a copy. See [docs.npmjs.com/cli/install](https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/install) I don't understand why they would force to symlink with install, isn't that what link was for? Oh well moving on - I'll just do install in workflow

[Mandera]

Calling npm install / link name and name exists in cwd will install that local package, but not it's dependencies?? Cannot find why that is. Let's stick with npm install / link ./name

[Mandera]

npm install C:\Python\general\repos\genvector becomes '-- genvector@0.0.2 -> .\genvector so we don't need to bother with prefixing relative paths with ./ which would only work when node_modules was above the package anyway

[Mandera]

All this testing was done on v16, updated to v18 now - Also removed the scope warning

[Mandera]

https://github.com/ManderaGeneral/generalpackager/commit/16102d899b0ed6047933bcdfa0a639ae4d3474bb