How do I update a single dependency with Swift Package Manager?

Question

I have a local dependency in my Package.swift in the form of

.package(url: "file:///Users/User/Documents/.../my-dependency", .branch("master")),

The local dependency is under development. I wish to update to the latest version, but I cannot find a way to update only that package without having to pull and rebuild all the other project dependencies. So far I have to pull and rebuild Vapor and Fluent every time I make a small change to a local dependency (assuming I even have internet access).

When I run swift package update --help I see there is an instruction :

POSITIONAL ARGUMENTS:
packages        The packages to update (optional)

However, whenever I try something like swift package update my-dependency or swift package update My-Dependency, it does the same thing and re-pulls all.

How do I go about updating this single dependency? And assuming I eventually do want to update all my other third-party dependencies, how do I tell SPM to check if there is an actual change to the package on GitHub before re-pulling and rebuilding it?

Answer 1

I found the solution :

.package(path: "path/to/dependency")

No need to run swift package update, it builds with the current local version. Also no need to commit the changes in the dependency each time.

See answer here by rounak