Node package.json Dependencies

Question

New to Nodejs and looking at the dependencies section of the package.json file. Could someone explain to me what the ~ and * symbols do when setting the versions?

Answer 1

From the documentation:

The following range styles are supported:

• 1.2.3 A specific version. When nothing else will do. Note that build metadata is still ignored, so 1.2.3+build2012 will satisfy this range.
• >1.2.3 Greater than a specific version.
• <1.2.3 Less than a specific version. If there is no prerelease tag on the version range, then no prerelease version will be allowed either, even though these are technically "less than".
• >=1.2.3 Greater than or equal to. Note that prerelease versions are NOT equal to their "normal" equivalents, so 1.2.3-beta will not satisfy this range, but 2.3.0-beta will.
• <=1.2.3 Less than or equal to. In this case, prerelease versions ARE allowed, so 1.2.3-beta would satisfy.
• 1.2.3 - 2.3.4 := >=1.2.3 <=2.3.4
• ~1.2.3 := >=1.2.3-0 <1.3.0-0 "Reasonably close to 1.2.3". When using tilde operators, prerelease versions are supported as well, but a prerelease of the next significant digit will NOT be satisfactory, so 1.3.0-beta will not satisfy ~1.2.3.
• ~1.2 := >=1.2.0-0 <1.3.0-0 "Any version starting with 1.2"
• 1.2.x := >=1.2.0-0 <1.3.0-0"Any version starting with 1.2"
• ~1 := >=1.0.0-0 <2.0.0-0 "Any version starting with 1"
• 1.x := >=1.0.0-0 <2.0.0-0 "Any version starting with 1" Ranges can be joined with either a space (which implies "and") or a || (which implies "or").

Addendum:

* means any version.