npm-package-arg

Parse the things that can be arguments to npm install

Takes an argument like foo@1.2, or foo@user/foo, or http://x.com/foo.tgz, or git+https://github.com/user/foo, and figures out what type of thing it is.

USAGE

var assert = require("assert")
var npa = require("npm-package-arg")

// Pass in the descriptor, and it'll return an object
var parsed = npa("foo@1.2")

// Returns an object like:
// {
//  name: "foo",  // The bit in front of the @
//  type: "range", // the type of descriptor this is
//  spec: "1.2" // the specifier for this descriptor
// }

// Completely unreasonable invalid garbage throws an error
// Make sure you wrap this in a try/catch if you have not
// already sanitized the inputs!
assert.throws(function() {
  npa("this is not \0 a valid package name or url")
})

For more examples, see the test file.

Result Objects

The objects that are returned by npm-package-arg contain the following fields:

• name - If known, the name field expected in the resulting pkg.
• type - One of the following strings:
  • git - A git repo
  • github - A github shorthand, like user/project
  • tag - A tagged version, like "foo@latest"
  • version - A specific version number, like "foo@1.2.3"
  • range - A version range, like "foo@2.x"
  • local - A local file or folder path
  • remote - An http url (presumably to a tgz)
• spec - The "thing". URL, the range, git repo, etc.
• raw - The original un-modified string that was provided.
• rawSpec - The part after the name@..., as it was originally provided.
• scope - If a name is something like @org/module then the scope field will be set to org. If it doesn't have a scoped name, then scope is null.