How to Update a Specific Node package using NPM

In this post, we'll learn how to use NPM to update a specific Node package.

Sometimes, you need to update a specific Node package, for example if it recently fixed a bug that you need.

Updating a Specific Package to Latest

To update a specific Node package, you can use the npm update command.

This command takes a package name as an argument and updates it to the latest version.

For example, here is how to update just express:

BASH
npm update express

You can do this in yarn by using the yarn upgrade command:

BASH
yarn upgrade express

Update a Specific Package to Specific Version

If for some reason you don't want the latest version, perhaps because it may introduce breaking changes to your code, you can alternatively specify a specific version.

This done by adding the version number to the package name.

Here's how to update express to version 4.0:

BASH
npm update express@4

Here's how to do this in yarn:

BASH
yarn upgrade express@4

Updating a Specific Package to Latest Stable

Lastly, you can also update a specific package to the latest stable version by adding the @latest suffix to the package name.

Here's how to use the @latest suffix to update express to the latest stable version:

BASH
npm update express@latest

Here's how that is done in yarn:

BASH
yarn upgrade express --latest

Conclusion

In this post, we've seen how we can use npm and yarn to update Node packages to the latest, a specific version, and the latest stable.

Hopefully, you've found this post useful and enjoyed reading it.

Happy coding!

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