npm vs yarn

• upon release, yarn had many advantages compared to npm
• however, the rise of yarn pushed npm to make improvements and the competion has became increasingly tighten
• though, yarn is still (even after npm 6.0) somewhat faster
• the popularity gap is slowly closing but npm still is the most popular

Install

• `sudo npm install -g yarn
• curl --compressed -o- -L https://yarnpkg.com/install.sh | bash = update yarn

Basics

init

• yarn init [-y]
• yarn or yarn install = install all dependencies listed at 'package.json' and, if 'yarn.lock' exists and is enough to satisfy every dependency, the exact versions recorded in 'yarn.lock' are installed

info, list

• yarn info package = info about a package = now you can use yarn as package manager anywhere, just like npm
  • yarn info package field = select a specific field, e.g. description, versions, license
• yarn list = lists all dependencies for the current directory
  • yarn list --depth 0 --pattern "pattern"

install, upgrade, remove

• yarn add [package]@[version] = install
  • yarn add [package] --dev|--peer|--optional = different categories of dependencies
• yarn global add package = install globally
• yarn outdated = checks for outdated package dependencies
• yarn upgrade [package]@[version] = update dependency
• yarn remove [package] = remove dependency

scripts

• yarn run scriptname

cache

• yarn stores every package in a global cache in your user directory on the file system
• yarn cache list = view every cached package
  • yarn cache list --pattern "pattern"

yarn.lock

• when you run either yarn or yarn add package, Yarn will generate a yarn.lock
• this file will ensure that they get precisely the same dependencies as you have, is equivalent to npm's 'package-lock.json' and 'pm-shrinkwrap.json'

link

• for development, a package can be linked into another project
• two steps:
  • yarn link = in package you want to link
  • yarn link packagelinked = link the linked package into current directory

publish

• yarn login
• yarn publish, yarn publish --new-version <version>, yarn publish --access <public|restricted> = publish current package
• as of now, no command to unpublish