arrow-rightgithublinkedinscroll-to-topzig-zag

Switching between node versions

Last Updated On

We all know how “Stable” Front End technologies are.

Sometimes you need to work on different projects and switch your node versions. Every time, when I change node version to the newer one using n, I run into issues with running grunt, gulp, webpack and @angular/cli.

Here is an example.

Currently, I’m on version 7.8.0. When I go to global packages folder (/usr/local/lib/node_modules) I see the following picture:

Which is totally fine! Here I checked my node version (which is in fact 7.8.0) and verified that I don’t have any outdated packages.

However, let’s see what would happen if I change my node version to an old one (for example 0.10.28) and then switch it back to 7.8.0. Then I would verify outdated packages once again.  

It turned out that I have an outdated npm and missing @angular/cli package.

Conclusion

Every time you’re switching node versions:

  1. Navigate to the folder with the global packages – /usr/local/lib/node_modules (for Mac)
  2. Run sudo npm install -g npm@latest – to have the latest version of npm
  3. Run (sudo) npm update to stay with the latest npm and other dependencies