Node Package Manager (NPM) is a package manager for the JavaScript programming language and serves as the default package manager for the JavaScript runtime environment Node.js. It is a command line client that allows developers to install and publish their packages.
NPM manages all the packages and modules for Node.js and consists of three main components:
1. Website: The website is used to discover packages, set up profiles, and manage other aspects of a npm experience.
1. Command Line Interface (CLI): Developers interact with npm mainly using CLI. They download packages, publish their packages, etc.
1. Registry: The registry is a large public database of JavaScript software and the meta-information surrounding it.
Packages in npm are basically reusable pieces of code that developers bundle into a format that can be easily shared. Developers use these packages as a base to solve similar problems, avoid code repetition, and improve efficiency in the coding process. Packages contain two things – a useful piece of code, and a package.json file that has metadata about the code, its dependencies, and other related information.
NPM helps to manage these packages in an efficient way, avoiding version conflicts and dependency issues. It also makes it easy to share your code with other developers, and to use their packages in your code.
Moreover, versioning and code repository maintenance becomes very simple with NPM. You can specify the version of the package your project needs and NPM will make sure the correct version is installed.
