Play all audios:
I’m sure you have something like the following in your package.json file: "dependencies": { "@angular/animations": "~9.0.1", "@angular/cdk":
"^9.0.0" } Have you ever wondered about the meaning behind those ~ and ^ symbols? Let me explain about SemVer. Versions of the npm packages in the dependencies section of your
package.json file follow what’s called Semantic Versioning (SemVer), an industry standard for software versioning aiming to make it easier to manage dependencies. Libraries, frameworks, or
other tools published on npm should use SemVer in order to clearly communicate what kind of changes projects can expect if they update. This is how Semantic Versioning works according to the
official website: "package": "MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH" * The MAJOR version should increment when you make incompatible API changes (breaking changes). * The MINOR version
should increment when you add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner. * The PATCH version should increment when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes. This means that PATCHes are
bug fixes and MINORs add new features but neither of them break what worked before. Finally, MAJORs add changes that won’t work with earlier versions. Now suppose our project depends on an
npm package called AWESOME-PACKAGE. In our package.json file, we can pin a specific version of this package like this: "awesome-package": "1.2.13" But what if the
maintainer of the package adds bug fixes? You don’t want to miss out on the latest PATCHes because there might be security vulnerabilities with the previous version. That’s when you’ll use
the tilde (~) character. Here’s an example of how to allow updates to any 1.2.x version: "awesome-package": "~1.2.13" But now what if you also want to get MINOR and PATCH
updates? After all, the MINOR and PATCH updates will be backwards-compatible. This means you can update to the latest MINOR and PATCH updates without breaking anything. The caret (^) allows
npm to install future MINOR and PATCH updates. If you want to use version 1.x.x of the awesome-package, you would use: "awesome-package": "^1.2.13" CONCLUSION We use the
tilde (~) and caret (^) characters to get the latest updates without worrying about breaking changes. I hope you’ve found this article useful.