Some npm packages are not just libraries, but programs that, once installed, add a new command to terminal.
Such programs should be installed
globally. This means that
they will not be installed in the
node_modules
folder of a
project, but simply on your computer
as a program.
To start the global installation mode,
you need to pass the -g
flag:
npm install -g somelib
Depending on how you installed NodeJS,
you may need to write sudo
before a command (usually for Linux):
sudo npm install -g somelib
Let's look at an example. Let's take the sloc utility, which counts the number of lines of code in a project and install it globally:
npm install -g sloc
Being in a folder with any project, we will execute a command in the terminal to count lines, passing the path to the folder as a command parameter (the point is the current folder):
sloc .
Install the cowsay library globally. After installing in a terminal, refer to this library, making a cow to say something in the terminal.