Publishing npm Package

The first step towards publishing is to name your package.

It is recommended to keep the package name simple, easy to remember and relevant to its functionality. A few popular npm packages are:

• express

• request

• async

Note: Package names should be unique. To check if a package name has been taken, plug the package name to the following URL: https://www.npmjs.com/package/packagename.

To publish a package, you need to have access to the npm Registry.

• Create a User directly from the CLI. Enter the username, password and e-mail address, when prompted.

npm adduser

• Check if user details have been stored locally:

npm config ls

• To check if the user is created on the registry, go to https://www.npmjs.com/~username

Once you create the user, execute npm publish command from the package folder. This will upload the package into the npm registry.

• Unless ignored by a local .gitignore or .npmignore file, everything in the directory will be included

.

• The package will not be published if there is an existing package with the same name.

• To check if the package is published, go to [https://www.npmjs.com/package/packagename](https://www.npmjs.com/package/package name).

Watch this video to understand further about how to publish an npm package.

You can update the package using npm version <update_type>

Here, update_type is one of the semantic versioning release types- patch/minor/major.

• This command updates the version number in package.json.

• Once the version number is updated, use npm publish to update the package.

• To check if the updated package is published, go to https://www.npmjs.com/package/packagename.

Note: The README displayed on the site will not be updated unless a new version of a package is published. So you need to run npm version patch and npm publish to have a documentation fix displayed on the site.

Every package should have a README.md file, where you will explain what the package is for and give instructions on how to use it.

This is useful for others to get a quick understanding of the package and to decide on which package to use.

Also, the content in the README.md needs to be in Markdown for better readability.

####Here is a sample README file

# addsub-package
A Node.js package that does simple arithmetic addition and subtraction. 
## Usage
First, install the package using npm 
    npm install addsub-package --save
Next, require the package and use it as:
 [Comment: Please check this sentence]
    var isNullOrEmpty = require('addsub-package');
    console.log(isNullOrEmpty(3,4)); // 7
## License
Apache 2.0