Understanding Angular Versions
When working with Angular projects, it’s crucial to understand the distinction between the globally installed Angular CLI version and the Angular version used within a specific project. These can – and often do – differ. Knowing both is essential for troubleshooting, ensuring compatibility, and maintaining your applications effectively.
Globally Installed Angular CLI
The Angular CLI (Command Line Interface) is a powerful tool for creating, building, testing, and deploying Angular applications. You install it globally on your system so you can access it from any project directory.
Checking the Global CLI Version
The primary way to check the version of your globally installed Angular CLI is using the ng version command in your terminal or command prompt.
ng version
This command will output detailed information, including the Angular CLI version, Angular core version, and other related dependencies. It provides a comprehensive overview of your development environment.
@angular/cli: 15.0.5
node: 16.14.2
npm: 8.5.0
Project-Specific Angular Version
While the global Angular CLI version is important, the Angular version used within a specific project is what ultimately dictates the behavior of that application. Different projects can – and often do – use different Angular versions.
Finding the Project Version
The project’s Angular version is defined in its package.json file. This file resides at the root of your project directory. Open package.json in a text editor and look for the @angular/core dependency. The version number listed next to @angular/core is the Angular version used by that project.
{
"dependencies": {
"@angular/core": "^14.0.0",
// ... other dependencies
}
}
In this example, the project is using Angular version 14.0.0. The ^ symbol before the version number indicates that the project allows minor and patch updates to be installed automatically (e.g., 14.0.1, 14.1.0), but not major version updates (e.g., 15.0.0).
Why the Distinction Matters
- Compatibility: Using an Angular CLI version that’s significantly different from your project’s Angular version can lead to build errors, runtime issues, or unexpected behavior. It’s generally best practice to keep your global CLI version relatively close to the Angular versions of the projects you’re working on.
- Project Isolation: Each project has its own set of dependencies defined in its
package.json. This ensures that projects are isolated from each other and don’t rely on global installations. - Team Collaboration: Different developers on a team might have different global CLI versions, but the project will always use the version specified in its
package.json, ensuring consistency.
Listing Globally Installed Packages (Alternative)
You can also use npm list -global to list all globally installed npm packages, including the Angular CLI. You can control the depth of the listing with the --depth flag (e.g., npm list -global --depth 0). However, ng version is the more direct and recommended way to check the CLI version.