Apparently $PREFIX used by npm

[hutson]

I've just recently started using nvm to help facilitate testing npm packages against multiple versions of Node. I quickly ran into issues with updating my global install of npm, only to discover pretty quickly what was causing my problem, i.e. #606 helped. I followed the instructions in that issue so that I could bring my local environment inline with what seems like best practice.

Unfortunately I kept running into the same issue. npm install -g npm kept installing into my prefix directory, but calls to npm kept referencing the nvm-managed node directory.

Following some helpful hints provided in other issues I discovered that npm actually checks for, and uses, the PREFIX environmental variable.

For example I have the following in my profile script:

(~)-()--> cat .profile | grep PREFIX
export PREFIX="${HOME}/.local"

I use that environmental variable for convenience. Next, I query npm to get the prefix directory it's using for installing npm packages.

(~)-()--> npm config list -l -g | grep prefix
prefix = "/home/hutson/.local"

As you can see, it's using the value of my $PREFIX environmental variable.

So my assumption was that if I unset that variable npm would use the correct directory.

(~)-()--> unset PREFIX 

Which it turns out it did:

(~)-()--> npm config list -l -g | grep prefix
prefix = "/home/hutson/.local/var/nvm/versions/node/v0.12.0"

So technically there is a workaround, use another name for my PREFIX variable. However, before going down that path I wanted to see if maybe I was missing something in my environment, or if there was a way I could keep using PREFIX.

[ljharb]

ah ha - no, you're correct. Using literally any of the npm path configuration options will conflict with nvm, which needs to retain control of those.

I'm going to close this as a duplicate of #606, but I've commented on there so that gets checked also.