Upgrading Next.js, what do the carats do?

[tr1s]

On the Next.js 9.4 blog post it didn't give upgrade instructions but the Next 9.3.5 blog post did. I normally would have just npm install next but on the 9.3 blog it said to use @latest.

Doesn't running npm i always install the latest, how come we need the @latest flag at the end? and what do the little ^ carets do on my new package.json?

old:

  "dependencies": {
    "next": "9.3.5",
    "react": "16.13.1",
    "react-dom": "16.13.1",
  }

new with carets:

  "dependencies": {
    "next": "^9.4.0",
    "react": "^16.13.1",
    "react-dom": "^16.13.1",
  }

just curious, thanks.

[jamesmosier]

The carets in package.json will update you to all future minor/patch versions (this Stack Overflow question answers it actually). So if you had "next": "^9.4.0" in a new project, ran npm install and the latest version of Next available was 9.4.1, then it would install that 9.4.1 version for you.

After the initial installation, package-lock.json files will lock to whatever version you installed originally when the dependency was first installed (unless you manually increment the version yourself).

[tr1s]

I see. I get it, thanks!