[QUESTION] Should '*' include prereleases

[wheresrhys]

What / Why

In my package fetch-mock I declare a peerDependency of node-fetch: '*'

According to the documentation this should allow any version:

• := >=0.0.0 (Any version satisfies)

The behaviour I'm seeing is that it will only ever install non-prereleases of node-fetch ( node@12.6.1 and presumably the npm version it bundles by default - I'm seeing the behaviour in https://repl.it/repls/HastyGregariousServerapplication)

I have 3 questions

1. Is this behaviour correct - should '*' really exclude prereleases? In other words, is this a bug in npm's treatment of peerDependencies
2. Assuming the behaviour is correct, I guess the docs above mean * is an alias for >=0.0.0, and it's misleading to describe this as 'Any version satisfies' - it would be more correct to change the documentation to read 'Any non-prerelease version satisfies'
3. Also assuming the behaviour is correct, is there any way I can genuinely express a dependency on a package that will allow any version, including prereleases?

[wheresrhys]

Update - I can't recreate locally. I would guess that repl.it is doing something in addition to npm install to force peerDependencies. But my questions about the expected behaviour still stand. Thanks

[matheo]

THIS!
I'm having a problem in my lerna repo because while I'm publishing canary releases of my packages, this check made by lerna:

semver.satisfies('16.0.0-beta-0`, '*')

is returning false and then my whole dependency tree gets screwed because from there, lerna's PackageGraph is not built correctly!

This was quite a surprise because a 16.0.0-beta.0 seems far beyond >1.0.0 according to the definition :(

[lukekarrys]

Is this behaviour correct - should '*' really exclude prereleases?

Yes, it's correct that '*' does not include prereleases.

It's misleading to describe this as 'Any version satisfies'

Yeah, I think the docs could make this more clear.

is there any way I can genuinely express a dependency on a package that will allow any version, including prereleases?

No, prereleases aren't matched unless they have the same major/minor/patch. But if you have a specific version, you can match all prereleases of that version with ^1.0.0-a. That will match 1.0.0-beta, 1.0.0-canary, etc.

[wheresrhys]

@lukekarrys I'm a bit confused why you'd acknowledge the point about the docs needing improvement but close this without (as far as I can see) addressing that point.

[lukekarrys]

You're right, I'm not sure why I did that. Leaving this open with the action to improve the docs around prerelease versions, specifically the phrasing Any version satisfies.

[wheresrhys]

Thank you 😄