There is a lot of confusion going around when it comes to the difference between tilde and caret inside your package.json file, which can end up in a mess on the production side since you might update accidentally to the version of a dependency that you did not test for production.

In today’s article, I wanna clarify the differences between these two concepts.

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~version (approximately equivalent to version)

Will update you on all future patch versions, without incrementing the minor version. ~1.2.3 will use releases from 1.2.3 to <1.3.0.

^version (compatible with version)

Will update you on all future minor/patch versions, without incrementing the major version. ^2.3.4 will use releases from 2.3.4 to <3.0.0.

Thanks for reading my short article about this topic. I hope, I could refresh your knowledge.

Cheers!

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