“npm -v” give different version than is installed?

Question

when I run

npm -v gulp-rev

output is:

3.10.9

but when I run this this:

npm install gulp-rev@3.10.9

output is:

npm ERR! Linux 4.4.0-51-generic
npm ERR! argv "/usr/bin/nodejs" "/usr/bin/npm" "install" "gulp-rev@3.10.9"
npm ERR! node v6.9.2
npm ERR! npm  v3.10.9
npm ERR! code ETARGET

npm ERR! notarget No compatible version found: gulp-rev@3.10.9
npm ERR! notarget Valid install targets:
npm ERR! notarget 7.1.2, 7.1.1, 7.1.0, 7.0.0, 6.0.1, 6.0.0, 5.1.0, 5.0.1, 5.0.0, 4.0.0, 3.0.1, 3.0.0, 2.0.1, 2.0.0, 1.1.0, 1.0.0, 0.4.2, 0.4.1, 0.4.0, 0.3.2, 0.3.1, 0.3.0, 0.2.1, 0.2.0, 0.1.0
npm ERR! notarget
npm ERR! notarget This is most likely not a problem with npm itself.
npm ERR! notarget In most cases you or one of your dependencies are requesting
npm ERR! notarget a package version that doesn't exist.

npm ERR! Please include the following file with any support request:
npm ERR!     /home/vagrant/green-rush/npm-debug.log

what is happening here ?

Answer 1

npm -v does not take an additional argument. It just returns you the version of npm you have. In your case, the npm version is 3.10.9 .

npm install <pkg>@<ver> tries to install the version of package . So, npm install gulp-rev@3.10.9 tries to install the package gulp-rev v3.10.9 .

The error that you see indicates that the package manager, npm , could not find the version 3.10.9 of the package gulp-rev .

You should look at the output for npm view <pkg> or npm info <pkg> . Something like the following, to find out the available versions of a package:

$ npm info gulp-rev
{ name: 'gulp-rev',
  description: 'Static asset revisioning by appending content hash to filenames: unicorn.css => unicorn-d41d8cd98f.css',
  'dist-tags': { latest: '7.1.2' },
  versions: 
   [ '0.1.0',
     '0.2.0',
     '0.2.1',
     '0.3.0',
     '0.3.1',
     '0.3.2',
     '0.4.0',
     '0.4.1',
     '0.4.2',
     '1.0.0',
     '1.1.0',
     '2.0.0',
     '2.0.1',
     '3.0.0',
     '3.0.1',
     '4.0.0',
     '5.0.0',
     '5.0.1',
     '5.1.0',
     '6.0.0',
     '6.0.1',
     '7.0.0',
     '7.1.0',
     '7.1.1',
     '7.1.2' ],
  maintainers: 
   [ 'sindresorhus <sindresorhus@gmail.com>',
     'bobthecow <npm@0x7f.us>' ],
  time: 
   { modified: '2017-02-07T07:08:17.264Z',
     created: '2013-12-15T20:57:26.925Z',
     '0.1.0': '2013-12-15T20:57:29.850Z',
     '0.2.0': '2014-01-09T20:24:43.863Z',
     '0.2.1': '2014-01-19T15:52:54.544Z',
     '0.3.0': '2014-03-08T22:00:02.597Z',
     '0.3.1': '2014-03-24T10:06:15.492Z',
     '0.3.2': '2014-04-01T21:41:26.879Z',
     '0.4.0': '2014-05-19T20:03:11.211Z',
     '0.4.1': '2014-06-06T07:20:31.080Z',
     '0.4.2': '2014-07-08T21:43:06.371Z',
     '1.0.0': '2014-07-25T23:07:29.223Z',
     '1.1.0': '2014-08-20T22:56:00.375Z',
     '2.0.0': '2014-10-16T13:10:08.264Z',
     '2.0.1': '2014-10-19T10:01:53.069Z',
     '3.0.0': '2015-01-18T13:45:52.222Z',
     '3.0.1': '2015-02-11T05:45:58.974Z',
     '4.0.0': '2015-05-22T21:08:21.150Z',
     '5.0.0': '2015-06-16T16:49:16.653Z',
     '5.0.1': '2015-06-20T15:53:16.599Z',
     '5.1.0': '2015-07-06T12:32:37.977Z',
     '6.0.0': '2015-08-21T09:28:45.791Z',
     '6.0.1': '2015-08-26T09:53:48.548Z',
     '7.0.0': '2016-02-10T09:55:06.980Z',
     '7.1.0': '2016-06-15T12:34:34.986Z',
     '7.1.1': '2016-08-12T23:24:44.095Z',
     '7.1.2': '2016-08-12T23:47:50.678Z' },
  author: 'Sindre Sorhus <sindresorhus@gmail.com> (sindresorhus.com)',
  repository: 
   { type: 'git',
     url: 'git+https://github.com/sindresorhus/gulp-rev.git' },
  readmeFilename: 'readme.md',
  homepage: 'https://github.com/sindresorhus/gulp-rev#readme',
  keywords: 
   [ 'gulpplugin',
     'rev',
     'revving',
     'revision',
     'hash',
     'optimize',
     'version',
     'versioning',
     'cache',
     'expire',
     'static',
     'asset',
     'assets' ],
  bugs: { url: 'https://github.com/sindresorhus/gulp-rev/issues' },
  license: 'MIT',
  users: 
   { '326060588': true,
     brutto: true,
     wayneseymour: true,
     jden: true,
     'shonny.ua': true,
     zckrs: true,
     nakosung: true,
     peterchizzle: true,
     stonecypher: true,
     bluehazetech: true,
     dfl: true,
     levisl176: true,
     zhangyaochun: true,
     ziink: true,
     richarddavenport: true,
     pmcalabrese: true,
     grantls: true,
     imanu: true,
     kulakowka: true,
     evan2x: true,
     joaocunha: true,
     atriix: true,
     samhou1988: true,
     simplyianm: true,
     asmolyakov: true,
     ginof: true,
     mpcjazz: true,
     laravelfanatic: true,
     mrtwister: true,
     chriszs: true,
     thoroc: true,
     jruif: true,
     wangwen1220: true,
     thatk: true,
     xiechao06: true,
     maskedcoder: true,
     ifeature: true,
     makowski: true,
     klimnikita: true,
     stiyes: true,
     pensierinmusica: true,
     elussich: true,
     nunn: true,
     thierrymarianne: true,
     artjacob: true,
     nazjunaid: true,
     neefrankie: true,
     wangnan0610: true,
     lijiehe: true,
     '456wyc': true,
     sparrow: true,
     kjarnet: true,
     nickleefly: true,
     fadihania: true,
     niuca: true,
     huangdawei: true,
     bian17888: true,
     wolfhoundjesse: true,
     akash_shah: true,
     maxwang: true,
     xgheaven: true,
     seleckis: true,
     donggw2030521: true,
     dennykuo: true,
     rajivmehtajs: true,
     dezeloper: true,
     petewarrior: true,
     ijunlin: true,
     arvinxiang: true,
     xiaochao: true,
     whudongyang: true,
     rubiadias: true,
     caesor: true,
     slowfish: true,
     haihepeng: true,
     piotrlewandowski: true,
     youngfoo: true,
     quality520: true,
     zoxon: true,
     bushuai: true,
     acoyang: true,
     kevinfszu: true,
     affiction: true,
     tdreitz: true,
     evanj0hnson: true,
     jsdnxx: true,
     mobeicaoyuan: true,
     xingtao: true,
     tedyhy: true,
     tmurngon: true,
     flynntsc: true,
     kele527: true,
     mutian: true,
     iori20091101: true,
     itonyyo: true,
     wenwu92: true,
     fdeneux: true,
     'stone-jin': true,
     kodekracker: true,
     icodes: true,
     raojs: true },
  version: '7.1.2',
  engines: { node: '>=0.10.0' },
  scripts: { test: 'xo && mocha' },
  files: [ 'index.js' ],
  dependencies: 
   { 'gulp-util': '^3.0.0',
     'modify-filename': '^1.1.0',
     'object-assign': '^4.0.1',
     'rev-hash': '^1.0.0',
     'rev-path': '^1.0.0',
     'sort-keys': '^1.0.0',
     through2: '^2.0.0',
     'vinyl-file': '^1.1.0' },
  devDependencies: { mocha: '*', xo: '*' },
  xo: { envs: [ 'node', 'mocha' ] },
  gitHead: 'e895123b92f4a39fcf6a3f37dbdd78bc6f93c0c5',
  dist: 
   { shasum: '5e17cc229f6b45c74256f88ad3f2d3e9a3305829',
     tarball: 'https://registry.npmjs.org/gulp-rev/-/gulp-rev-7.1.2.tgz' },
  directories: {} }

If you wish to find out the version of the installed package, type:

npm list

Answer 2

npm -v gulp-rev is a somewhat invalid command. It does not give you the latest version number of the npm-package gulp-rev , but your currently installed version of npm, which is 3.10.9 .

Youre trying to install a version of gulp-rev which doesnt exist.

To install the latest version of gulp-rev, you just need to type in npm install gulp-rev