symlink된 `node_modules` 구조

info

This article only describes how pnpm's node_modules are structured when there are no packages with peer dependencies. For the more complex scenario of dependencies with peers, see how peers are resolved.

pnpm's node_modules layout uses symbolic links to create a nested structure of dependencies.

Every file of every package inside node_modules is a hard link to the content-addressable store. Let's say you install foo@1.0.0 that depends on bar@1.0.0. pnpm will hard link both packages to node_modules like this:

node_modules
└── .pnpm
    ├── bar@1.0.0
    │   └── node_modules
    │       └── bar
    │           ├── index.js     -> <store>/001
    │           └── package.json -> <store>/002
    └── foo@1.0.0
        └── node_modules
            └── foo
                ├── index.js     -> <store>/003
                └── package.json -> <store>/004

These are the only "real" files in node_modules. Once all the packages are hard linked to node_modules, symbolic links are created to build the nested dependency graph structure.

As you might have noticed, both packages are hard linked into a subfolder inside a node_modules folder (foo@1.0.0/node_modules/foo). 이것은 다음을 위해 필요합니다:

1. allow packages to import themselves. foo should be able to require('foo/package.json') or import * as package from "foo/package.json".
2. avoid circular symlinks. Dependencies of packages are placed in the same folder in which the dependent packages are. For Node.js it doesn't make a difference whether dependencies are inside the package's node_modules or in any other node_modules in the parent directories.

설치의 다음 단계는 의존성을 심볼릭 링크하는 것입니다. bar is going to be symlinked to the foo@1.0.0/node_modules folder:

node_modules
└── .pnpm
    ├── bar@1.0.0
    │   └── node_modules
    │       └── bar -> <store>
    └── foo@1.0.0
        └── node_modules
            ├── foo -> <store>
            └── bar -> ../../bar@1.0.0/node_modules/bar

다음으로, 직접 의존성이 처리됩니다. foo is going to be symlinked into the root node_modules folder because foo is a dependency of the project:

node_modules
├── foo -> ./.pnpm/foo@1.0.0/node_modules/foo
└── .pnpm
    ├── bar@1.0.0
    │   └── node_modules
    │       └── bar -> <store>
    └── foo@1.0.0
        └── node_modules
            ├── foo -> <store>
            └── bar -> ../../bar@1.0.0/node_modules/bar

이것은 매우 간단한 예입니다. 그러나 이 레이아웃은 의존성 수와 의존성 그래프의 깊이에 관계없이 이 구조를 유지합니다.

Let's add qar@2.0.0 as a dependency of bar and foo. 새로운 구조는 다음과 같습니다.

node_modules
├── foo -> ./.pnpm/foo@1.0.0/node_modules/foo
└── .pnpm
    ├── bar@1.0.0
    │   └── node_modules
    │       ├── bar -> <store>
    │       └── qar -> ../../qar@2.0.0/node_modules/qar
    ├── foo@1.0.0
    │   └── node_modules
    │       ├── foo -> <store>
    │       ├── bar -> ../../bar@1.0.0/node_modules/bar
    │       └── qar -> ../../qar@2.0.0/node_modules/qar
    └── qar@2.0.0
        └── node_modules
            └── qar -> <store>

As you may see, even though the graph is deeper now (foo > bar > qar), the directory depth in the file system is still the same.

이 레이아웃은 언뜻 보기에는 이상해보일 수 있지만, Node의 모듈 resolution 알고리즘과 완벽하게 호환됩니다. When resolving modules, Node ignores symlinks, so when bar is required from foo@1.0.0/node_modules/foo/index.js, Node does not use bar at foo@1.0.0/node_modules/bar, but instead, bar is resolved to its real location (bar@1.0.0/node_modules/bar). As a consequence, bar can also resolve its dependencies which are in bar@1.0.0/node_modules.

이 레이아웃의 큰 장점은 실제로 의존성에 있는 패키지에만 액세스할 수 있다는 것입니다. With a flattened node_modules structure, all hoisted packages are accessible. To read more about why this is an advantage, see "pnpm's strictness helps to avoid silly bugs"

Unfortunately, many packages in the ecosystem are broken — they use dependencies that are not listed in their package.json. To minimize the number of issues new users encounter, pnpm hoists all dependencies by default into node_modules/.pnpm/node_modules. To disable this hoisting, set hoist to false.