Cross-env is a valuable npm package designed to ensure cross-platform compatibility when setting and utilizing environment variables in your scripts. Comparing version 6.0.1 and its predecessor, 6.0.0, reveals a small yet important evolution. Both versions maintain the core functionality of running scripts with consistent environment variable handling across different operating systems, mitigating common platform-specific issues. The essential cross-spawn dependency, crucial for properly spawning child processes, remains consistent between versions, using the ^7.0.0 allowing compatible 7.x versions.
The key change lies in the introduction of @babel/runtime as a dependency in version 6.0.1, specifically version ^7.6.2. This addition improves the compatibility and potentially addresses some bug fixes or improvements related to the runtime environment, enhancing the reliability for developers. While the core goal remains same, the added babel runtime ensures that the compiled code will work on a wider variety of environments, particularly older browsers.
For developers selecting a version, 6.0.1 is recommended due to its enhanced runtime environment support, assuming babel is needed in the project. Although the devDependencies also differ (kcd-scripts with ^1.8.0 vs ^0.3.4), this doesn't directly affect the package's runtime behavior but might show improvements on dev scripts tooling. The unpacked size difference(27779 vs 27847) is negligible. Always refer to the official changelog for exhaustive information on all the changes and their impact.
The are not vulnerabilities for the version 6.0.1 of the package cross-env