[ENHANCEMENT] Allow * prerelease versions for * version ranges. #736

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Current Behavior

I came across the behaviour described in this issue: #510

The behaviour is that 1.x.x-whatever ranges as parsed, but the prerelease version is just ignored. I agree with the comment on that issue that something like 1.0.*-rc doesn't really make much sense and isn't terribly useful. Presumably the resolution to this problem is one of the following:

• Fail to parse these ranges
• Allow these ranges, and ONLY match versions with the exact prerelease
• Allow these ranges and allow 1.x.x OR versions with the exact prerelease

However I do think that something like 1.*.*-* could serve a genuine purpose. Currently this version range does not parse.

Expected Behavior

For context, I was trying to find work-arounds for npm/rfcs#397. This is an RFC to update NPM behaviour to make development of peer dependencies more convenient, so that we can satisfy a peer dependency range with a prerelease version if the host app explicitly specifies one.

In lieu of a happy resolution to the RFC, it would be useful to allow a peer dependency to signal that it is intended to accept pre-releases at the discretion of the importing package. And a 1.*.*-* style version range could satisfy this purpose.

Steps To Reproduce

1. In this environment...
2. With this config...
3. Run '...'
4. See error...

Environment

• npm:
• Node:
• OS:
• platform: