ng update should provide instructions for updating major versions incrementally

[dzhavat]

🚀 Feature request

Command (mark with an x)

• new
• build
• serve
• test
• e2e
• generate
• add
• update
• lint
• extract-i18n
• run
• config
• help
• version
• doc

Description

A clear and concise description of the problem or missing capability...

Say I'm on Angular v8.0.0 and run ng update. The current instructions displayed in the console shows a list of packages that can be updated together with a command.

The suggested command is ng update @angular/core (as an example) which always attempts to update Angular to the latest stable version (11 at the time). This goes against the idea of incremental updates (also recommended in the official docs) where one will go from v8 -> v9 -> v10 ... latest.

Describe the solution you'd like

If you have a solution in mind, please describe it.

The suggested commands should take into consideration the current major project version and the current major stable version and provide appropriate instructions (commands) depending on the version "jump". If the difference is just one version thenng update @angular/core should be fine. If the jump is bigger, then an incremental update can be recommended.

Describe alternatives you've considered

Have you considered any alternative solutions or workarounds?

[sebastian-zarzycki-apzumi]

Or just provide the ability to update to specified version (like npm) and advise users to go through the motion of ng update @angular/core@8.0.0 -> ng update @angular/core@9.0.0 -> ng update @angular/core@10.0.0 and so on.

[clydin]

Using a package version specifier is currently supported. For example, running ng update @angular/core@10 will attempt to update Angular framework packages to the latest version of 10.x.