Find and version bump outdated packages in Flutter (across major versions)

With the latest beta versions of Flutter (v1.17) there is now a pub command to check for, and update, outdated dependencies.

To check for outdated dependencies, run:

$ flutter pub outdated -h
Analyze dependencies to find which ones can be upgraded.
This runs the "pub" tool in a Flutter context.

Usage: flutter pub outdated [<arguments...>]
-h, --help    Print this usage information.

Run "flutter help" to see global options.

and this gives output like:

$ flutter pub outdated
Dependencies                           Current              Upgradable           Resolvable           Latest
path                                   *1.6.4               *1.6.4               *1.6.4               1.7.0
permission_handler                     *4.4.0+hotfix.4      *4.4.0+hotfix.4      5.0.0+hotfix.3       5.0.0+hotfix.3

dev_dependencies
analyzer                               *0.36.4              *0.36.4              *0.36.4              0.39.7
build_runner                           *1.7.4               *1.7.4               *1.7.4               1.9.0

transitive dependencies
asn1lib                                *0.5.15              *0.5.15              *0.5.15              0.6.4
permission_handler_platform_interface  *1.0.0               *1.0.0               2.0.0                2.0.0

transitive dev_dependencies
build                                  *1.1.6               *1.1.6               *1.1.6               1.2.2
build_config                           *0.4.1+1             *0.4.1+1             *0.4.1+1             0.4.2
dart_style                             *1.2.9               *1.2.9               *1.2.9               1.3.6

1 upgradable dependency is locked (in pubspec.lock) to an older version.
To update it, use `pub upgrade`.

4  dependencies are constrained to versions that are older than a resolvable version.
To update these dependencies, edit pubspec.yaml.

To update with compatible dependencies, run:

flutter pub upgrade

or to update with potentially breaking changes, use

flutter pub upgrade --major-versions

After release of Flutter 2.0 you can follow these flutter command lines to upgrade dependency packages automatically:

1. flutter pub outdated

2. flutter pub upgrade --major-versions

Flutter currently doesn't provide such a feature.
There might be 3rd-party packages that do that. The only one I know is den (https://pub.dartlang.org/packages/den), but this one is not maintained since quite some time and can't be used with recent Dart or Flutter versions.

What might help is to at least get a list of dependencies where newer versions are available.

Upvote https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/12627 for that.

In the meantime the workaround mentioned in https://github.com/flutter/flutter/issues/12627#issuecomment-400037072 can be used

Set FLUTTER_ROOT to your Flutter install directory and run pub upgrade. (this requires the Dart SDK to be installed in addition to the Flutter SDK)

$ export FLUTTER_ROOT="/Users/my_user/flutter"

$ pub upgrade
Resolving dependencies... (16.2s)
! analyzer 0.33.0 (overridden) (0.34.2 available)
  args 1.5.1
  async 2.0.8
  boolean_selector 1.0.4
! build 1.1.0 (overridden)
  built_collection 4.1.0
! built_redux 7.5.2 (overridden)
  built_value 6.2.0
  bwu_grinder_tasks 0.2.0-dev.0
  charcode 1.1.2
  cli_util 0.1.3+2
  collection 1.14.11
  contacts_service 0.0.9 (0.1.0 available)
> convert 2.1.1 (was 2.0.2)
  crypto 2.0.6
  csslib 0.14.6
  dart_style 1.2.2
  device_info 0.2.1 (0.3.0 available)
> file 5.0.7 (was 5.0.6)
> firebase_analytics 1.1.0 (was 1.0.6)
...

• Upgrade single package

  dart pub upgrade <package_name>
  

• Upgrade all packages

  dart pub upgrade --major-versions
  

There a quick and dirty solution that just reads the pubspec.yaml file and then checks the latest version by web-scraping.

https://gist.github.com/spidgorny/ed475cbbe303e1c09c0f6c9f9f57dcad

Example:

cupertino_icons: 0.1.2
location: 2.3.5
flutter_local_notifications: 0.8.4
http: 0.12.0+1
 => 0.12.0+2
haversine: 1.0.2
flutter_map: 0.1.4
 => 0.7.3
map_native: 0.0.11
url_launcher: 5.1.4
flutter_html_view: 0.5.12
flutter_html: 0.8.2
background_fetch: 0.2.0
 => 0.3.2
package_info: 0.4.0+2
 => 0.4.0+6
liquid_pull_to_refresh: 1.1.1
provider: 3.0.0
 => 3.1.0
yaml: any
google_maps_flutter: 0.5.21+7

You can simply check the version of the dependency even if its version is blank in the pubspec file. Goto Root directory of the project in Android Studio then External Libraries expand it and you can simply view name and version number of the dependency. Don't know about other IDEs.

I was getting a set mock handler error. I tried a flutter clean and flutter pub upgrade but the error continued. I added pigeon: 1.0.7 and wid a flutter pub upgrade, no luck.

finally I tried

flutter pub upgrade --major-versions

and it moved forward my flutter dependencies and the code compiled

the command moved my packages versions forward

  flutter_html: ^1.3.0 -> ^2.1.5
  rxdart: ^0.24.1 -> ^0.27.2
  master_detail_scaffold: ^1.1.1+2 -> ^2.0.0
  intl: ^0.16.0 -> ^0.17.0

You can use flutter packages upgrade, Flutter will verify new release versions with constraints notification if there is.

Checkout the documentation about it here: https://flutter.io/docs/development/tools/sdk/upgrading

Warning: (taken from the above link)

Don’t use the pub get or pub upgrade commands to manage dependencies for Flutter apps. Instead, use flutter packages get or flutter packages upgrade. If you want to use pub manually, you can run it directly by setting the FLUTTER_ROOT environment variable.