use grunt to update package dependancy version numbers - gruntjs

Question

I have two projects EasyUI and EasyUI-Layout. EasyUI-Layout depends on EasyUI. I have grunt files set up to build them and push them to github. Here are the abridged grunt files:
// easyui
module.exports = function(grunt) {
grunt.initConfig({
pkg: grunt.file.readJSON('package.json'),
browserify:...,
bumpup: {
file: 'package.json'
},
shell: {
git: ...
},
watch: ...
});
grunt.registerTask('g', ['bumpup', 'browserify', 'shell:git']);
};
// easyui-layout
module.exports = function(grunt) {
grunt.initConfig({
pkg: grunt.file.readJSON('package.json'),
browserify:...,
bumpup: {
file: 'package.json'
},
shell: {
git: ...,
npm: ...
},
watch: ..
});
grunt.registerTask('g', ['shell:npm', 'bumpup', 'browserify', 'shell:git']);
};
What I would like is that when I build and commit the EasyUI-Layout project, its package json is updated with the latest version number from EasyUI. At the moment, for example, the version number for EasyUI dependency in the package.json stays stuck on 0.0.0. Here is the abridged package.json file:
{
"name": "easyui-layout",
"version": "0.0.3",
"dependencies": {
"easyui": "0.0.0"
}
}
Say the EasyUI version number is 0.0.7, then the next time I build EasyUI-Layout with grunt I would like the package.json to be:
{
"name": "easyui-layout",
"version": "0.0.4",
"dependencies": {
"easyui": "0.0.7"
}
}
I assume this is possible with bump or bumpup? But a little experimentation has gotten me nowhere.

Answer 1

No, these types of things should be manually specified. You can use semver ranges though to have the package automatically install

Answer 2

Let me answer my own question. Since I'm publishing EasyUI to npmjs.org let's assume the latest version is up there. Here's the abridged grunt file for the EasyUI-Layout package:
grunt.initConfig({
pkg: grunt.file.readJSON('package.json'),
shell: {
npm: {
command: [
'npm install easyui#latest --save'
].join('&&')
}
}
});
This just forces npm to install the latest version of EasyUI and updates the package.json file.
Simple as that. No need for other grunt tasks, custom or otherwise, and nothing to do with semver.