bug#27787: 26.0.50; Add a way to refresh package list based on last update time

bug#27787: 26.0.50; Add a way to refresh package list based on last update time

[Mohammed Sadiq]

It would be nice if there is a defun that would update
package list based on last successfull update.

Eg.: Update package list if last update was before 7 days, or 10 hours,
etc.


Or at least, a function that would return the time of last successful
update would be nice.

Thanks


In GNU Emacs 26.0.50 (build 2, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.22.11)
 of 2017-07-15 built on rose
Repository revision: 511fe21b88f7468a5232434b556f886fa985a5aa
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.11902000
System Description:	Debian GNU/Linux 9.0 (stretch)

Recent messages:
For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a.
Making completion list... [2 times]

Configured features:
XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG RSVG IMAGEMAGICK SOUND GPM DBUS GCONF GSETTINGS
NOTIFY ACL LIBSELINUX GNUTLS LIBXML2 FREETYPE M17N_FLT LIBOTF XFT ZLIB
TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS GTK3 X11 LIBSYSTEMD

Important settings:
  value of $LC_MONETARY: en_GB.UTF-8
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: en_GB.UTF-8
  value of $LC_TIME: en_GB.UTF-8
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=ibus
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  eldoc-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message subr-x puny seq byte-opt gv
bytecomp byte-compile cconv cl-loaddefs cl-lib dired dired-loaddefs
format-spec rfc822 mml easymenu mml-sec password-cache epa derived epg
epg-config gnus-util rmail rmail-loaddefs mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode
mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047
rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils time-date mule-util
tooltip eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type
mwheel term/x-win x-win term/common-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image
regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode elisp-mode
lisp-mode prog-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch timer
select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core
term/tty-colors frame cl-generic cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang
vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932
hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic
chinese composite charscript charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook
help simple abbrev obarray minibuffer cl-preloaded nadvice loaddefs
button faces cus-face macroexp files text-properties overlay sha1 md5
base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable
backquote dbusbind inotify dynamic-setting system-font-setting
font-render-setting move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit x multi-tty
make-network-process emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 94989 8468)
 (symbols 48 20219 1)
 (miscs 40 42 93)
 (strings 32 28601 1407)
 (string-bytes 1 754453)
 (vectors 16 14544)
 (vector-slots 8 490940 7387)
 (floats 8 49 103)
 (intervals 56 216 0)
 (buffers 976 12))

bug#27787: 26.0.50; Add a way to refresh package list based on last update time

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Mohammed Sadiq <sadiq@sadiqpk.org> writes:

> It would be nice if there is a defun that would update
> package list based on last successfull update.
>
> Eg.: Update package list if last update was before 7 days, or 10 hours,
> etc.
>
> Or at least, a function that would return the time of last successful
> update would be nice.

(I'm going through old bug reports that unfortunately weren't resolved
at the time.)

I don't think we keep that info handy anywhere?  But in any case, in my
opinion, having something like this would be of limited utility -- if
you've updated package X two days ago and Y four days ago, then it's all
a bit vague what to do with that information.

Emacs 29 has a new utility command, though -- `M-x package-update-all',
that will just update everything without any fuss or muss, so I think
that's sufficient in this area.  I'm therefore closing this bug report.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no