Re: Proposal for 'package-isolate' command

[Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net>]

Thierry Volpiatto <thievol@posteo.net> writes:

> Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net> writes:
>
>> Thierry Volpiatto <thievol@posteo.net> writes:
>>
>>> Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net> writes:
>>>
>>>>> No don't worry, helm will work in any cases, thanks.
>>>>
>>>> OK, in that case I'd prefer to keep it the way it is.
>>>
>>> Ok, fair enough.
>>>
>>>>>> Mainly to avoid issues with packages that might place files in the
>>>>>> configuration directory, which might hinder the reproduction of bugs.
>>>>>
>>>>> Hmm, maybe, I don't have an example in mind though.
>>>>
>>>> It might not be the best example, but my package autocrypt generates a
>>>> file in the `user-emacs-directory'.  If we don't use --init-directory,
>>>> the existing file would be re-used.
>>>
>>> Ok, for such case it is easy to either rename the file temporarily to
>>> foo_ori or foo_save or to set the variable handling the file (generally
>>> it is not harcoded) to something else. But another issue is if your
>>> isolated package needs the history file or tramp file or whatever file
>>> ~/.emacs.d is handling; e.g. a package providing completion on history.
>>> I still think it is more handy to reuse user-emacs-directory and its
>>> elpa directory where the packages are already installed.
>>
>> How about this patch, that will use a temporary directory when
>> `package-isolate' is invoked with a prefix argument (not sure what the
>> default should be, I guess reusing `user-emacs-directory' is less
>> surprising):
>
> However it is not working properly:
>
> Tried to isolate two packages, osm and w3m, and osm use compat as
> dependency:
>
> Unable to activate package ‘osm’.
> Required package ‘compat-29.1.4.0’ is unavailable

Sadly I cannot reproduce it, w3m is not in GNU or NonGNU ELPA, so unless
that is causing the issue, something like M-x package-isolate RET
avy-0.5.0,osm-0.13 RET shouldn't make an issue when it comes to
resolving dependencies, as the scratch message indicates:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
;; This is an isolated testing environment, with these packages enabled:

;; - avy-0.5.0
;; - compat-29.1.4.2 (dependency)
;; - osm-0.13
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

And M-x load-library RET compat RET works as well.

> With my simple version of package-isolate I have not this error, both
> osm w3m are installed correctly.
>
> (defun package-isolate (packages)
>   "Start an uncustomised Emacs and only load a set of PACKAGES."
>   (interactive
>    (list (completing-read-multiple
>           "Packages: " (mapcar #'car (package--alist)))))
>   (let* ((name (concat "package-isolate-" (mapconcat #'identity packages ",")))
>          (deps (cl-loop for p in packages
>                         for sym = (intern p)
>                         nconc (package--dependencies sym))))
>     (apply #'start-process (concat "*" name "*") nil
>            (list (file-truename (expand-file-name
>                                  invocation-name invocation-directory))
>                  "--quick" "--debug-init"
>                  (format "--eval=%S"
>                          `(progn
>                            (require 'package)
>                            (setq package-load-list
>                             ',(append (mapcar (lambda (p) (list (intern p) t))
>                                               packages)
>                                       (mapcar (lambda (p) (list p t)) deps)))
>                            (package-initialize)))))))
>
>> [2. text/x-diff; 0001-Add-command-to-start-Emacs-with-specific-packages.patch]...