development practices for ELPA packages

development practices for ELPA packages

[Yoni Rabkin]

Hello,

I currently have Emms and rt-liberation in ELPA. Users of those packages
are happy with this. However, as a developer I'm less happy. I would
like to ask for help in learning how people with packages in ELPA
develop them.

Right now I'm working on the next release of rt-liberation. I would like
to tell Emacs: "load all of the ELPA packages normally, but when you get
to rt-liberation please load my local, non-packaged, version from
/devel/rt-liberation"

I know I can give the package manager a list of packages to load, but
that doesn't help me. I want to tell the package manage which package
_not_ to load, and what to load instead.

How do people who work on ELPA packages manage this?

Thank you in advance.

-- 
   "Cut your own wood and it will warm you twice"

Re: development practices for ELPA packages

[Stefan Monnier]

> I currently have Emms and rt-liberation in ELPA. Users of those packages
> are happy with this. However, as a developer I'm less happy. I would
> like to ask for help in learning how people with packages in ELPA
> develop them.
>
> Right now I'm working on the next release of rt-liberation. I would like
> to tell Emacs: "load all of the ELPA packages normally, but when you get
> to rt-liberation please load my local, non-packaged, version from
> /devel/rt-liberation"

> I know I can give the package manager a list of packages to load, but
> that doesn't help me. I want to tell the package manage which package
> _not_ to load, and what to load instead.
>
> How do people who work on ELPA packages manage this?

Personally, I arrange to have `/devel/` (or equivalent) in my
`package-directory-list` so I don't install `rt-liberation` into
`~/.emacs.d/elpa` at all, instead package.el uses `/devel/rt-liberation`
as the place where `rt-liberation` was installed.


        Stefan

Re: development practices for ELPA packages

[Stephen Leake]

Yoni Rabkin <yoni@rabkins.net> writes:

> Right now I'm working on the next release of rt-liberation. I would like
> to tell Emacs: "load all of the ELPA packages normally, but when you get
> to rt-liberation please load my local, non-packaged, version from
> /devel/rt-liberation"

Stefan's suggestion works if your devel directory looks like an
installed package. ada-mode doesn't; I put the devel version in
load-path, before the installed package directory.

-- 
-- Stephe

Written from unceded ancestral homelands of the Huichiun, an Ohlone
people,for which I pay Shuumi Land Tax.

Re: development practices for ELPA packages

[Michael Albinus]

Yoni Rabkin <yoni@rabkins.net> writes:

> Hello,

Hi,

> I currently have Emms and rt-liberation in ELPA. Users of those packages
> are happy with this. However, as a developer I'm less happy. I would
> like to ask for help in learning how people with packages in ELPA
> develop them.
>
> Right now I'm working on the next release of rt-liberation. I would like
> to tell Emacs: "load all of the ELPA packages normally, but when you get
> to rt-liberation please load my local, non-packaged, version from
> /devel/rt-liberation"
>
> I know I can give the package manager a list of packages to load, but
> that doesn't help me. I want to tell the package manage which package
> _not_ to load, and what to load instead.
>
> How do people who work on ELPA packages manage this?

I would call "make archive" on the top level of the ELPA directory. And
then I would declare a local ELPA archive with higher priority, like

(add-to-list 'package-archives
             '("local" . "/home/albinus/src/elpa/archive/packages/"))

(add-to-list 'package-archive-priorities
	     '("local" . 3))
(add-to-list 'package-archive-priorities
	     '("gnu" . 2))
(add-to-list 'package-archive-priorities
	     '("melpa" . 1))

> Thank you in advance.

Best regards, Michael.

Re: development practices for ELPA packages

[Yoni Rabkin]

Stephen Leake <stephen_leake@stephe-leake.org> writes:

> Yoni Rabkin <yoni@rabkins.net> writes:
>
>> Right now I'm working on the next release of rt-liberation. I would like
>> to tell Emacs: "load all of the ELPA packages normally, but when you get
>> to rt-liberation please load my local, non-packaged, version from
>> /devel/rt-liberation"
>
> Stefan's suggestion works if your devel directory looks like an
> installed package. ada-mode doesn't; I put the devel version in
> load-path, before the installed package directory.

That works for me. I'll use this technique to make the "devel" version
override the package I'm working on.

Thank you, and thank you to Stefan and Michael as well for providing
input.

-- 
   "Cut your own wood and it will warm you twice"

Re: development practices for ELPA packages

[Stefan Monnier]

>> Right now I'm working on the next release of rt-liberation. I would like
>> to tell Emacs: "load all of the ELPA packages normally, but when you get
>> to rt-liberation please load my local, non-packaged, version from
>> /devel/rt-liberation"
> Stefan's suggestion works if your devel directory looks like an
> installed package. ada-mode doesn't;

Making it look like an installed package is easy: it just requires
a <PKG>-pkg.el and <PKG>-autoloads.el file.

elpa.git has code to create&refresh those files.  It's not currently
very convenient to use that code in a specific directory, but that would
be easy to fix.

The creation of <PKG>-autoloads.el is done by the following rule in the
GNUmakefile:

    %-autoloads.el:
        @#echo 'Generating autoloads for $@'
        @cd $(dir $@) &&                                                   \
          $(EMACS) -l $(CURDIR)/admin/archive-contents.el                  \
              --eval "(require 'package)"                                  \
              --eval "(load (expand-file-name \"../names/names-autoloads.el\") t t)" \
              --eval "(package-generate-autoloads \"$$(basename $$(pwd))\" \
                                                  \"$$(pwd)\")"

and the rule for <PKG>-pkg.el is:

    %-pkg.el: %.el
        @echo 'Generating description file $@'
        @$(EMACS) \
            --eval '(require (quote package))' \
            --eval '(setq b (find-file-noselect "$<"))' \
            --eval '(setq d (with-current-buffer b (package-buffer-info)))' \
            --eval '(package-generate-description-file d "$@")'


-- Stefan