GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

[Rainer Stengele]

Since trying to switch my old EmacsW32 based on Emacs 22 to the ones based on Emacs 23 I am observing this problem:


Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided")
   require(diary-loaddefs)
   eval-buffer(#<buffer  *load*<3>> nil "c:/Emacs23/emacs/lisp/calendar/diary-lib.el" nil t)  ; Reading at buffer position 1059
   load-with-code-conversion("c:/Emacs23/emacs/lisp/calendar/diary-lib.el" "c:/Emacs23/emacs/lisp/calendar/diary-lib.el" nil t)
   require(diary-lib)
   eval-buffer(#<buffer  *load*<2>> nil "c:/Emacs23/emacs/lisp/calendar/appt.el" nil t)  ; Reading at buffer position 2727
   load-with-code-conversion("c:/Emacs23/emacs/lisp/calendar/appt.el" "c:/Emacs23/emacs/lisp/calendar/appt.el" nil t)
   (appt-activate 1)
   eval-buffer(#<buffer  *load*> nil "c:/Dokumente und Einstellungen/rainer/Anwendungsdaten/.emacs" nil t)  ; Reading at buffer position 60074
   load-with-code-conversion("c:/Dokumente und Einstellungen/rainer/Anwendungsdaten/.emacs" "c:/Dokumente und Einstellungen/rainer/Anwendungsdaten/.emacs" t t)
   load("~/.emacs" t t)
   #[nil "\b


has anyone a clue? is this W32 related or an emacs 23 "feature"?


GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched)



Thanks for any help!

Rainer

Re: GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 07.08.2008 um 16:59 schrieb Rainer Stengele:

> Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Required feature `diary- 
> loaddefs' was not provided")

For some time this was a general issue. Since months (middle of March  
for me) it should not happen (although I still saw others mentioning  
the same). Glenn Morris then suggested to 'make maintainer-clean'  
followed by 'make bootstrap'. He added that "ediff-hook had a paren  
typo at present."

--
Mit friedvollen Grüßen

   Pete

Alle reden vom Wetter - die Bahn fährt nicht.

Re: GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Peter Dyballa wrote:
> 
> Am 07.08.2008 um 16:59 schrieb Rainer Stengele:
> 
>> Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Required feature 
>> `diary-loaddefs' was not provided")
> 
> For some time this was a general issue. Since months (middle of March 
> for me) it should not happen (although I still saw others mentioning the 
> same). Glenn Morris then suggested to 'make maintainer-clean' followed 
> by 'make bootstrap'. He added that "ediff-hook had a paren typo at 
> present."


I am not sure what the source of this problem is. However I have just 
uploaded a new version of Emacs+EmacsW32.

Rainer, could you please try the new version?

Re: GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

[Rainer Stengele]

Lennart Borgman (gmail) schrieb:
> Peter Dyballa wrote:
>>
>> Am 07.08.2008 um 16:59 schrieb Rainer Stengele:
>>
>>> Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Required feature 
>>> `diary-loaddefs' was not provided")
>>
>> For some time this was a general issue. Since months (middle of March 
>> for me) it should not happen (although I still saw others mentioning 
>> the same). Glenn Morris then suggested to 'make maintainer-clean' 
>> followed by 'make bootstrap'. He added that "ediff-hook had a paren 
>> typo at present."
> 
> 
> I am not sure what the source of this problem is. However I have just 
> uploaded a new version of Emacs+EmacsW32.
> 
> Rainer, could you please try the new version?
> 
> 
> 

Hello Lennart,

no - same error in the latest version "GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 
(i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-08 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched)"

Rainer

Re: GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Rainer Stengele wrote:
> Lennart Borgman (gmail) schrieb:
>> Peter Dyballa wrote:
>>>
>>> Am 07.08.2008 um 16:59 schrieb Rainer Stengele:
>>>
>>>> Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Required feature 
>>>> `diary-loaddefs' was not provided")
>>>
>>> For some time this was a general issue. Since months (middle of March 
>>> for me) it should not happen (although I still saw others mentioning 
>>> the same). Glenn Morris then suggested to 'make maintainer-clean' 
>>> followed by 'make bootstrap'. He added that "ediff-hook had a paren 
>>> typo at present."
>>
>>
>> I am not sure what the source of this problem is. However I have just 
>> uploaded a new version of Emacs+EmacsW32.
>>
>> Rainer, could you please try the new version?
>>
>>
>>
> 
> Hello Lennart,
> 
> no - same error in the latest version "GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 
> (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-08 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched)"


I wonder what has happened. I have deleted the file diary-loaddefs and 
uploaded a new test version.

Rainer, I would be glad if you could test again:

   http://ourcomments.org/Emacs/DL/EmacsW32/test/

Please notice that I made a mistake while packaging this. I you want to 
edit genshi or mjt files with nXhtml that comes with it you have to 
delete the file

   nxhtml/etc/schema/rncpp-*.done

first.

Re: GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

[Rainer Stengele]

Lennart Borgman (gmail) schrieb:
> Rainer Stengele wrote:
>> Lennart Borgman (gmail) schrieb:
>>> Peter Dyballa wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Am 07.08.2008 um 16:59 schrieb Rainer Stengele:
>>>>
>>>>> Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Required feature 
>>>>> `diary-loaddefs' was not provided")
>>>>
>>>> For some time this was a general issue. Since months (middle of 
>>>> March for me) it should not happen (although I still saw others 
>>>> mentioning the same). Glenn Morris then suggested to 'make 
>>>> maintainer-clean' followed by 'make bootstrap'. He added that 
>>>> "ediff-hook had a paren typo at present."
>>>
>>>
>>> I am not sure what the source of this problem is. However I have just 
>>> uploaded a new version of Emacs+EmacsW32.
>>>
>>> Rainer, could you please try the new version?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> Hello Lennart,
>>
>> no - same error in the latest version "GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 
>> (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-08 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched)"
> 
> 
> I wonder what has happened. I have deleted the file diary-loaddefs and 
> uploaded a new test version.
> 
> Rainer, I would be glad if you could test again:
> 
>   http://ourcomments.org/Emacs/DL/EmacsW32/test/
> 
> Please notice that I made a mistake while packaging this. I you want to 
> edit genshi or mjt files with nXhtml that comes with it you have to 
> delete the file
> 
>   nxhtml/etc/schema/rncpp-*.done
> 
> first.
> 
> 
> 
Lennart, finally emacs is starting up and works in org-mode as expected 
but fails as soon as I try to go to the agenda view with these messages:


Preparing diary...
eval-buffer: Required feature `hol-loaddefs' was not provided


Thanks for listening and helping!

Rainer

Re: GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 09.08.2008 um 23:30 schrieb Rainer Stengele:

> Preparing diary...
> eval-buffer: Required feature `hol-loaddefs' was not provided


Right now these *-loaddefs.el files exist:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root  10865 2008-08-09 11:23 /usr/local/share/emacs/ 
23.0.60/lisp/calc/calc-loaddefs.el
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  33243 2008-08-09 11:21 /usr/local/share/emacs/ 
23.0.60/lisp/calendar/cal-loaddefs.el
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  11856 2008-08-09 11:21 /usr/local/share/emacs/ 
23.0.60/lisp/calendar/diary-loaddefs.el
-rw-r--r-- 1 root   6109 2008-08-09 11:21 /usr/local/share/emacs/ 
23.0.60/lisp/calendar/hol-loaddefs.el
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  40411 2008-07-16 10:10 /usr/local/share/emacs/ 
23.0.60/lisp/emacs-lisp/cl-loaddefs.el
-rw-r--r-- 1 root 105689 2008-08-09 11:21 /usr/local/share/emacs/ 
23.0.60/lisp/mh-e/mh-loaddefs.el

--
Mit friedvollen Grüßen

   Pete

When in doubt, use brute force.
				– Ken Thompson

Re: GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Rainer Stengele wrote:
> Lennart, finally emacs is starting up and works in org-mode as expected 
> but fails as soon as I try to go to the agenda view with these messages:
> 
> 
> Preparing diary...
> eval-buffer: Required feature `hol-loaddefs' was not provided


I actually get this too when I do

   M-x diary

so this is not a problem with the installation. It rather seems to be a 
problem with my patched version of Emacs.

I do not think I have any patches that actually does something that is 
related to this so it more looks like a problem with merging or building.

Any useful suggestions would be appreciated.

I am unsure about what to do with this. (Unfortunately the process of 
getting some of my changes into Emacs has been slow and I do not have 
time to look into it any more. It has taken me an awful lot of time.)

Re: GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2008 23:49:06 +0200
> From: Rainer Stengele <rainer.stengele@yahoo.de>
> Cc: Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa@Web.DE>, help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org,
> 	Rainer Stengele <rainer.stengele@diplan.de>
> 
> Lennart Borgman (gmail) schrieb:
> > Peter Dyballa wrote:
> >>
> >> Am 07.08.2008 um 16:59 schrieb Rainer Stengele:
> >>
> >>> Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Required feature 
> >>> `diary-loaddefs' was not provided")
> 
> no - same error in the latest version "GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 
> (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-08 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched)"

Could it be that you have some older Lisp file somewhere?  What does
"emacs -q -batch -f list-load-path-shadows" say?

Re: GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

[Rainer Stengele]

Eli Zaretskii schrieb:
>> Date: Fri, 08 Aug 2008 23:49:06 +0200
>> From: Rainer Stengele <rainer.stengele@yahoo.de>
>> Cc: Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyballa@Web.DE>, help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org,
>> 	Rainer Stengele <rainer.stengele@diplan.de>
>>
>> Lennart Borgman (gmail) schrieb:
>>> Peter Dyballa wrote:
>>>> Am 07.08.2008 um 16:59 schrieb Rainer Stengele:
>>>>
>>>>> Debugger entered--Lisp error: (error "Required feature 
>>>>> `diary-loaddefs' was not provided")
>> no - same error in the latest version "GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 
>> (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-08 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched)"
> 
> Could it be that you have some older Lisp file somewhere?  What does
> "emacs -q -batch -f list-load-path-shadows" say?
> 
> 
> 
gives me:


C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Rainer>emacs -q -batch -f 
list-load-path-shadows
Der Befehl "emacs" ist entweder falsch geschrieben oder
konnte nicht gefunden werden.

C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Rainer>c:\Emacs23\emacs\bin\emacs -q 
-batch -f list-load-path-shadows
Adding c:/Emacs23/EmacsW32/lisp/ to load-path
This site has duplicate Lisp libraries with the same name.
If a locally-installed Lisp library overrides a library in the Emacs 
release,
that can cause trouble, and you should probably remove the locally-installed
version unless you know what you are doing.

c:/Emacs23/emacs/lisp/vc-dav hides c:/Emacs23/emacs/lisp/url/vc-dav

1 Emacs Lisp load-path shadowing was found

Re: GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 09 Aug 2008 23:05:47 +0200
> From: Rainer Stengele <rainer.stengele@yahoo.de>
> CC: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> 
> C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Rainer>c:\Emacs23\emacs\bin\emacs -q 
> -batch -f list-load-path-shadows
> Adding c:/Emacs23/EmacsW32/lisp/ to load-path
> This site has duplicate Lisp libraries with the same name.
> If a locally-installed Lisp library overrides a library in the Emacs 
> release,
> that can cause trouble, and you should probably remove the locally-installed
> version unless you know what you are doing.
> 
> c:/Emacs23/emacs/lisp/vc-dav hides c:/Emacs23/emacs/lisp/url/vc-dav
> 
> 1 Emacs Lisp load-path shadowing was found

You should take care of this, but I don't think it's related to your
original problem.

Re: GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> Date: Sat, 09 Aug 2008 23:05:47 +0200
>> From: Rainer Stengele <rainer.stengele@yahoo.de>
>> CC: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
>>
>> C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Rainer>c:\Emacs23\emacs\bin\emacs -q 
>> -batch -f list-load-path-shadows
>> Adding c:/Emacs23/EmacsW32/lisp/ to load-path
>> This site has duplicate Lisp libraries with the same name.
>> If a locally-installed Lisp library overrides a library in the Emacs 
>> release,
>> that can cause trouble, and you should probably remove the locally-installed
>> version unless you know what you are doing.
>>
>> c:/Emacs23/emacs/lisp/vc-dav hides c:/Emacs23/emacs/lisp/url/vc-dav
>>
>> 1 Emacs Lisp load-path shadowing was found

Thanks Rainer,

That is probably something left over from an older installation of 
Emacs. Could you perhaps try to delete or rename the c:/Emacs23/ 
directory and install Emacs again?

> You should take care of this, but I don't think it's related to your
> original problem.

It is a bit related to the installer for Emacs+EmacsW32 that I 
distribute. I have written it so that it does not delete the old Emacs 
tree, but I think that is a mistake.

I think I will let it delete the emacs directory before installation. It 
should be (rather) safe since a user should not put files there.

Any thoughts on this?

Re: GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

[Rainer Stengele]

Lennart Borgman (gmail) schrieb:
> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>>> Date: Sat, 09 Aug 2008 23:05:47 +0200
>>> From: Rainer Stengele <rainer.stengele@yahoo.de>
>>> CC: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
>>>
>>> C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Rainer>c:\Emacs23\emacs\bin\emacs -q 
>>> -batch -f list-load-path-shadows
>>> Adding c:/Emacs23/EmacsW32/lisp/ to load-path
>>> This site has duplicate Lisp libraries with the same name.
>>> If a locally-installed Lisp library overrides a library in the Emacs 
>>> release,
>>> that can cause trouble, and you should probably remove the 
>>> locally-installed
>>> version unless you know what you are doing.
>>>
>>> c:/Emacs23/emacs/lisp/vc-dav hides c:/Emacs23/emacs/lisp/url/vc-dav
>>>
>>> 1 Emacs Lisp load-path shadowing was found
> 
> Thanks Rainer,
> 
> That is probably something left over from an older installation of 
> Emacs. Could you perhaps try to delete or rename the c:/Emacs23/ 
> directory and install Emacs again?
> 
>> You should take care of this, but I don't think it's related to your
>> original problem.
> 
> It is a bit related to the installer for Emacs+EmacsW32 that I 
> distribute. I have written it so that it does not delete the old Emacs 
> tree, but I think that is a mistake.
> 
> I think I will let it delete the emacs directory before installation. It 
> should be (rather) safe since a user should not put files there.
> 
> Any thoughts on this?
> 
> 
> 


Lennart,

after deleting the Emacs23 folder I still get


eval-buffer: Required feature `hol-loaddefs' was not provided


Rainer.

Re: GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Rainer Stengele wrote:
> Lennart,
> 
> after deleting the Emacs23 folder I still get
> 
> 
> eval-buffer: Required feature `hol-loaddefs' was not provided


This seem to have been related with some issue with loaddefs in the 
calendar directory. If I do not misremember there where some messages 
about that on the devel list. I did not read them carefully though.

The hol-loaddefs.el file was missing a (provide ...) statement at the end.

After deleting the *loaddefs.el files and rebuilding Emacs the problem 
seems to be gone.

Rainer, I have uploaded a new patched version to the same location as 
before. Can you please try the new version?


(Note: I mentioned the patches before, but it turned out that it has 
nothing to do with that. Instead it seems to be related to the makefiles 
for building Emacs. For some reason they did not remake the loaddefs file.)

Re: GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

[Rainer Stengele]

Lennart Borgman (gmail) schrieb:
> Rainer Stengele wrote:
>> Lennart,
>>
>> after deleting the Emacs23 folder I still get
>>
>>
>> eval-buffer: Required feature `hol-loaddefs' was not provided
> 
> 
> This seem to have been related with some issue with loaddefs in the 
> calendar directory. If I do not misremember there where some messages 
> about that on the devel list. I did not read them carefully though.
> 
> The hol-loaddefs.el file was missing a (provide ...) statement at the end.
> 
> After deleting the *loaddefs.el files and rebuilding Emacs the problem 
> seems to be gone.
> 
> Rainer, I have uploaded a new patched version to the same location as 
> before. Can you please try the new version?
> 
> 
> (Note: I mentioned the patches before, but it turned out that it has 
> nothing to do with that. Instead it seems to be related to the makefiles 
> for building Emacs. For some reason they did not remake the loaddefs file.)
> 
> 
> 

Hello Lennart!

It works! As far as I tried everything worked!
Thanks a lot, I love the Emacs version you are providing!
Be encouraged to continue the work! Emacs is making windows bearable...

Rainer

Re: GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On Sat, 09 Aug 2008 23:50:16 +0200, Lennart Borgman wrote:
>>> C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\Rainer>c:\Emacs23\emacs\bin\emacs -q -batch -f list-load-path-shadows
>>> Adding c:/Emacs23/EmacsW32/lisp/ to load-path
>>> This site has duplicate Lisp libraries with the same name.
>>> If a locally-installed Lisp library overrides a library in the Emacs
>>> release,
>>> that can cause trouble, and you should probably remove the locally-installed
>>> version unless you know what you are doing.
>>>
>>> c:/Emacs23/emacs/lisp/vc-dav hides c:/Emacs23/emacs/lisp/url/vc-dav
>>>
>>> 1 Emacs Lisp load-path shadowing was found
>
> Thanks Rainer,
>
> That is probably something left over from an older installation of
> Emacs. Could you perhaps try to delete or rename the c:/Emacs23/
> directory and install Emacs again?

Yep.

>> You should take care of this, but I don't think it's related to your
>> original problem.
>
> It is a bit related to the installer for Emacs+EmacsW32 that I
> distribute. I have written it so that it does not delete the old Emacs
> tree, but I think that is a mistake.
>
> I think I will let it delete the emacs directory before installation. It
> should be (rather) safe since a user should not put files there.
>
> Any thoughts on this?

Hi Lennard,

First of all, a big thank you for making Windows builds of Emacs.  I
always download your builds and install them when I am forced to work on
Windows, because I can't stand most of the other Windows editors :-)

I don't really know much about the internals of the Windows installers
of the packaging system of Windows, but let me describe an idea that may
be useful.

You could modify the installer to

  (1) perform pre-installation checks.  When it finds an existing
      installation it can prompt the user that "An existing Emacs
      installation has been found.  Please uninstall it first, and rerun
      this installer."

  (2) Only remove the files that the installer itself added to the
      system (i.e. by using some sort of "packaging list").

This is similar to what the package installation tools of FreeBSD too.
When there are directories in the packaging list, we use one of two
directives to remove them, either `@dirrm' or `@dirrmtry'.  For those
directories that the user is not supposed to manually add files, we use
`@dirrm' in the packaging list, and we remove the directories in
depth-first order, i.e.:

  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/etc/images/gud
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/etc/images/gnus
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/etc/images/ezimage
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/etc/images/custom
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/etc/images
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/etc/gnus
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/etc/e
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/etc/charsets
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/etc
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%

For the directories that may have user data or may be shared among
multiple packages, we use `@dirrmtry' and remove those in depth-first
order too, i.e.:

  @dirrmtry share/icons/hicolor/128x128/apps
  @dirrmtry share/icons/hicolor/128x128
  @dirrmtry share/icons/hicolor
  @dirrmtry share/icons
  @dirrmtry share/applications
  @dirrmtry var/games/emacs
  @dirrmtry var/games
  @dirrmtry var

The packaging list format is quite `simple'.  It lists files by their
relative pathname under ${LOCALBASE} (which defaults to `/usr/local'),
and any line starting with `@' is a special `packaging directive'.
Parts of the packaging list for the `editors/emacs-devel' port look like
this:

  bin/b2m
  bin/ctags
  bin/ebrowse
  bin/emacs
  bin/emacs-%%EMACS_VER%%
  bin/emacsclient
  bin/etags
  bin/grep-changelog
  bin/rcs-checkin
  libexec/emacs/%%EMACS_VER%%/%%EMACS_ARCH%%/cvtmail
  libexec/emacs/%%EMACS_VER%%/%%EMACS_ARCH%%/digest-doc
  libexec/emacs/%%EMACS_VER%%/%%EMACS_ARCH%%/fakemail
  libexec/emacs/%%EMACS_VER%%/%%EMACS_ARCH%%/hexl
  libexec/emacs/%%EMACS_VER%%/%%EMACS_ARCH%%/movemail
  libexec/emacs/%%EMACS_VER%%/%%EMACS_ARCH%%/profile
  libexec/emacs/%%EMACS_VER%%/%%EMACS_ARCH%%/rcs2log
  libexec/emacs/%%EMACS_VER%%/%%EMACS_ARCH%%/sorted-doc
  libexec/emacs/%%EMACS_VER%%/%%EMACS_ARCH%%/update-game-score
  libexec/emacs/%%EMACS_VER%%/%%EMACS_ARCH%%/vcdiff
  share/applications/emacs.desktop
  %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/etc/AUTHORS
  %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/etc/BABYL
  %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/etc/CENSORSHIP
  %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/etc/CONTRIBUTE
  [...]
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/site-lisp
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/lisp/url
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/lisp/textmodes
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/lisp/term
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/lisp/progmodes
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/lisp/play
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/lisp/org
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/lisp/obsolete
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/lisp/nxml
  [...]
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%/etc
  @dirrm %%DATADIR%%/%%EMACS_VER%%
  @dirrm libexec/emacs/%%EMACS_VER%%/%%EMACS_ARCH%%
  @dirrm libexec/emacs/%%EMACS_VER%%
  @dirrm libexec/emacs
  @dirrmtry share/icons/hicolor/scalable/mimetypes
  @dirrmtry share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps
  [...]
  @dirrmtry share/icons/hicolor
  @dirrmtry share/icons
  @dirrmtry share/applications
  @dirrmtry var/games/emacs
  @dirrmtry var/games
  @dirrmtry var

By removing only the files that the Windows installer itself has
installed (as they are listed in the packaging list), we can keep any
site-lisp code or other local files.  By asking for an uninstall before
a new clean install is done, you would be pretty sure that only the
files of the new installation are present (and any local `site-lisp'
code).

By keeping the list of `@dirrmtry' directories small, you, as the
installer developer, can also add checks about modifications in the rest
of the installation tree.  If a directory is listed as `@dirrm' but it
is not empty after you remove the files listed in your packaging list,
then there are local changes in that directory.  At that point, you have
the option of notifying the user that they have made local changes to
`internal' Emacs files, and prompt them for one of several things.
I've listed the options in decreasing order of what I would prefer, but
please feel free to implement any subset of them:

  * Keep a backup copy of the extra files, and then delete them.  Point
    the user to the backup copy of the files, so they can look later for
    any interesting bits and reinstall them manually.

  * Just delete the files, and let future installs run on a clean slate.

  * Abort the installation, and log the mismatched packaging list
    entries to a text file on the disk.  Pointing the user to the log
    file, so they can manually "fix" the installation directory would be
    useful too.

Now I admit that I don't really know how much work it would be to do
something similar for the Windows build of Emacs.  But if it's useful
then I'm glad :)

Cheers,
Giorgos

Re: GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

[Lennart Borgman (gmail)]

Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
>> Thanks Rainer,
>>
>> That is probably something left over from an older installation of
>> Emacs. Could you perhaps try to delete or rename the c:/Emacs23/
>> directory and install Emacs again?
> 
> Yep.
> 
>>> You should take care of this, but I don't think it's related to your
>>> original problem.
>> It is a bit related to the installer for Emacs+EmacsW32 that I
>> distribute. I have written it so that it does not delete the old Emacs
>> tree, but I think that is a mistake.
>>
>> I think I will let it delete the emacs directory before installation. It
>> should be (rather) safe since a user should not put files there.
>>
>> Any thoughts on this?
> 
> Hi Lennard,
> 
> First of all, a big thank you for making Windows builds of Emacs.  I
> always download your builds and install them when I am forced to work on
> Windows, because I can't stand most of the other Windows editors :-)

Thanks.

> I don't really know much about the internals of the Windows installers
> of the packaging system of Windows, but let me describe an idea that may
> be useful.
> 
> You could modify the installer to
> 
>   (1) perform pre-installation checks.  When it finds an existing
>       installation it can prompt the user that "An existing Emacs
>       installation has been found.  Please uninstall it first, and rerun
>       this installer."
> 
>   (2) Only remove the files that the installer itself added to the
>       system (i.e. by using some sort of "packaging list").


Thanks for the suggestions. I think they are reasonable and good. 
However the installer that I am using (Inno Setup, it is very good) does 
not have this possibility during reinstallation. You have to uninstall 
before installing to get this effect.

I have decided to leave it as it is at the moment, but I will try to 
find a place to add a noticeable remark on the problem. Maybe I will add 
it to the information you see during installation (though I guess you 
normally never read that info ...).

Re: GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2008-08-06 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched): error "Required feature `diary-loaddefs' was not provided"

[Giorgos Keramidas]

On Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:48:55 +0200, "Lennart Borgman (gmail)" <lennart.borgman@gmail.com> wrote:
>Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
>> I don't really know much about the internals of the Windows
>> installers of the packaging system of Windows, but let me describe an
>> idea that may be useful.
>>
>> You could modify the installer to
>>
>>   (1) perform pre-installation checks.  When it finds an existing
>>       installation it can prompt the user that "An existing Emacs
>>       installation has been found.  Please uninstall it first, and rerun
>>       this installer."
>>
>>   (2) Only remove the files that the installer itself added to the
>>       system (i.e. by using some sort of "packaging list").
>
> Thanks for the suggestions. I think they are reasonable and
> good. However the installer that I am using (Inno Setup, it is very
> good) does not have this possibility during reinstallation. You have
> to uninstall before installing to get this effect.

It's ok.

> I have decided to leave it as it is at the moment, but I will try to
> find a place to add a noticeable remark on the problem. Maybe I will
> add it to the information you see during installation (though I guess
> you normally never read that info ...).

I guess we can live with this.  I had not heard of 'stale' files before,
because I normally uninstall the old version and clean up the directory
manually :)