Re: interference between package and exec-path values ?

[Yuri Khan <yurivkhan@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Oct 20, 2018 at 12:15 AM Jean-Christophe Helary
<brandelune@gmail.com> wrote:

> I am finding that having this line in my .emacs.el:
>
> (setq exec-path (append "/usr/local/bin/" exec-path))
>
> interferes with package to the point that I can't install anything.

‘append’ accepts sequences as arguments. You are passing a string as
the first sequence, so it gets shredded to its constituent characters
and these become elements of the resulting list.

You probably wanted:

    (setq exec-path (append '("/usr/local/bin/") exec-path))

or:

    (add-to-list 'exec-path "/usr/local/bin/")

or possibly nothing, because the default value of exec-path derives
its value from your PATH environment variable and that should already
include /usr/local/bin.