Re: Forcing reinstall in package.el

[Phil Hagelberg <phil@hagelb.org>]

2010/12/14 Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com>:
> On Tue, 14 Dec 2010 10:21:28 -0800 Phil Hagelberg <phil@hagelb.org> wrote:
>
> PH> While doing development of packages using package.el, I often find
> PH> myself reinstalling packages using M-x package-install-from-buffer.
> PH> However, this is a bit cumbersome because I have to remember to delete
> PH> the old version of the package out of my .emacs.d first. It would be
> PH> nice for package-install-from-buffer to be able to take a prefix
> PH> argument or something that would delete the package before attempting
> PH> to install it.
>
> PH> I volunteer to implement this if it's desired.
>
> Asking the user to give a prefix argument puts a burden on them.  Can
> `package-install-from-buffer' figure out if it needs to delete the old
> package on its own, with maybe a y-or-n prompt at the end?

To be honest, I'd prefer it if overwriting were the default behaviour
for all installations, but I hesitated to suggest a wide-sweeping
change like that. =) I agree that overwriting should probably be the
default for package-install-from-buffer especially; confirmation is
unnecessary.

-Phil