`package.el' and built-in packages

`package.el' and built-in packages

[Jiří Šebele]

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Hello,

I found out that `package-installed-p’ return non-nil values even for built-in packages, and that `package-install’ does nothing when trying to install a package that’s among those that are built-in. I’ve bumped into this when trying to set up my Emacs config to automatically pull in packages if they are not installed, which in turn failed to install a newer version of Org that the one shipped with Emacs.

To my knowledge the only way to install a newer Org now is to manually click `Install’ in `package-list-packages’, which interferes with my intent to automatically install packages that are not present when Emacs starts up.

I think that `package.el’ should be able to install packages even if they are built-in, since it install them to `~/.emacs.d/elpa’ anyways.

Regards,
– Jiří

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Re: `package.el' and built-in packages

[alex]

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Any comment on this? It would be nice if using`package-pinned-packages' could somehow solve this.

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Re: `package.el' and built-in packages

[Stefan Monnier]

> this when trying to set up my Emacs config to automatically pull in packages
> if they are not installed, which in turn failed to install a newer version
> of Org that the one shipped with Emacs.

`package-install` should install a newer version if one is available.
I can see two reasons why it failed for you:
- when you called `package-install` the package info from the archives
  had not yet been refreshed/loaded.  IOW, maybe you should have called
  `package-refresh-contents` before.
- Org has a messed up package versioning scheme, so maybe that got in
  the way (tho IIUC it should not be an issue here).

> I think that `package.el’ should be able to install packages even if they
> are built-in, since it install them to `~/.emacs.d/elpa’ anyways.

It is able to.


        Stefan

Re: `package.el' and built-in packages

[alex]

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> IOW, maybe you should have called `package-refresh-contents`

I've tried that, but it doesn't work.

> Org has a messed up package versioning scheme, so maybe that
> got in the way (tho IIUC it should not be an issue here).

Could be. Though even if so, shouldn't adding (org . "gnu") to
`package-pinned-packages` demand that org be used from the gnu
repo even if it's built-in?

From a quick step through with the debugger it appears
that (package-install 'org) quits at `package-installed-p` in
`package-compute-transaction` without looking at the version,
which probably means I'm missing something.

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Re: `package.el' and built-in packages

[Stefan Monnier]

> From a quick step through with the debugger it appears
> that (package-install 'org) quits at `package-installed-p` in
> `package-compute-transaction` without looking at the version,
> which probably means I'm missing something.

Hmm...maybe you need to provide the exact package (with version).
In any case, I think you should M-x report-emacs-bug.


        Stefan

Re: `package.el' and built-in packages

[Artur Malabarba]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> From a quick step through with the debugger it appears
>> that (package-install 'org) quits at `package-installed-p` in
>> `package-compute-transaction` without looking at the version,
>> which probably means I'm missing something.
>
> Hmm...maybe you need to provide the exact package (with version).
> In any case, I think you should M-x report-emacs-bug.
>

Whatever we do, I beg that we don't make this the default behaviour of
package-install. There are probably plenty of people (me included) who
use it as way to ensure a package is installed (without worrying about
most recent version).

We can add a command `package-update', or add an extra optional argument
(something like `update-if-installed').

Re: `package.el' and built-in packages

[Kaushal Modi]

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>
> Whatever we do, I beg that we don't make this the default behaviour of
> package-install. There are probably plenty of people (me included) who
> use it as way to ensure a package is installed (without worrying about
> most recent version).
>
> We can add a command `package-update', or add an extra optional argument
> (something like `update-if-installed').
>

+1
-- 

-- 
Kaushal Modi

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Re: `package.el' and built-in packages

[alex]

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> We can add a command `package-update', or add an extra optional
> argument (something like `update-if-installed').

If adding an optional argument is an option, then is there a good
reason not to have an optional argument that would specify the exact
archive (from `package-archives') to install from? That seems to be
the most straightforward solution.

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