Re: Proposal for 'package-isolate' command

[Philip Kaludercic]

Thierry Volpiatto <thievol@posteo.net> writes:

> Hello Philip,
>
> Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net> writes:
>
>> Thierry Volpiatto <thievol@posteo.net> writes:
>>
>>> Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net> writes:
>>>
>>>>> No don't worry, helm will work in any cases, thanks.
>>>>
>>>> OK, in that case I'd prefer to keep it the way it is.
>>>
>>> Ok, fair enough.
>>>
>>>>>> Mainly to avoid issues with packages that might place files in the
>>>>>> configuration directory, which might hinder the reproduction of bugs.
>>>>>
>>>>> Hmm, maybe, I don't have an example in mind though.
>>>>
>>>> It might not be the best example, but my package autocrypt generates a
>>>> file in the `user-emacs-directory'.  If we don't use --init-directory,
>>>> the existing file would be re-used.
>>>
>>> Ok, for such case it is easy to either rename the file temporarily to
>>> foo_ori or foo_save or to set the variable handling the file (generally
>>> it is not harcoded) to something else. But another issue is if your
>>> isolated package needs the history file or tramp file or whatever file
>>> ~/.emacs.d is handling; e.g. a package providing completion on history.
>>> I still think it is more handy to reuse user-emacs-directory and its
>>> elpa directory where the packages are already installed.
>>
>> How about this patch, that will use a temporary directory when
>> `package-isolate' is invoked with a prefix argument (not sure what the
>> default should be, I guess reusing `user-emacs-directory' is less
>> surprising):
>
> Yes.
>
> Isn't these two loop the same? (save one loop)

No, because that assumes that we are only interested in the first
package descriptor in every package--alist entry, while there might be
multiple.

>     (cl-loop for p in (cl-loop for p in (package--alist) append (cdr p))
>        unless (package-built-in-p p)

Also, do we want this or wouldn't it be useful to be able to force a
built-in package being loaded?

>        collect (cons (package-desc-full-name p) p) into table
>        finally return
>        (list (cl-loop for c in (completing-read-multiple
>                                       "Isolate packages: " table
>                                       nil t)
>                       collect (alist-get c table nil nil #'string=))
>                    current-prefix-arg))
>
>     (cl-loop for p in (package--alist)
>              for desc = (cadr p)
>              for name = (car p)
>              unless (package-built-in-p desc)
>              collect (cons (package-desc-full-name desc) p) into table
>              finally return
>              (list (cl-loop for c in (completing-read-multiple
>                                       "Isolate packages: " table
>                                       nil t)
>                           append (cdr (alist-get c table nil nil #'string=)))
>                    current-prefix-arg))
>
>
>> [2. text/x-diff;
>> 0001-Add-command-to-start-Emacs-with-specific-packages.patch]...