Re: package-autoremove ?

[Tassilo Horn]

Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net> writes:

Hi Philip,

>>> For me, this situation comes up when I install a package via
>>> `(use-package ... :ensure t)' instead of via `list-packages'.
>>
>> Sounds like a good possibility for me as well.  Someone should adjust
>> use-package to add the package to package-selected-packages for this
>> reason.  My Lisp isn't that good.
>
> The :ensure keyword for use-package should select the packages, since
> it invokes `package-install' without setting the optional DONT-SELECT
> argument (use-package-ensure.el):
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> ...
>                 (if (assoc package package-archive-contents)
>                     (package-install package)
>                   (package-refresh-contents)
>                   (when (assoc package (bound-and-true-p
>                                         package-pinned-packages))
>                     (package-read-all-archive-contents))
>                   (package-install package))
> ...
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
> What might be an issue, is that package-install tries to save the
> modification of `package-selected-packages' to disk (package.el):
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>   (if after-init-time
>       (customize-save-variable 'package-selected-packages 
> package-selected-packages)
>     (add-hook 'after-init-hook #'package--save-selected-packages))
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
> Now if you have customised `custom-file' and/or don't load the
> contents of the file, then upon restarting Emacs the updated value
> would be lost and package-autoremove would suggest removing all the
> packages installed by use-package (but also package-install, for that
> matter).

Very good analysis.  I'm also affected by that issue and indeed, I have
customized custom-file, because I use the very same user-init-file on
multiple machines but put minor machine-related tweaks in custom-file.
Basically, my user-init-file starts with:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(setopt custom-file (expand-file-name
                     "custom.el"
                     (if user-init-file
                         (file-name-directory user-init-file)
                       "~/.emacs.d/")))
(load custom-file t)
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Now on two machines which should have pretty much the same emacs setup
(pretty current git master with the same init.el containing the same
use-package with :ensure t statements), package-autoremove suggests
different removal sets.  The union of both sets contains many packages
installed by use-package which are certainly wrong.

It would be great if that could be fixed.

Bye,
Tassilo