Re: package and testing rant (was Re: package.el, auto-installation, and auto-removal)

[Stephen Leake]

Stefan Monnier <address@hidden> writes:

> The way to "test" for elpa.git is "cd .../elpa; make" which should
> create the *-autoloads.el and *-pkg.el and *.elc files in the "same" way
> as what will happen on the user's machine.

This is not a good test. For example, if the developer forgets to add
a file to elpa.git, this test will pass, but a true install will fail
(happened to me recently).

I use these make targets to build a package-archive that package.el can
use and install from it:

build-elpa : force
        rm -rf ../../elpa/archive-tmp
        mkdir -p ../../elpa/archive-tmp/packages
        cp -a ../../elpa/packages/ada-mode ../../elpa/archive-tmp/packages
        cp -a ../../elpa/packages/ada-ref-man ../../elpa/archive-tmp/packages
        cp -a ../../elpa/packages/wisi     ../../elpa/archive-tmp/packages
        make -C ../../elpa/ process-archive

install-elpa :
        emacs -Q --eval '(progn (load-file "install-elpa.el")(kill-emacs))'

That is a test of the complete process, assuming there are no steps on
the GNU ELPA server that are not in the elpa.git makefile.

-- 
-- Stephe