Re: NonGNU ELPA

[Michael Albinus]

Antoine Kalmbach <ane@iki.fi> writes:

Hi Antoine,

> I think the gist of the ELPA CI would be something like:
>
>   1. Clone the repository and emacs.git

Well, emacs.git is already cloned and compiled on emba.gnu.org
regularly. I guess we could use the artifacts of such a build for a
running Emacs.

And this step shall also take into account the external packages.

>   2. Build the package archive

Depends how it is called. If it is called for every push to the elpa
repository, it might not be wise to build always a whole archive. Just
the package in question shall be built.

> These steps already have automation in place, since that's what is done
> for building the ELPA index. Then, for the CI run,
>
>   3. Start a batch Emacs instance and replace `package-archives' with
>      (("elpa-test" . "/path/to/built/archive")) where that path points
>      to the built package archive in step 2.

The GNUmakefile knows already the target archive.

>   4. Loop through each package and run `package-install` on it.

Or do it for the package in question.

>   5. Optionally run also some linters etc., like checkdoc.

Yep. Some packages come with ERT tests, they could run.

> The good part about this is that it's essentially just taking existing
> automation one step further, i.e. verifying each package in the
> repository can actually be installed.  I have no idea what's going to
> happen with cyclic dependencies though.  I suppose package.el can handle
> all that.

Could you write an initial .gitlab-ci.yml? You might look at the
respective file in the Emacs repo (which also needs some improvements).

Thanks, and best regards, Michael.