Open danlamanna opened 1 year ago
No, it's currently not possible, but I long have thought about adding a plugin (i.e. optional extension) to Eldev that would do just this, probably using straight
. If you could specify in more details what you'd need, I could have a look and maybe implement this in 1.5, the next version.
I'd like the functionality and bootstrapping that's available to eldev-use-local-dependency
but with an external git repo that can be pulled from a host. Whether it uses the spec format from package-vc.el
or straight.el
doesn't make a big difference to me.
A problem here is that I have never used such functionality. I basically understand what you need and why, and I see how it would be a useful addition to Eldev too. But to design a good and usable interface I'd rather first see some real-world examples. If possible (i.e. not a private project), please provide a link to the outer project and the dependency. If not, at least show some code how you would use it, especially how you autofetch it from Git it in your normal Emacs — I assume you already do that.
... especially how you autofetch it from Git it in your normal Emacs
FWIW, for the package doctest
this is what my init.el
configuration looks
like in Emacs 29.1:
(use-package doctest :ensure nil
:vc (doctest :url "https://github.com/ag91/doctest.git"
:branch "master"
:rev :newest))
The :ensure nil
prevents use-package
from trying to fetch it from the
package-archives
.
Hm, I just looked at the docstring of use-package
and it doesn't mention :vc
, at least in the version I have (2.4.5). Is it new? Is it built-in in use-package
, or does it need something else?
My bad! I'm using a not-yet-available-via-upstream-use-package extension called
vc-use-package
. Earlier in my init.el
I have:
(unless (package-installed-p 'vc-use-package)
(package-vc-install "https://github.com/slotThe/vc-use-package" :newest))
Of course, instead of first installing vc-use-package
and then using that
extension via the :vc
keyword in use-package
, you may want to directly use
package-vc-install
to install.
I see. So, basically, if Eldev was to support this, in project's file Eldev
you would somehow specify where (and maybe how) to get certain dependencies. Something like:
(eldev-fetch-package-from 'abc ; dependency package name
"https://github.com/abc.el/abc" ; the URL
; possible additional options, e.g. :fetcher 'git
)
And then when it needs to install dependency X, it first checks if it has a URL for it. If it does, fetch (via Git or whatever) from that URL, else fall back to the usual PA lookup. (Internally this could be implemented via some existing tool or not, don't know yet.)
Is that the desired mechanism? This means you'd have to enumerate all dependencies not available in package archives (MELPA or something) together with their URL. On the other hand, there is probably no way to look up "canonical repository URL for Elisp package named X", so you do have to specify it manually...
in project's file
Eldev
you would somehow specify where (and maybe how) to get certain dependencies
The simplest implementation I can imagine would be one where in the Eldev
file
one would note for each dependency the arguments that would be needed to install
said dependency via package-vc-install
. And then eldev
would take care of
invoking package-vc-install
for each of those.
A more generalized approach would be one which parameterizes over the
installation mechanism (e.g. package-vc-install
vs straight.el
etc). Having
never used straight.el
, I'm not sure what advantage having the option to use
it would confer over being restricted to package-vc-install
.
... you'd have to enumerate all dependencies not available in package archives (MELPA or something) together with their URL.
Yes, I believe that that's unavoidable (and that's okay).
I have a fairly simple project that I would like to set up that requires a dependency that isn't hosted on a package manager. It seems this is becoming more common as people use
straight
andpackage-vc-install
to install directly. Is it possible to declare such a dependency in eldev given that it's not on a package manager or on a local path?