Re: package-update-all from command line

[Stefan Monnier]

> replacing `package-initialize' with `package-activate-all' above results in
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> Debugger entered--Lisp error: (void-function package-update-all)
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Hmm... maybe it should be autoloaded, then?

>>>   -eval '(setq package-selected-packages (delete-dups 
>>> package-activated-list))' \
>> Hmm... I wonder why you needed that.
> because otherwise `package-selected-packages' is nil and there is
> nothing to update.

I can't see in the code where `package-update-all` ends up using
`package-selected-packages`.
At the place where it uses it, it probably should auto-initialize it if
it's still nil.

> and I need `delete-dups' because `package-activated-list' will repeat
> all installed packages as many times as `list-packages' or
> `package-quickstart-refresh' was called.

I can't see in the code many efforts to make absolutely sure that
duplicates don't make it there, admittedly.
But `package-quickstart-refresh` let-binds it to nil around the whole
call so it shouldn't be able to modify it at all.  And I can't think of
any reason why `list-packages` would modify that var either.
IOW, sounds like a bug somewhere.

>>> E.g., I would like to save `package-archives' in
>>> `package-quickstart-file' so that I won't have to specify it on the
>>> command line (it is set in ~/.emacs, of course).
>> I can't think of a way to do that in a way that's reliable for all the
>> various ways this var can be set.  :-(
[ Too many "way"s here, sorry.  ]
> just add a setq at the end, like we already do with `package-activated-list'.

`package-activated-list` is easy because it's not meant to be set by
the user.

`package-archives` is a completely different problem because it's
a defcustom which may be set to a different value in the user's config
in all kinds of different ways, and which may be eval'd either before or
after loading the quickstart file, so it *would* mess up the user's
config in various circumstances.

We could do it upon the user's request, of course, but doing it
automatically by default is not really an option :-(

Maybe a more general way to attack this problem would be to try and
create a "quickinit.el" file which is a bit like a "dump" of the user's
config, so it can be used instead of loading `init.el`?


        Stefan