[Octave-bug-tracker] [bug #47405] pkg update errors out of one package sees dependency error

[Nicholas Jankowski]

Follow-up Comment #5, bug #47405 (project octave):

Recording some thoughts here for a workable hack vs a better fix:

most of pkg.m is a top level wrapper with work in the private functions. In
particular, pkg update calls install.m for each package after generating a
list to iterate through. install.m has 'unsatisfied dependency' as an error,
so this aborts the whole update process. install.m is called without any
expected return variables, so there's no feedback to pkg.m, and dependencies
aren't checked by pkg.m, just inside install.m

1 - bare minimum fix: "don't abort the pkg.m update sequence when a dependency
error is encountered." 
--> is there a way for the error (or something similar) to only abort the
current script and return control to the calling function pkg? Would there be
a problem if this was replaced with a warning?  for a single pkg install, I
believe either a warning or an error would be the last thing done by the
script. for multiple installs, a warning would inform the user but still
continue to try the other packages.

2 - #1 + inform the user in some way that they should re-run pkg update - if
changed to a warning, there should be a way to check if a particular warning 
was issued, change a flag to 'dependency_error_encountered', and then at the
end of the update process, produce a 'you should re-run pkg update' message.

3 - if #2 is happening, other things could be triggered by the flag, such as
logging the package(s) that caused the error, and retrying them once at the
end of the update script. 

4 - the most desirable option, that pkg checks for dependencies and re-orders
the update list so that nothing occurs out of order, would require moving
(copying) the dependency check from install to pkg. Not too difficult, but
much more involved.

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