Re: package-autoremove ?

[Philip Kaludercic]

Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org> writes:

}> Philip Kaludercic <philipk@posteo.net> writes:
>
> Hi Philip,
>
>>>> For me, this situation comes up when I install a package via
>>>> `(use-package ... :ensure t)' instead of via `list-packages'.
>>>
>>> Sounds like a good possibility for me as well.  Someone should adjust
>>> use-package to add the package to package-selected-packages for this
>>> reason.  My Lisp isn't that good.
>>
>> The :ensure keyword for use-package should select the packages, since
>> it invokes `package-install' without setting the optional DONT-SELECT
>> argument (use-package-ensure.el):
>>
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>> ...
>>                 (if (assoc package package-archive-contents)
>>                     (package-install package)
>>                   (package-refresh-contents)
>>                   (when (assoc package (bound-and-true-p
>>                                         package-pinned-packages))
>>                     (package-read-all-archive-contents))
>>                   (package-install package))
>> ...
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>>
>> What might be an issue, is that package-install tries to save the
>> modification of `package-selected-packages' to disk (package.el):
>>
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
>>   (if after-init-time
>>       (customize-save-variable 'package-selected-packages 
>> package-selected-packages)
>>     (add-hook 'after-init-hook #'package--save-selected-packages))
>> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>>
>> Now if you have customised `custom-file' and/or don't load the
>> contents of the file, then upon restarting Emacs the updated value
>> would be lost and package-autoremove would suggest removing all the
>> packages installed by use-package (but also package-install, for that
>> matter).
>
> Very good analysis.  I'm also affected by that issue and indeed, I have
> customized custom-file, because I use the very same user-init-file on
> multiple machines but put minor machine-related tweaks in custom-file.
> Basically, my user-init-file starts with:
>
> (setopt custom-file (expand-file-name
>                      "custom.el"
>                      (if user-init-file
>                          (file-name-directory user-init-file)
>                        "~/.emacs.d/")))

What is the point of this check?  FWIW my init.el starts with

  (load (setq custom-file (locate-user-emacs-file "custom.el")) t)

and I have never had issues with it.

> (load custom-file t)

> Now on two machines which should have pretty much the same emacs setup
> (pretty current git master with the same init.el containing the same
> use-package with :ensure t statements), package-autoremove suggests
> different removal sets.  The union of both sets contains many packages
> installed by use-package which are certainly wrong.

I have little to no experience with use-package, so I am not the best
person to help here.  Have you reported this behaviour as a bug?

> It would be great if that could be fixed.
>
> Bye,
> Tassilo