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To: xemacs-beta@xemacs.org
Subject: Re: package-path questions
References: <199708191252.OAA05406@metheny.enst.fr> <ocroh6ub4s0.fsf@ml.com>
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From: SL Baur <steve@xemacs.org>
In-Reply-To: Colin Rafferty's message of "19 Aug 1997 10:56:15 -0400"
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Date: 19 Aug 1997 14:03:27 -0700
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Colin Rafferty <craffert@ml.com> writes:

> Didier Verna writes:
>> Still thinking about this package-path thing ...

> Me too.  See the end for other questions.

>> Q1/ Is it really a good idea to interfere with users private life by
>> putting ~/.xemacs in the default value for package-path ? I mean
>> that for dumping xemacs, (not beta testers) people wouldn't generaly
>> incorporate personal stuff, all the more if xemacs is to be used by
>> several users on a network. Am I wrong ?

> I agree that this is not a good idea.  In fact, ~/.xemacs is the wrong
> place to find the dumped packages.

Point taken.  There shouldn't be too much of a problem searching
`~/.xemacs' at startup versus searching it at dump time.

>> Q2/ If Q1 is not a total nonsense, wouldn't it be better to let only 
>> ${prefix}/lib/xemacs/packages in configure.in as a default value (still
>> modifiable on the command line), and then putting this in site-init.el:

>> (setq package-path (append (list "~/.xemacs") package-path))

 ...
> I prefer the former.

Actually, you don't want to modify package-path because it's a dead
variable after dumping (it's only used during the loadup phase prior
to dump).  Something like

(package-find-packages (list "~/.xemacs") nil)

should work.  As pointed out below, if called in this fashion after
dump time it probably ought to load auto-autoloads files as it finds
them.

>> Q3/ footnotes is given as a package, ...
>> How do we make it install correctly ?

> You do `make xemacs-package' in the footnote direcory, and then redump
> xemacs.

And critique the Makefile.

> Here is my question:

> Q4/ Shouldn't the packages in the user's ~/.xemacs have their autoloads
>     read?

Presumably this follows from Q1 & Q2 above.  Yes, the autoloads for
any packages not dumped into XEmacs should be loaded at startup.  It
might make sense at some point to check timestamps on .elcs of the
previously dumped lisp and reload if the file has changed since dump.

> It seems to me that if we doing all the dirty work of finding the
> package directories, we be loading in the auto-autoloads as well.

Yes.

