Re: How to develop a local fork of a package?

[Akib Azmain Turja]

Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:

> Alessandro Bertulli wrote:
>
>> (add-to-list 'load-path (expand-file-name "git_packages/org-ref/"))

(expand-file-name "git_packages/org-ref/")?  Relative to what?  If the
directory is in your ".emacs.d", then it should be (add-to-list
'load-path (expand-file-name "git_packages/org-ref/"
user-emacs-directory)).

>> (delete "/home/alessandro/.emacs.d/elpa/org-ref-20220830.1210" load-path)
>> (package-initialize)

Why?  This would break whenever package.el updates org-ref.  And this
won't ever work because that directory is not in load-path before
(package-initialize), and after (package-initialize) org-ref will be on
load-path.  Your best option is to delete the package with M-x
package-delete.  And the "delete" call may not work.  You set load-path
to the return value of "delete", for example:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(setq load-path
      (delete "/home/alessandro/.emacs.d/elpa/org-ref-20220830.1210"
              load-path))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

>>
>> But then, no matter which one of these I use
>>
>> (require 'org-ref)

Unless org-ref is in load-path, this will always error.

>> (load "~/.emacs.d/git_packages/org-ref/org-ref")

Where is the ".el" suffix?  Did you mean (load
"~/.emacs.d/git_packages/org-ref/org-ref.el")?  Loading directly will
probably work for single file packages, but you should always add the
package directory to load-path.

>> (use-package org-ref
>>   :ensure nil
>>   :load-path "~/.emacs.d/git_packages/org-ref/org-ref.el")

I think the error is because you specify a file as load-path instead of
a directory.  I think the load-path should be probably
"~/.emacs.d/git_packages/org-ref/".  However, I have never used
:load-path keyword of use-package, so my assumptions may be wrong.

>>
>> I always get errors
>
> What errors?

-- 
Akib Azmain Turja

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