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High-level summary:
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If Emacs is started with no ~/.emacs.d/elpa directory,
#'package-initialize is not called, and I can't programatically work
with packages.
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Motivation
----------
I like my init file to completely set up Emacs: I want to be able to
start with an empty ~/.emacs.d/ move my init file into it, and start up
Emacs. To do that, I've had (previously to Emacs 27), this as the
preamble to my init file:
(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'package-archives
'("melpa" . "
https://melpa.org/packages/"))
(package-initialize)
(unless (package-installed-p 'use-package)
(package-refresh-contents)
(package-install 'use-package))
This sets up package.el with the ability to use melpa, then installs
use-package, for use in the rest of my init file. This has worked fine.
But I recently upgraded my Emacs to a newer version built from source,
using commit 766b057e41df7316808ec7658836fda75facda75. As part of that,
I've read up on the early init file. My understanding is that users
should no longer call #'package-initialize in their init files. This is
supported by, if I do have a call to #'package-initialize, starting
Emacs gives me a warning "Warning (package): Unnecessary call to
‘package-initialize’ in init file". So I figured I would remove it. But
I quickly ran into a problem, or at least an area for better
documentation.
-------------------------
Reproduction instructions
-------------------------
A minimal init file that shows my problem is here:
(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'package-archives
'("melpa" . "
https://melpa.org/packages/"))
(message "use-package is installed: %s" (package-installed-p 'use-package))
Here's how I delete the elpa directory, and then start up Emacs:
$ rm -r ~/.emacs.d/elpa
$ src/emacs
Upon doing so, here's the error I get:
Warning (initialization): An error occurred while loading ‘/home/zck/.emacs.d/init.el’:
error: package.el is not yet initialized!
To ensure normal operation, you should investigate and remove the
cause of the error in your initialization file. Start Emacs with
the ‘--debug-init’ option to view a complete error backtrace.
---------------------------
Investigation & speculation
---------------------------
I started looking around for documentation, and found this interesting
comment in simple.el's function #'command-line:
;; If any package directory exists, initialize the package system.
This seems to be the cause. I'm not sure why the package system
shouldn't be initialized if there is no package directory; I want to be
able to do package operations even if I'm starting with no package
directory. You have to start somewhere.
Thanks!
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System information
------------------
In GNU Emacs 27.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.18.9)
of 2018-05-07 built on zck-laptop
Repository revision: 766b057e41df7316808ec7658836fda75facda75
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