melpa/README.md
Donald Ephraim Curtis 7fa1a8c917 Update README.md
2012-04-07 13:01:38 -05:00

135 lines
5.5 KiB
Markdown

# MELPA
Repository of code for *MELPA* or *Milkypostman's ELPA* or *Milkypostman's Experimental Lisp Package Repository* if you're not into the whole brevity thing.
MELPA is rebuilt at least once a day and on demand when changes are made to the MELPA repository. All packages are built using the `package-build.el` package.
## Scripts
* `buildpkg` -- Create an archive of the package(s) passed as
arguments to the script. Built packages are put in the `packages/`
folder with version corresponding to the newest HEAD revision
available; given according to the `%Y%m%d` format.
* `melpa` -- All the logic for generating everything in the repository
based on the recipe files. By default this will clean the `packages/` directory,
build all packages
listed under `recipes/`, and compile the `index.html` file for the [melpa]
website front page.
The following arguments are accepted,
clear
: clean out the `packages/` directory
build
: build all packages in `pkglist`
index
: build the `index.html` file
validate
: naively validate that the correct number of packages were built.
Note that these scripts require an Emacs with `package.el` installed,
such as Emacs 24. If you have an older version of Emacs, you can get a
suitable `package.el` [here](http://bit.ly/pkg-el23).
[melpa]: http://melpa.milkbox.net
## Code
The `package-build.el` file contains all the heavy lifting. The
scripts above call the `package-build-archive` function from the
command-line to actually build the package(s).
Use `(package-build-all)` to build all melpa packages.
Alternatively you can
load this file from within Emacs and issues commands from there.
The `package-build.el` automatically generates any required
information for the package. For multi-file packages this include
generating the file `<NAME>-pkg.el` which contains *description*,
*version*, and *requires* information determined by searching
`<NAME>-pkg.el`, `<NAME>.el`, and `<NAME>-pkg.el.in` if they exist in
the repository.
## Contributing New Packages
Packages are specified by files in the `recipes` directory. You can contribute a new package by adding a new file under `recipes` using the following form,
(name :url "<repo url>"
:fetcher [git|svn|darcs|wiki]
[:files ("<file1>", ...)])
`name`
: a lisp symbol that has the same name as the package being specified.
`:url`
: specifies the URL of the version control repository. *not required for the `wiki` fetcher*
`:fetcher`
: specifies the type of repository that `:url` points to. Right now package-build supports [git][git], [subversion (svn)][svn], [darcs][darcs], and [Emacs Wiki (wiki)][emacswiki] as possible mechanisms for checking out the repository. With the exception of the Emacs Wiki fetcher, package-build uses the corresponding application to update files before building the package. The Emacs Wiki fetcher gets the latest version of the package from `http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/download/<NAME>.el` where `NAME` is the package name. Note that the `:url` property is not needed for the `wiki` engine unless the name of the package file on the EmacsWiki differs from the package name being built.
`:files`
: optional property specifying the explicit files used to build the package. Automatically populated by matching all `.el` files in the root of the repository. This is necessary when there are multiple `.el` files in the repository but the package should only be built from a subset.
[git]: http://git-scm.com/
[svn]: http://subversion.apache.org/
[darcs]: http://darcs.net/
[emacswiki]: http://www.emacswiki.org/
### Single File Repository
[ido-ubiquitous](https://github.com/DarwinAwardWinner/ido-ubiquitous) is a repository that contains two files:
* `README.md`
* `ido-ubiquitous.el`
Since there is only one `.el` file, this package only needs the `:url` and `:fetcher` specified,
(ido-ubiquitous
:url "https://github.com/DarwinAwardWinner/ido-ubiquitous.git"
:fetcher git)
### Multiple Packages in one Repository
The
[emacs-starter-kit](https://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit)
contains the *starter-kit* package along with extra packages in the
`modules` directory; *starter-kit-bindings*, *starter-kit-lisp*, etc.
(starter-kit
:url "https://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit.git"
:fetcher git)
(starter-kit-bindings
:url "https://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit.git"
:fetcher git
:files ("modules/starter-kit-bindings.el"))
Notice that `:files` is not specified for `starter-kit` since package-build will automatically add all `.el` files in the root directory of the repository. The `starter-kit-bindings` repository is contained in the `modules/` subdirectory and thus needs the packages files specified explicitly.
### Submitting the Package
You should first fork the MELPA repository, add your new file under `recipes`, and confirm your new package builds properly by running `buildpkg <NAME>`. You can install the package that you built by running the interactive command `package-install-file` in Emacs, and specifying the newly built package which should be in the `packages/` subdirectory under the melpa directory.
After verifying the entry works properly please open a pull request on Github.
## Configuration
Packages end up in the `packages/` directory by default.
This can be configured using the `package-build-archive-dir` variable.
Repositories are checked out to the `working/` directory by default.
This can be configured using the `package-build-working-dir` variable.