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auto-package-update.el

Automatically update Emacs packages.

This package provides functionality for automatically updating your Emacs packages periodically. It is specially useful for people that work in multiple machines and tend to forget to manually update packages from time to time.

The main idea is that you set a desired periodicity for the updates, and when you start Emacs, the packages will be automatically updated if enough days have passed since the last update.

Requirements

This package was tested for GNU Emacs 24.4 and above. Older Emacsen are not supported yet.

Installation

You can install via MELPA, or manually by downloading auto-package-update.el and adding the following to your init file:

(add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/auto-package-update")
(require 'auto-package-update)

Usage

If auto-package-update.el is installed properly, you can add the following line to your .emacs.

(auto-package-update-maybe)

This will update your installed packages at startup if there is an update pending.

You can register a check every day at a given time using auto-package-update-at-time:

(auto-package-update-at-time "03:00")

will check for pending updates every three o'clock a.m..

You can also use the function auto-package-update-now to update your packages immediatelly at any given time.

Or use auto-package-update-now-async without blocking Emacs. Since we update packages after

(package-refresh-contents :async)

we won't get all packages updated. The best practice is

M-x package-refresh-contents

first, then use auto-package-update-now-async. Note, it's not 100% async, byte compiling packages can still block Emacs.

Customization

The periodicity (in days) of the update is given by the custom variable auto-package-update-interval. The default interval is 7 days but if you want to change it, all you need is:

(setq auto-package-update-interval 14)

Sometimes it is useful to skip an automatic update, e.g. when you're in a hurry or don't have a working internet connection. Use this setting to show a manual prompt before automatic updates:

(setq auto-package-update-prompt-before-update t)

To delete residual old version directory when updating, set to true variable auto-package-update-delete-old-versions. The default value is nil. If you want to enable deleting:

(setq auto-package-update-delete-old-versions t)

Hooks

If you want to add functions to run before and after the package update, you can use the auto-package-update-before-hook and auto-package-update-after-hook hooks. For example:

(add-hook 'auto-package-update-before-hook
          (lambda () (message "I will update packages now")))

Changelog

1.7 - Add option to prompt user before running auto-package-update-maybe <br/> 1.6.1 - Replace deprecated toggle-read-only with read-only-mode to remove byte compile warnings. Thanx to @syohex. <br/> 1.6 - Add option to remove old packages from .emacs.d/elpa when updating. Thanks to @JesusMtnez. <br/> 1.5 - Allow user to check for updates every day at specified time. <br/> 1.4 - Add before and after update hooks. <br/> 1.3 - Do not break if a package is not available in the repositories. Show update results in a temporary buffer instead of the echo area<br/> 1.2 - Refactor for independence on package-menu functions. <br/> 1.1 - Support GNU Emacs 24.3. <br/> 1.0 - First release. <br/>

Customization Documentation

auto-package-update-interval

Interval in DAYS for automatic package update.

auto-package-update-before-hook

List of functions to be called before running an automatic package update.

auto-package-update-after-hook

List of functions to be called after running an automatic package update.

auto-package-update-last-update-day-filename

Name of the file in which the last update day is going to be stored.

auto-package-update-buffer-name

Name of the buffer that shows updated packages and error after execution.

auto-package-preview-buffer-name

Name of the buffer that shows a preview of the packages to be updated.

auto-package-update-delete-old-versions

If not nil, delete old versions directories.

auto-package-update-prompt-before-update

Prompt user (y/n) before running auto-package-update-maybe

auto-package-update-show-preview

If not nil, show the list of packages to be updated when prompting before running auto-package-update-maybe

auto-package-update-hide-results

If not nil, the result of auto package update in buffer auto-package-update-buffer-name will not be shown.

auto-package-update-excluded-packages

List of packages to exclude from automatic package update.

Function and Macro Documentation

(auto-package-update-now &optional ASYNC)

Update installed Emacs packages.

(auto-package-update-now-async &optional FORCE)

Update installed Emacs packages with an async manner. If FORCE is non-nil, kill the update thread anyway.

(auto-package-update-at-time TIME)

Try to update every day at the specified TIME.

(auto-package-update-maybe)

Update installed Emacs packages if at least auto-package-update-interval days have passed since the last update.