[racket] pkg/info.rkt documentation

From: Alexander D. Knauth (alexander at knauth.org)
Date: Fri Jan 2 14:16:37 EST 2015

On Jan 2, 2015, at 12:24 PM, Brian Mastenbrook <brian at mastenbrook.net> wrote:

> (Combining multiple replies.)
> 
> On Jan 2, 2015, at 1:16, Asumu Takikawa <asumu at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
> 
>> Maybe you've already seen it and it wasn't helpful, but there is a
>> "package metadata" page that tries to explain some of this.
>> 
>> http://plt.eecs.northwestern.edu/snapshots/current/doc/pkg/metadata.html
> 
> That's actually the document I missed; apologies to all. Somehow I glossed over it in the pkg documentation, and my Google-fu must have been weak at the moment. I think a link to this from the "raco setup" documentation that defines the info.rkt format would be helpful.
> 
> On Jan 1, 2015, at 23:54, Alexander D. Knauth <alexander at knauth.org> wrote:
> 
>> I felt exactly the same way, and I did the same thing (but still managed to get some things wrong), but then did manage to get it, and it does make sense.  
>> Though for me one extra complicating factor was that I was trying to include scribble documentation.  
>> 
>> But as I understand it:  (If I’m wrong about anything please correct me)
> 
> Thanks, that was helpful. I'll need to figure out the Scribble requirements too, but fortunately I already did find the documentation for that. I'm still not sure I understand the difference between deps and build-deps though;

Neither do I, really, but:  (and now especially, correct me if I’m wrong)

> how can I tell if my dependencies need to be deps?

I think you can run raco setup with the `--check-pkg-deps` flag and it will tell you.  Also the package catalog will show your package as having dependency problems.  

> In particular: if I'm only using rackunit in a test submodule, should rackunit-lib be in deps or in build-deps?

I’m not completely sure, but I think if you only use rackunit in a test submodule it can be in build-deps, but if it’s in deps that’s still fine.  And (I think) same for scribble documentation, but I’m still not sure about that.  

> Does TR need to be in deps or just in build-deps?

I think TR needs to be in deps.  

> And since Racket already knows what modules I'm using, isn't this be something that can be extracted automatically? (I found Sam's find-pkg-deps package, but it just says I need "base”.)
> 
> On Jan 2, 2015, at 0:08, Jack Firth <jackhfirth at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> I had the same troubles figuring out packages. I think this is one of the weaker parts of the documentation, because it seems a bit decentralized on the topic and extensively covers the details but doesn't have a simplification for the common case - a documented and tested package in a github repo. Perhaps a more thorough walkthrough specifically for this setup would be useful to have?
> 
> add1 to this. Maybe I'll give it a go once I feel like I've got it figured out. (Even github seems to be rather underdocumented, and coming from the SVN side of the world, some of the git operations required seem to be needlessly obtuse. Maybe I'm just revealing how out of touch I am...)
> --
> Brian Mastenbrook
> brian at mastenbrook.net
> http:/brian.mastenbrook.net/



Posted on the users mailing list.