Pkg.jl: package management missing search feature

[0joshuaolson1]

While I appreciate how Julia's standard library handles package management as just another feature rather than a separate command line tool, Pkg is missing a documented search() capability. Unlike every package manager I've seen or used for programming language/os/userspace ecosystems, the only options here are web repository searches or pulling up a graphically enabled browser pointing to pkg.julialang.org. And if the latter is unavailable, such as working (on a machine) with no/restricted internet access, one must use a tool to snoop inside/search METADATA.jl.

[KristofferC]

Dup of https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/10272?

[0joshuaolson1]

This issue is not about searching registered/installed packages on the system (my METADATA.jl comment at the end was a last-resort thing after somehow updating from the web elsewise). However, the light help dialogue shouldn't be the main recommended way to do this, either.

On a side note, master's docs aren't clear about Pkg's new available() → Vector{ASCIIString} besides "available packages." Offline? Registered?

[0joshuaolson1]

Please correct me if a registered package means locally known to be available online. If Pkg.available([pkg]) were to search package descriptions/categories too and saw 'registered' packages that can be added from any file/URI-like source without downloading, that would solve Julia's biggest omission in convenience.

[tkelman]

Descriptions/categories do not formally exist in package metadata right now, but would be added if https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/11955 gets implemented. Pkg.available is just a list of packages derived from local metadata content that are known to be installable on your currently running version of Julia.

[0joshuaolson1]

@tkelman Installable because already downloaded, though? Can I close this if Pkg.available does the searching I thought Julia lacked?

[tkelman]

No packages are ever pre downloaded. You'd have to manually clone the github repo and audit the deps/build.jl script to check that it doesn't try to download anything at Pkg.build time.

[0joshuaolson1]

Sorry, I don't mean pre-downladed. I'm talking about using a different operation such as Pkg.add. I believe I can close this issue as taken care of by Pkg.available iff there exists some combination of package manager functions ready in master or 0.4.x enabling users to both

• update the local METADATA.jl using a remote one
• download from repositories listed in the local METADATA.jl

[tkelman]

What exactly do you mean by "a remote one"? Pkg.init accepts keyword arguments for initializing from a non-default Metadata repository location and/or branch name.

[0joshuaolson1]

SInce this is a distributed/scientific language, I was speaking generally, but the internet counts. Would you agree Julia meets the conditions I was confused about?

[tkelman]

x-ref https://github.com/essenciary/PkgSearch.jl

[KristofferC]

x-ref https://juliaobserver.com/

[0joshuaolson1]

While both of those solutions are interesting, they require internet access just to search?

I would think internet access is only necessary to Pkg.add().

[StefanKarpinski]

Pkg3 will include more info about each package, including author, license, keywords, and description, so offline search can be implemented based on that info.

[Nosferican]

Is the metadata in Project.toml still the current plan? It would be cool to implement tags for supporting the search features (e.g., PyPI classifiers).