Use-package: :pin doesn't work properly (?)

[komolovf]

Hi!

I'm trying to use the :pin feature and just can't get it working. I'm not sure if it's a bug or it's just me not understanding how to do this right.

Minimal init.el to reproduce the issue (checked on OSX and Emacs 24.5.1):

;; ~/.emacs.d/init.el
(require 'package)

(add-to-list 'package-archives 
             '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/") t)
(add-to-list 'package-archives 
             '("melpa-stable" . "https://stable.melpa.org/packages/") t)

(setq package-pinned-packages '((use-package . "melpa")))

;; note, that I'm initializing package.el before installing packages
;; via use-package because first I have to get "use-package" itself.
(package-initialize)

(unless (package-installed-p 'use-package)
  (package-refresh-contents)
  (package-install 'use-package))

(require 'use-package)

(setq use-package-always-ensure t)
(setq use-package-always-pin "melpa-stable")

(use-package cider) ;; even with :pin "melpa-stable" it doesn't work

;; Then `ls ~/.emacs.d/elpa` -> cider is from melpa.org, not stable.melpa.org.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[fice-t]

I've been annoyed by the package pin feature for various reasons, but just found this:

Note that package-pinned-packages must be set before calling package-refresh-contents because the pinning is evaluated while building the package index, and not when installing packages.

This is certainly not user friendly, but this may be your problem.

@jwiegley What do you think the best solution to fix :pin is? I imagine that calling package-refresh-contents after each :pin would be terrible.

[jwiegley]

I don't use any of the :ensure logic, so I have no idea what the right answer here would be.

[thomasf]

Yeah, :pin is kind of useless atm for the reasons that @fice-t states. I just set my pin packages before any package-initialize has a chance to run instead.

[komolovf]

@thomasf I eventually did the same thing + got rid of :ensure.

[fommil]

we've been bitten by this in http://ensime.github.io/editors/emacs/install/#installing

[ketbra]

The following change makes :pin functional for me when used with :ensure. If as @fice-t says,

calling package-refresh-contents after each :pin would be terrible.

Perhaps we could get away with package-read-all-archive-contents in most circumstances to avoid any unnecessary Internet access.

(defun use-package-ensure-elpa (package &optional no-refresh)
  (if (package-installed-p package)
      t
    (if (or (and (assoc package package-archive-contents) (not (assoc package package-pinned-packages)))
            no-refresh)
        (package-install package)
      (progn
        (package-refresh-contents)
        (use-package-ensure-elpa package t)))))

[Alexander-Shukaev]

Any planned solution for this so far?

[jwiegley]

@Alexander-Shukaev Looking at the current use-package-ensure-elpa (https://github.com/jwiegley/use-package/blob/master/use-package.el#L731), this should be resolved now. Please confirm?