homely.install

homely.install.installpkg()

If you were writing a plain shell script to install your dotfiles, you might also include a few calls to e.g. brew install ... to install your favourite software packages. The installpkg() function can do this for you, and also offers the following advantages:

  • Automaticaly chooses between brew, yum, port, pacman or apt depending on what’s available in your $PATH.
  • Won’t hang on a sudo password prompt when there’s no TTY available.
  • Automatic Cleanup!

installpkg(name=None, *, apt=None, brew=None, yum=None, port=None, pacman=None)

name
The name of the package you want to install. If the package goes by different aliases in different package manager repos then you should use either A) the name of the main executable provided by the package, or B) the alias used by your favourite package manager.
apt=None
The alias to use when install using apt-get install. Defaults to name. Use False to stop installpkg() trying to install with apt-get altogether.
brew=None
The alias to use when install using brew install. Defaults to name. Use False to stop installpkg() trying to install with brew altogether.
yum=None
The alias to use when install using yum install. Defaults to name. Use False to stop installpkg() trying to install with yum altogether.
port=None
The alias to use when install using port install. Defaults to name. Use False to stop installpkg() trying to install with port altogether.
pacman=None
The alias to use when install using pacman -S. Defaults to name. Use False to stop installpkg() trying to install with pacman altogether.

When the yum, apt-get, pacman or port package managers are being used, they will be run as root using sudo. This means the call to installpkg() will fail if you don’t have sudo privileges, or when homely update is run without a TTY or with the --neverprompt flag.

Note that installpkg() is lazy and doesn’t actually check with the package manager to see if a particular package is installed - it just checks to see if an executable named name is in your $PATH.

Examples

Install ack and ag:

#~/dotfiles/HOMELY.py
from homely.install import installpkg

# use the name "ack-grep" when installing using apt
installpkg('ack', apt='ack-grep')

# ag has different names in yum, pacman and apt-get repos
installpkg('ag', yum='the_silver_searcher', apt='silversearcher-ag', pacman='the_silver_searcher')

Automatic Cleanup

installpkg() will only attempt automatic cleanup of a package if homely installed the package originally. If you brew install ack and then add installpkg("ack") to your HOMELY.py script, homely won’t install ack (since it’s already installed) and therefore it will never automatically remove it.

The automatic removal may fail if you run homely update in a context where no TTY is available, but your operating system’s package manager is e.g. yum and needs to be executed with sudo. If the automatic removal fails, homely won’t attempt to remove the package again later.

Also note that the automatic removal won’t remove other packages that were installed as dependencies.