You mean just outputting the tuples to be manually copy/pasted into the mix.exs file? That’s a very good idea 
and possibly one that could be acceptable in the core, as it is up to the user where to place the dependencies.
lucaong
3
LostKobrakai
Benjamin-Philip
It is a bit tedious to go look for the latest version of a library each time one adds a dependency.
True. What else would you propose ? The most simplest thing that came to mind is using the latest version. Obviously, if you and the latest package use different elixir versions, things would get a bit out of hand.
0
ericmj
Elixir Core Team
If adding mix deps.add means you have to list your dependencies in a separate file or have to structure them in a special way, then it’s not a good solution. One feature in the language shouldn’t limit other features.
As @LostKobrakai already said mix hex.info shows the configuration you can copy-paste into mix.exs:
> mix hex.info jason
A blazing fast JSON parser and generator in pure Elixir.
Config: {:jason, "~> 1.2"}
Releases: 1.2.2, 1.2.1, 1.2.0, 1.1.2, 1.1.1, 1.1.0, 1.0.1, 1.0.0, ...
Licenses: Apache-2.0
Links:
GitHub: https://github.com/michalmuskala/jason
The single extra step of pasting the dependency config into mix.exs is not worth losing the flexibility of being able to configure dependencies using code.
14
lucaong
I personally think the hex.latest task working like @stefanchrobot outlined would be the best way: simple, versatile, solving the problem without over-engineering it or without imposing restrictions to the user. It could be initially implemented as a library, and proposed for the core.
Basically, if I want to add the latest version of library foo and bar to my project, I would run:
$ mix hex.latest foo bar
Which would not modify anything in my code, but rather just output the latest versions in a tuple format that can be directly copy/pasted in the mix.exs:
{:foo, "~> 1.2.3"},
{:bar, "~> 3.2.1"}
2
lucaong
Ooooh actually I didn’t realize that mix hex.info already outputs the latest version as a tuple that can be copy/pasted in the dependencies. Well, that’s already good enough I guess
It might be interesting to implement something similar, but with inter-dependency resolution, working like suggested by @stefanchrobot. After all, getting the current dependencies/versions of a project is rather easy: it’s updating that is hard, so it should be left to the developer. I personally feel it would be still better to implement it as a library though, at least to start.
Something like:
$ mix deps.add foo bar
Resolving dependencies... DONE
Copy-paste the following into your mix.exs:
{:foo, "~> 1.2.3"},
{:bar, "~> 3.2.1"}
2
Benjamin-Philip
True. I manually list out my dependencies, so I didn’t consider the option of heavily using code to configure my dependencies. Maybe we should just leave things as is? (I like the way doorgan is proposing to solving the problem though)
0
hauleth
I thing though, either make it do not output any additional text like Copy-paste the following into your mix.exs or output that to the stderr instead of stdout. That will allow editors to provide functionality of adding dependencies much easier. For example for Vim it would be:
:read !mix hex.add foo bar
Also, such command should be IMHO named hex.add not deps.add to accustom any other package manager that can be created/added later by the user.
4
