Sync your packages with your dotfiles (and vice versa)

When we use a package manager (be it apt, pip, npm,…), we want to sync the list of installed packages in requirement files. We then declare a mapping that links a package manager to its requirements file:

REQUIREMENTS_ROOT_DIR = "~/dotfiles/"
REQUIREMENTS_FILES = {
    "apt": {
        "file": "apt.txt", # => ~/dotfiles/apt.txt
        "pacman": "apt-get",
        "install": "install -y --force-yes",
        "uninstall": "remove",
        },
    # and so on for pip, pip3, gem, npm, docker and guix.
}

and we call

syp --pm apt foo bar

to add the two packages “foo” and “bar” in ~/dotfiles/apt.txt and at the same time, to check if this list has been edited manually (with packages added or removed) and act accordingly (we make diffs against the cache at ~/.syp/apt.txt).

See the Settings section below.

Tested on python 2.7 and 3.4.

Install

pip install syp

Usage

The basic usage is to check all of the package managers, and install and remove what’s necessary:

Example:

syp

can output:

We set the package manager with --pm and give one or many packages to install:

syp --pm pip syp foo bar

will append “syp”, “foo” and “bar” at the bottom of ~/dotfiles/pip.txt (if they are not there yet), check if pip.txt was manually edited, and suggest a list of packages to install and remove.

So a suggested alias is

alias sypip="syp --pm pip "

If no package manager is specified, we use apt by default (see Settings below).

To remove packages, use --rm:

syp --pm pip foo --rm

We can add a message with -m. It will be appended on the same line:

syp --pm pip foo -m "foo is a cool package"

We can edit the list of packages for that package manager before the operations with -e (--editor):

syp --pm pip foo --rm -e

Settings

The default settings come with a configuration for apt, pip, pip3, gem, npm, docker and guix.

The user settings, stored at ~/.syp/settings.py, is a regular python file that will be exec‘ed on startup. So, if you want to add or overide a package manager settings, edit the REQUIREMENTS_FILES dictionnary accordingly. Only the key “file” is required:

REQUIREMENTS_FILES['apt'] = {
    "file": "requirements-apt.txt", # required. appended to REQUIREMENTS_ROOT_DIR
    "pacman": "aptitude",           # by default, same as the package manager name, here 'apt'
    "install": "install -y",        # 'install' by default
    "uninstall": "remove",          # 'uninstall' by default.
}

See also

#: The base directory where lies the configuration files.
REQUIREMENTS_ROOT_DIR = "~/dotfiles/"

#: System package manager, as a default.
SYSTEM_PACMAN = "apt-get"

Develop

pip install -e .

Todos and ideas

• auto commit
• auto-recognize a virtualenv ?
• allow for more than a requirement file for one package manager.
• ask all and apply
• more tests

  Bust most of all… use Guix !