Subject: Re: bug#10970: 24.0.93; package.el doesn't load autoloads before compiling

From: Chong Yidong <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2012 17:26:29 +0800

Donald Ephraim Curtis <[email-masked]> writes:

> However, before compiling, the autoloads file (pkg-autoloads.el) is not
> loaded, so anything that updates the load-path is also not sourced.
>
> It may be best that packages simply put all their lisp files in the main
> package directory, but it also may be worthwhile to simply add,
>
> (load (expand-file-name (concat (symbol-name name) "-autoloads") pkg-dir) nil t)
>
> in the `package-unpack' function after the autoloads are generated.

I see the problem.  OTOH I don't see any actual bug that would arise
from loading the autoloads file before byte compilation.  But on the
other hand, it's kind of conceptually nice that the autoloads file is
only loaded when the package is activated, as a separate step from
unpacking.

Maybe it's better for the affected files to use `eval-when-compile' if
they need to alter the load path.

Anyone have another opinion?