Re: Automated package dependencies

What can I say? I apparently like talking to myself... I wrote: Well, this is turning out to be more difficult than I expected. I had to add some build time dependencies to make macros available at the right times and places, and now I have dependency cycles. For example: 1) gnus contains gnus-util.el, which uses the macro rmail-select-summary, so it requires rmail 2) rmail contains rmail.el, which requires tm-view, so it requires tm 3) tm contains bunches of stuff that require things in gnus And that isn't the only cycle. How should I handle them? I would just ignore them and hope that the right thing happened, but somehow I have reached a state where the build process ends thusly: xemacs -no-autoloads -vanilla -batch -eval '(setq stack-trace-on-error t load-ignore-out-of-date-elc-files t load-show-full-path-in-messages t)' -l /usr/src/xemacs/packages/package-compile.el -- gnus w3 mh-e mailcrypt rmail eterm mail-lib xemacs-base fsf-compat ecrypto tm apel -- -f batch-byte-compile gnus/lisp/earcon.el Loading /usr/local/lib/xemacs-21.4.10/lisp/auto-autoloads... Loading /usr/src/xemacs/packages/xemacs-packages/apel/auto-autoloads... Loading /usr/src/xemacs/packages/xemacs-packages/tm/auto-autoloads... Loading /usr/src/xemacs/packages/xemacs-packages/ecrypto/auto-autoloads... Loading /usr/src/xemacs/packages/xemacs-packages/fsf-compat/auto-autoloads... Loading /usr/src/xemacs/packages/xemacs-packages/xemacs-base/auto-autoloads... Loading /usr/src/xemacs/packages/xemacs-packages/mail-lib/auto-autoloads... Loading /usr/src/xemacs/packages/xemacs-packages/eterm/auto-autoloads... Loading /usr/src/xemacs/packages/xemacs-packages/rmail/auto-autoloads... Loading /usr/src/xemacs/packages/xemacs-packages/mailcrypt/auto-autoloads... Loading /usr/src/xemacs/packages/xemacs-packages/mh-e/auto-autoloads... Loading /usr/src/xemacs/packages/xemacs-packages/w3/lisp/auto-autoloads... Loading /usr/src/xemacs/packages/xemacs-packages/gnus/gnus/lisp/auto-autoloads... Compiling /usr/src/xemacs/packages/xemacs-packages/gnus/gnus/lisp/earcon.el... Variable binding depth exceeds max-specpdl-size Done make[2]: *** [gnus/lisp/earcon.elc] Error 1 make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/xemacs/packages/xemacs-packages/gnus' make[1]: *** [gnus/bytecompile.target] Error 2 make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/xemacs/packages/xemacs-packages' make: *** [xemacs-packages/bytecompile.target] Error 2 It looks like an infinite (require 'foo) recursion somewhere, because this didn't happen until I started adding compile-time requires. Whee! Is there a general rule for handling circular dependencies like this? -- Jerry James http://www.ittc.ku.edu/~james/