[ESS] ESS 25.1.0 listed as 'obsolete' when upgrading from MELPA?

[Mark Seeto]

On Tue, Jan 28, 2025 at 10:16 PM Martin Maechler
<maechler using stat.math.ethz.ch> wrote:
>
> >>>>> Mark Seeto via ESS-help
> >>>>>     on Mon, 27 Jan 2025 05:48:33 +1100 writes:
>
>     > Hi Kevin,
>     >> Any ideas of what I'm doing wrong, or how to fix things? Thanks for any
>     >> advice or guidance. Using Emacs 29.3.
>
>     > I'll start by saying that I'm not particularly knowledgeable in ESS or
>     > Emacs, and my educated guess below could be partially or completely
>     > incorrect.
>
>     > I don't think you're doing anything wrong. I think
>     > package-list-packages shows ess 25.1.0 as obsolete because
>     > package-list-packages sees ess 25.1.0 as being an older version than
>     > ess 20230419.1527. And I think it sees 25.1.0 as older because it
>     > compares version numbers rather than dates, and the integer 20230419
>     > is greater than the integer 25.
>
>     > I looked in package.el to try to find where "obsolete" is defined, but
>     > I didn't see it there. However, package.el uses comparisons of
>     > versions. It uses the function version-to-list to convert a version
>     > string to a list of integers, e.g. "25.1.0" to (25, 1, 0). And it uses
>     > the functions version-list-<, version-list-<=, and version-list-= to
>     > compare versions.
>
>     > If I'm correct, your question is more about Emacs than about ESS.
>
>     > See
>     > C-h f version-to-list
>     > C-h f version-list-<
>     > etc.
>
>     > Good luck with the upgrade,
>     > Mark
>
> Thank you, Mark.
>
> .. but when we released  ess 24.01.0  and 24.01.1  last year,
> these were *never* listed obsolete AFAIK,
> but your explanation would lead to those, too.
>
> But then, I do *not* see what you see, if I do
>
>   M-x package-list-packages [Enter]
>   and search (C-s) for  ' ess '
>
> I see I have installed 24.1.1 and 25.1.0 is available ..
> After I install 25.1.0, I see that and if I "click" [Enter]
> I get the buffer explaining its "data", ending with
>
>   Other versions: 24.1.1 (installed), 25.1.0 (melpa-stable), 20250110.1437 (melpa), 25.1.0 (gnu).
>
> (and then I see 24.1.1 is now obsolete .. and I mark and
>  uninstall it).
>
> Martin
>
>
> --
> Martin Maechler
> ETH Zurich, R Core and ESS core teams

Hi Martin,

Thanks for your reply, and thanks for all your work on ESS and R.

> .. but when we released  ess 24.01.0  and 24.01.1  last year,
> these were *never* listed obsolete AFAIK,
> but your explanation would lead to those, too.

I agree that my suggested explanation would lead to those being listed
as obsolete, but I think that only happens if those are installed and
another version with a higher version number is also installed. The
Emacs manual describes "obsolete" as "The package is an outdated
installed version; in addition to this version of the package, a newer
version is also installed."

> I get the buffer explaining its "data", ending with
>
>   Other versions: 24.1.1 (installed), 25.1.0 (melpa-stable), 20250110.1437 (melpa), 25.1.0 (gnu).

>From this, it's not clear to me whether you have version 20250110.1437
installed, or if it's just showing as available. I think it would have
to be installed in order to make lower version numbers show as
obsolete.

I have now reproduced what Kevin saw (i.e., ESS 25.1.0 showing as "obsolete"):
- Initially, I had ESS 18.10.2 installed and no other versions of ESS
installed (but I don't think the presence of ESS 18.10.2 is
important).
- Using package-list-packages, I installed ESS 25.1.0. After doing
this, ESS 25.1.0 had status "installed" and ESS 18.10.2 had status
"obsolete".
- Using package-list-packages, I then installed ESS 20250110.1437.
After doing this, ESS 20250110.1437 had status "installed" and ESS
18.10.2 and ESS 25.1.0 both had status "obsolete".

Kevin's example is "worse" than mine because it appears that he has
ESS 25.1.0 showing as obsolete because the older ESS 20230419.1527 is
installed.

Mark