Project.el

[swflint]

Is project.el integration/support planned? Or some sort of global flex-compile-project-integration-mode?

[plandes]

I use projectile myself, and have not considered how really either would integrate with this project. This library is more intended to be a way to switch between compilation systems that would already, in turn, utilize project.el or projectile.

But since I don't use it, maybe you could elaborate on how you see it interfacing with flex-compile?

[swflint]

Mostly as a way to detect the directory of the current project (i.e., (project-directory (project-current))) or as a stand-in for project-compile, especially if it's better at picking the right compilation system.

[plandes]

I like the idea of it automatically switching based on the project. However, some compilers are based on a file rather than a project, while others no based on files at all (i.e. executing a symbol expression or Lisp function). I guess you could add another binding to toggle that functionality.

Did you have something specific in mind?

[swflint]

I'll need to take a closer look and play around with this to see how it could be integrated. Mostly, I was hoping that project could be used to determine the working directory, or pick up some variable from a .dir-locals.el to determine a "default" compiler.

[plandes]

I see. Well I suppose you could add a hook when you switch to a project to set the compiler or even do it on a load file hook.

Once you figure that out, you could just set the compiler to what's best for that project and do something like the below snippet of code.

Look into what you think makes sense and how you want to do it, and then maybe we can come up with some kind of mapping type setup in .dir-locals.el or project.el configuration. I'm less familiar with project.el and more likely to integrate it with projectile. However, I'd gladly review a pull a request.

;; get a compiler by name and it's set configuration file
(let ((this (flex-compiler-by-name "python")))
  (with-slots (config-file start-directory) this
    (setq config-file "~/work/src/example.py"
	  start-directory "~/work")))

;; set the active compilerby name
(let ((this flex-compile-manage-inst))
  (config-manager-activate this "python"))

[swflint]

It will probably be something in .dir-locals.el. I truly think integration will come in terms of creating a project-aware way to determine the current directory & run the compilation in that context. That, I don't think will be particularly difficult, and since project.el is integrated into Emacs, it should be pretty widely usable.

I'll take a look into how I think it should/could be done.

[plandes]

Great, I do really like the idea of not having to toggle the compilers or set them since it can be a pain if you switch a lot (as I do). One thing to consider is setting the compiler back to what it was set if explicitly set for a project. For example:

1. Set to org-mode export for some file example.org.
2. Open a Python file in a python project with .dir-locals.el, which sets the compiler to a Python REPL.
3. Switch back to example.org.

A slot to keep track of the previous compiler would be a naive approach if you consider adding in another project/compiler in this sample. You might then consider some kind of stack where you push compilers as you switch, then pop them back keyed off files.

Maybe you throw out the idea of keeping track of compilers and instead use some kind of rule based on file type and .dir-local.el. However, this still doesn't address compilers that have no associated files at all like flex-compiler-command. I suppose you could just require manual switches in these edges cases and make automatic switching a customizable option.

Regardless, it's an interesting problem.