What's the error?

$ clojure -Ttools install-latest :lib io.github.seancorfield/deps-new :as new
Execution error (ExceptionInfo) at clojure.tools.deps.extensions.git/coord-err (git.clj:45).
Library io.github.seancorfield/deps-new has invalid tag: v1.2.404

Full report at:
/var/folders/j9/xmjlcym958b1fr0npsp9msvh0000gn/T/clojure-888812946633046028.edn

Ah, because it uses the existing alias EDN file to determine whether the newest version of the :lib it can find is actually older than the currently installed one. That's an interesting puzzle. I guess if it cannot compare the two versions (for any reason that leads to an exception) then you have two possible choices: • Report the old coordinates, say it can't be compared, and skip the install. • Go ahead and overwrite it, possibly with a message about the old coordinates. The former is probably safer and would, overall, be a better UX. As it stands, the behavior is "correct" but not very helpful to folks in terms of diagnosing what they actually did wrong.

well, if one uses install + version number instead of install-latest it has no problem in overwriting the name. not sure if "folks did something wrong" according to the api docs, in any case a better error message could save some time

If you use an explicit version, it doesn't have to compare for latest: you can install any version, even older versions. If you want latest, it has to compare the current version to see whether to install or not. If you've already installed, say, some specific branch version that you're testing, you can overwrite it with another specific version, but you probably don't want some "random" latest version overwriting that specific version?

why does it have to compare something if you want to install the latest. it could just decide to overwrite the installed one with the latest it can find?

what does "install" even mean

thats my point ( i just expected install-latest to install the latest )

This should be a safe, idempotent operation:

> clojure -Ttools install-latest
antq: Skipping, newest installed com.github.liquidz/antq 2.7.1133
clj-new: Skipping, newest installed com.github.seancorfield/clj-new v1.2.404
clj-watson: Skipping, newest installed io.github.clj-holmes/clj-watson v4.1.3
new: Skipping, newest installed io.github.seancorfield/deps-new v0.5.3
poly: Did not find versions for io.github.polyfy/polylith
tools: Skipping, newest installed io.github.clojure/tools.tools v0.3.1

Do you mean, safe as in, when people remove the latest version from the internetz you will still have the latest version locally?

Strawman. "People" (Clojurians) don't randomly remove the latest version from the internetz.

Then what do you mean?

I mean, safe in terms of not overwriting any special version I have installed as I already explained above.

For example, if you're working on a tool and have it installed via a :local/root dep, you don't want that overwritten by install-latest.

Sorry, I didn’t understand that

Got it

Or you're depending on a Pull Request, or non-merged branch...

You want all of those to be not comparable and therefore not overwritten.

I think we all agree that the error message could be improved in this case 🙂

Right, fully agreed

i dont't understand how the example of install-latest without any arguments relates to the above problem and think install and update are confused here.

How does install-latest detect that you don’t want to upgrade a specific version?

I assumed you're asking Bastian their opinion since I've already explained why (and how) above?

I don’t fully understand yet but I’m also ok with dropping this conversation for today

I’m kinda tired from COVID so I’ll check back in later

@U04V70XH6 I guess what I mean is this scenario: This is in my ~/.clojure/tools/new.edn

{:lib io.github.seancorfield/deps-new, :coord {:git/tag "v0.5.3", :git/sha "c899135"}}

When I change new.edn to {:lib io.github.seancorfield/deps-new, :coord {:git/sha "5d0e47d05dc828703c23253ed9fc57c2d61f7848"}} and then run install-latest, it happily changes it back to {:lib io.github.seancorfield/deps-new, :coord {:git/tag "v0.5.3", :git/sha "c899135"}}

Aaaanyway, @U064X3EF3, if you want an issue for the problem "overwriting a tool with an existing name but from another project fails with cryptic error" on ask.clojure, I will create one

Yes

https://ask.clojure.org/index.php/13368/install-latest-already-another-results-cryptic-error-message - hopefully sufficient

If you install-latest of a lib, it should install the latest of that lib and ignore the current tool named that

I'd say so too

@U064X3EF3 would it still skip the download/install if the currently installed version looked the same as the latest version determined? (rather than trying to compare for greater than / less than - just use Clojure equality on the hash map)

yes, that's where it's getting tripped up, but it should just ignore in the case where they are different

> would it still skip the download/install FWIW, I demonstrated above that install-latest went back to the latest tag even though I had a newer SHA than the tag specified in the tools/new.edn file. Not sure what logic is happening here, but also, it's not so important to me because for development I would probably just rely on :aliases + -X to test

☝️:skin-tone-2: That was unexpected to me. I had assumed the whole point of install-latest doing that version check was so that it would not overwrite a more recent SHA install of a tool with an earlier tag version, so that you could install from a PR and not worry about it getting overwritten until that PR was merged and a new version released? @U064X3EF3

no, that was not the point, it was to avoid doing an install if latest was already installed. If you say "install-latest", then it will install latest.

OK, as long as the docs make it clear that install-latest could overwrite an install of the latest SHA with an earlier tagged version... 🙂

tools only consider tags as versions. if you "install latest" version, then you are installing the latest tagged version. other shas are not considered

the https://clojure.github.io/tools.tools/clojure.tools.tools.api.html#var-install-latest imply all of this, but maybe but do not say it clearly enough