Forking and cloning GitHub repositories: how to make relative repository/file URLs in mip's package.json?

[ned-pcs]

I like the work that has been done with mip but recently ran into an issue that made me consider digging into mip (or opening an issue) to change how it operates with respect to loading from github: URLs.

I'd forked a repository, and wanted to be able to test mip installation from my own repository but still issue pull requests to the upstream repository.

The problem is that the package.json contained absolute github: URLs to the files that were part of the installable package. That is: each of the files had entries like this:

        [
            "wifi_manager/wifi_manager.py",
            "github:brainelectronics/Micropython-ESP-WiFi-Manager/wifi_manager/wifi_manager.py"
        ],

but to install from my own fork I needed entries like this:

        [
            "wifi_manager/wifi_manager.py",
            "github:product-creation-studio/Micropython-ESP-WiFi-Manager/wifi_manager/wifi_manager.py"
        ],

To test installing from my fork, I would need to edit the package.json in a branch that existed merely for testing installation from GitHub. And I would have to rebase that branch after every commit to test again.

What would have been ideal is to have had some way to express file locations relative to the package.json itself.

This way:

• when installing from a package.json on my local filesystem (using the unix port) these source URLs would refer to local files in the same tree
• when installing from my repository these source URLs would refer to files from my repository
• when installing from the upstream repository these source URLs would refer to files from the upstream repository
  without having to edit the package.json merely because I made a fork or did a git checkout of a repository

Maybe I've missed something in how mip works (I suppose I should test this). If someone could explain how to make a package.json that doesn't need to be edited to survive git clone or git checkout, I'd be glad to add that explanation to the mip documentation.

As an aside, my experience with package installers includes writing one 20 years or so ago for Squeak Smalltalk. This used Zip files to package source code and resources (see here for a discussion).

[ned-pcs]

OK: Here's a POC that allows for relative URLs in package.json files (including loading from file:// and github: sources).

[ned-pcs]

And submitted as a PR here.