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1 Introduction

1.1 What does the PackageManager package do?

This package provides the ability to install or remove a package using a single command: InstallPackage (2.1-1) or RemovePackage (2.1-3). The user can specify a package to install using its name, or using a URL to an archive, a repository, or a PackageInfo.g file. When installing, PackageManager also attempts to compile the package, build its documentation if necessary, and ensure that its dependencies are also installed.

1.2 What does the PackageManager package not do?

At present, PackageManager is fairly basic, without many of the advanced features available in package managers such as pip or apt. For instance, the user cannot update all packages in one command. Removing a package will not remove any of its dependencies, since we do not track how packages were installed. When a package is installed, no tests are run to ensure that it is compatible with the installed version of GAP. Any of these features might be added in the future. Other feature requests can be posted on the issue tracker at https://github.com/gap-packages/PackageManager/issues.

1.3 A quick example

PackageManager is distributed with GAP, so it should already be available on your system. To load the package, call:

gap> LoadPackage("PackageManager");

Note that you'll need to do this in each session when you want to use the package manager.

To install the latest deposited version of the Digraphs package, use the following:

gap> InstallPackage("digraphs");

To uninstall it later, use the following:

gap> RemovePackage("digraphs");

PackageManager also supports version control repositories. To install the latest version of the curlInterface package from GitHub, use the following:

gap> InstallPackage("https://github.com/gap-packages/curlInterface.git");

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