I'm reading up a little on byte-compilation in
[GNU Emacs](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/) and I read about just
exactly a feature that I needed.
A while ago, I was working on my init file, adding some
`auto-complete` code since I wanted to try it again. I
noticed that, because `auto-complete` is installed through
`package`, it couldn't load the appropriate files at
compile time.
I know that `package-initialize` should be called before calling or
using any `package`-installed functions and I have it in my
init
file, but this doesn't help at compile time. So, ugly as I thought it
was, I added
[[!format el """
(eval-when-compile (package-initialize))
"""]]
just above the call to the `auto-complete` functions. I hated having
to do that, I know it's just one line, but its not at all DRY.
Just now, though, I read about `eval-and-compile`, and according to
the documentation in the elisp reference manual, it should do exactly
what I want, eval both when running and when compiling.
[[!format el """
(eval-and-compile (package-initialize))
"""]]
I'm currently trying it out, I just tested it once and it seems to
work like a charm.
*Of course*, this might never have been an issue if I didn't use
`emacs -Q` to compile my init file, just to speed up loading during
compilation a little bit.
[[!meta date="2012-07-27 21:19:00"]]
[[!tag emacs elisp dotfiles coding]]