Emacs/The Emacs Lisp Package Archive

The Emacs Lisp Package Archive, ELPA, makes it easy to download and install packages for emacs. The official site of ELPA is at http://tromey.com/elpa/.

Getting started with ELPA

Installing the package manager

In Emacs 22 and above, the necessary modules are already present to install the package manager from a small bootstrap script. Simply copy and paste the following code in to a *scratch* buffer and execute it with C-j if you're in lisp interaction mode, C-x C-e otherwise.

(let ((buffer (url-retrieve-synchronously
	       "http://tromey.com/elpa/package-install.el")))
  (save-excursion
    (set-buffer buffer)
    (goto-char (point-min))
    (re-search-forward "^$" nil 'move)
    (eval-region (point) (point-max))
    (kill-buffer (current-buffer))))

The package manager should install itself.

If you are using Emacs 21, you will need to have the wget utility available. Execute the following code:

(let ((buffer (get-buffer-create (generate-new-buffer-name " *Download*"))))
    (save-excursion
      (set-buffer buffer)
      (shell-command "wget -q -O- http://tromey.com/elpa/package-install.el"
		     (current-buffer))
      (eval-region (point-min) (point-max))
      (kill-buffer (current-buffer))))