# Best practice setting up docs environment for an unregistered package
**URL:** https://discourse.julialang.org/t/best-practice-setting-up-docs-environment-for-an-unregistered-package/82773
**Category:** General Usage
**Tags:** documenter, environment
**Created:** [June 14, 2022, 6:01pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/best-practice-setting-up-docs-environment-for-an-unregistered-package/82773 "2022-06-14T18:01:04Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Mark\_Nahabedian](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Mark_Nahabedian)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2022, 6:01pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/best-practice-setting-up-docs-environment-for-an-unregistered-package/82773/1 "2022-06-14T18:01:04Z")
I’m trying to use Documenter.jl to generate documentation for an unregistered package.
What is the best practice for setting up the docs directory environment for this?
The AnotherParser project ([GitHub - MarkNahabedian/AnotherParser.jl](https://github.com/MarkNahabedian/AnotherParser.jl)) I’m working on is not yet registered.
That project builds fine, but its documentation doesn’t.
The documentation for AnotherParser only uses two packages:
```julia
$ find . -name *.jl -exec grep using '{}' ';' -print
using Documenter
using AnotherParser
./make.jl
```
Since it’s meant to document the “immediate” version of AnotherParser, rather than the tip of the main branch, the docs/Manifest.toml file refers to AnotherParser using a relative path:
```julia
[[AnotherParser]]
deps = ["DataStructures", "Logging", "MacroTools", "NahaJuliaLib", "VectorLogging"]
git-tree-sha1 = "06c1877e1b8fd2cf35a3878cb76a6ef9c01fde29"
repo-rev = "master"
repo-url = ".."
uuid = "2ebba909-c633-4b8c-b8fe-948aaf993ef9"
version = "0.1.0-dev"
```
Trying to build the documentation, or trying to use AnotherParser with the AnotherParser/docs environment activated gets the error
```julia
ERROR: LoadError: UndefVarError: @trace not defined
Stacktrace:
[1] top-level scope
@ :0
[2] #macroexpand#51
@ .\expr.jl:115 [inlined]
[3] macroexpand
@ .\expr.jl:114 [inlined]
[4] docm(source::LineNumberNode, mod::Module, meta::Any, ex::Any, define::Bool) (repeats 2 times)
@ Base.Docs .\docs\Docs.jl:537
[5] var"@doc"(::LineNumberNode, ::Module, ::String, ::Vararg{Any})
@ Core .\boot.jl:517
[6] include(mod::Module, _path::String)
@ Base .\Base.jl:418
[7] include(x::String)
@ AnotherParser C:\Users\Mark Nahabedian\.julia\packages\AnotherParser\TAM93\src\AnotherParser.jl:1
```
The `@trace` macro is defined in the unregistered package NahaJuliaLib, which is used by AnotherParser and is is identified in AnotherParser/Manifest.toml.
Thanks.
---
### Author:  [@fredrikekre](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/fredrikekre)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2022, 6:50pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/best-practice-setting-up-docs-environment-for-an-unregistered-package/82773/2 "2022-06-14T18:50:16Z")
> [@Mark\_Nahabedian](#):
>
> `UndefVarError: @trace not defined`
Did you `using NahaJuliaLib`?
---
### Author:  [@Mark\_Nahabedian](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Mark_Nahabedian)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2022, 7:03pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/best-practice-setting-up-docs-environment-for-an-unregistered-package/82773/3 "2022-06-14T19:03:08Z")
Yes. My package, AnotherParser, builds and runs.
The problem is with it’s documentation.
docs has its own Project.toml which refers to AnitherParser and Documenter.
I don’t think that its docs environment should need to reference all of the packages that AnotherParser uses, just what the documentation uses.
---
### Author:  [@fredrikekre](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/fredrikekre)
#### Post date: [June 14, 2022, 8:47pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/best-practice-setting-up-docs-environment-for-an-unregistered-package/82773/4 "2022-06-14T20:47:32Z")
I checked out the repo, you need to use `dev` with a path, not `add` (`add` checks out a snapshot of the latest commit, `dev` tracks the path).
Here is a diff which makes it work (although, don’t apply it, use Pkg to generate it):
```diff
diff --git a/docs/Manifest.toml b/docs/Manifest.toml
index aba6171..a643144 100644
--- a/docs/Manifest.toml
+++ b/docs/Manifest.toml
@@ -6,10 +6,8 @@ uuid = "a4c015fc-c6ff-483c-b24f-f7ea428134e9"
version = "0.0.1"
[[AnotherParser]]
-deps = ["DataStructures", "Logging", "MacroTools", "NahaJuliaLib", "VectorLogging"]
-git-tree-sha1 = "bc5b1927bd8203daaabf9ff38fc88c0bfc31e702"
-repo-rev = "master"
-repo-url = ".."
+deps = ["DataStructures", "Logging", "MacroTools", "NahaJuliaLib", "PrettyPrint", "VectorLogging"]
+path = ".."
uuid = "2ebba909-c633-4b8c-b8fe-948aaf993ef9"
version = "0.1.0-dev"
@@ -149,8 +147,10 @@ uuid = "a63ad114-7e13-5084-954f-fe012c677804"
uuid = "14a3606d-f60d-562e-9121-12d972cd8159"
[[NahaJuliaLib]]
-deps = ["HTTP", "InteractiveUtils", "Pkg", "URIs"]
-git-tree-sha1 = "ac14a7941c24bbc97a551fd1c60a13e2c8567603"
+deps = ["DataStructures", "HTTP", "InteractiveUtils", "Logging", "MacroTools", "Pkg", "URIs", "VectorLogging"]
+git-tree-sha1 = "7839c7fd8dd7f4be2c538d0b31f62b9fee4e7748"
+repo-rev = "master"
+repo-url = "https://github.com/MarkNahabedian/NahaJuliaLib.jl"
uuid = "9569be99-1faa-4e84-9751-444b87a7f9a0"
version = "0.1.0"
@@ -176,6 +176,11 @@ version = "2.2.4"
deps = ["Artifacts", "Dates", "Downloads", "LibGit2", "Libdl", "Logging", "Markdown", "Printf", "REPL", "Random", "SHA", "Serialization", "TOML", "Tar", "UUIDs", "p7zip_jll"]
uuid = "44cfe95a-1eb2-52ea-b672-e2afdf69b78f"
+[[PrettyPrint]]
+git-tree-sha1 = "632eb4abab3449ab30c5e1afaa874f0b98b586e4"
+uuid = "8162dcfd-2161-5ef2-ae6c-7681170c5f98"
+version = "0.2.0"
+
[[Printf]]
deps = ["Unicode"]
uuid = "de0858da-6303-5e67-8744-51eddeeeb8d7"
diff --git a/docs/make.jl b/docs/make.jl
index 427d90d..0a67baa 100644
--- a/docs/make.jl
+++ b/docs/make.jl
@@ -9,9 +9,6 @@ for somewhat rambling instructions about how to set up a
documentation generation workflow.
=#
-# Temporary hack:
-push!(LOAD_PATH,"../src/")
-
#=
# One time setup of deployment secret
DocumenterTools.genkeys(; user="MarkNahabedian",
```
---
### Author:  [@Mark\_Nahabedian](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Mark_Nahabedian)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2022, 8:38pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/best-practice-setting-up-docs-environment-for-an-unregistered-package/82773/5 "2022-06-15T20:38:14Z")
Thanks for your efforts looking in to this.
In the AnotherParser/docs workspace I did
```julia
Pkg.develop(path="..")
```
I think that’s what you meant.
When I diff the resulting docs/Manifest.toml and compare the `[[AnotherParser]]` section of that diff with your diff above, they’re the same.
I still get this error though:
```julia
julia make.jl
Activating project at `c:\Users\Mark Nahabedian\.julia\dev\AnotherParser\docs`
ERROR: LoadError: UndefVarError: @trace not defined
```
`@trace` is exported from the unregistered package NahaJuliaLib, which appeats in AnotherParser/Manifest.toml as
```julia
[[NahaJuliaLib]]
deps = ["DataStructures", "HTTP", "InteractiveUtils", "Logging", "MacroTools", "Pkg", "URIs", "VectorLogging"]
git-tree-sha1 = "7839c7fd8dd7f4be2c538d0b31f62b9fee4e7748"
repo-rev = "master"
repo-url = "https://github.com/MarkNahabedian/NahaJuliaLib.jl"
uuid = "9569be99-1faa-4e84-9751-444b87a7f9a0"
version = "0.1.0"
```
AnotherParser loads and tests successfully.
If I `Pkg.update()` in docs, I get this warning
```julia
┌ Warning: The active manifest file at `C:\Users\Mark Nahabedian\.julia\dev\AnotherParser\docs\Manifest.toml` has an old format that is being maintained.
```
but I don’t know how to address it. I’d have expected Pkg.update to make whatever updates are necessary to Manifest.toml.
---
### Author:  [@fredrikekre](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/fredrikekre)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2022, 8:41pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/best-practice-setting-up-docs-environment-for-an-unregistered-package/82773/6 "2022-06-15T20:41:20Z")
Can you push your updates to Github? I didn’t get any errors and could build the docs with my diff at least.
---
### Author:  [@Mark\_Nahabedian](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Mark_Nahabedian)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2022, 10:54pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/best-practice-setting-up-docs-environment-for-an-unregistered-package/82773/7 "2022-06-15T22:54:17Z")
Thanks. Pushed.
---
### Author:  [@Mark\_Nahabedian](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Mark_Nahabedian)
#### Post date: [June 15, 2022, 11:31pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/best-practice-setting-up-docs-environment-for-an-unregistered-package/82773/8 "2022-06-15T23:31:35Z")
It’s interesting that the doc build on GitHub fails in a different way than locally.