# Precompiling a code when first upgrading from v0.6 to v0.7

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/precompiling-a-code-when-first-upgrading-from-v0-6-to-v0-7/18986>\
**Category:** New to Julia\
**Tags:** question, package\
**Created:** [December 26, 2018, 1:10am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/precompiling-a-code-when-first-upgrading-from-v0-6-to-v0-7/18986 "2018-12-26T01:10:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![biona001](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/biona001/32/16497_2.png) [@biona001](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/biona001)\
**Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 1:10am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/precompiling-a-code-when-first-upgrading-from-v0-6-to-v0-7/18986/1 "2018-12-26T01:10:19Z")

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Hi everyone,

I’m trying to move my unregistered package from julia 0.6 to 0.7, following [this guide](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/updating-packages-from-julia-v0-6-to-0-7/5103). After creating a v0.6 tag, I installed my package on julia 0.7 as such:

> (v0.7) pkg\> add [GitHub - OpenMendel/MendelIHT.jl: Iterative hard thresholding for l0 penalized regression](https://github.com/biona001/IHT.jl)

which created a 2 folders:

- `/Users/biona001/.julia/dev/IHT`
- `/Users/biona001/.julia/packages/IHT/xoihb`

Then I try to precompile my 0.6 code on 0.7 which does not work:

> julia\> using IHT  
> [Info: Precompiling IHT [921c7187-1484-5754-b919-5d3ed9ac03c4]  
> ┌ Warning: Package IHT does not have PLINK in its dependencies:  
> │ - If you have IHT checked out for development and have  
> │ added PLINK as a dependency but haven’t updated your primary  
> │ environment’s manifest file, try `Pkg.resolve()`.  
> │ - Otherwise you may need to report an issue with IHT  
> └ Loading PLINK into IHT from project dependency, future warnings for IHT are suppressed.  
> WARNING: importing deprecated binding Base.mean into PLINK.  
> WARNING: importing deprecated binding Base.A\_mul\_B! into PLINK.  
> WARNING: importing deprecated binding Base.At\_mul\_B! into PLINK.  
> WARNING: importing deprecated binding Base.Pkg into PLINK.  
> WARNING: Base.Pkg is deprecated, run `using Pkg` instead  
> likely near /Users/biona001/.julia/packages/PLINK/InWqw/src/PLINK.jl:107  
> ERROR: LoadError: MethodError: no method matching dir()  
> Closest candidates are:  
> dir(::String, ::AbstractString…) at /Users/osx/buildbot/slave/package\_osx64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v0.7/Pkg/src/API.jl:454  
> Stacktrace:  
> [1] top-level scope at none:0  
> [2] include at ./boot.jl:317 [inlined]  
> [3] include\_relative(::Module, ::String) at ./loading.jl:1038  
> [4] include(::Module, ::String) at ./sysimg.jl:29  
> [5] top-level scope at none:2  
> [6] eval at ./boot.jl:319 [inlined]  
> [7] eval(::Expr) at ./client.jl:399  
> [8] top-level scope at ./none:3  
> in expression starting at /Users/biona001/.julia/packages/PLINK/InWqw/src/PLINK.jl:107  
> ERROR: LoadError: Failed to precompile PLINK [26d038ce-b445-5f8f-b3cd-3ed5786e5252] to /Users/biona001/.julia/compiled/v0.7/PLINK/3V3xJ.ji.  
> Stacktrace:  
> [1] error(::String) at ./error.jl:33  
> [2] macro expansion at ./logging.jl:313 [inlined]  
> [3] compilecache(::Base.PkgId, ::String) at ./loading.jl:1185  
> [4] \_require(::Base.PkgId) at ./logging.jl:311  
> [5] require(::Base.PkgId) at ./loading.jl:852  
> [6] macro expansion at ./logging.jl:311 [inlined]  
> [7] require(::Module, ::Symbol) at ./loading.jl:834  
> [8] include at ./boot.jl:317 [inlined]  
> [9] include\_relative(::Module, ::String) at ./loading.jl:1038  
> [10] include(::Module, ::String) at ./sysimg.jl:29  
> [11] top-level scope at none:2  
> [12] eval at ./boot.jl:319 [inlined]  
> [13] eval(::Expr) at ./client.jl:399  
> [14] top-level scope at ./none:3  
> in expression starting at /Users/biona001/.julia/packages/IHT/xoihb/src/IHT.jl:4  
> ERROR: Failed to precompile IHT [921c7187-1484-5754-b919-5d3ed9ac03c4] to /Users/biona001/.julia/compiled/v0.7/IHT/eaqWB.ji.  
> Stacktrace:  
> [1] error(::String) at ./error.jl:33  
> [2] macro expansion at ./logging.jl:313 [inlined]  
> [3] compilecache(::Base.PkgId, ::String) at ./loading.jl:1185  
> [4] \_require(::Base.PkgId) at ./logging.jl:311  
> [5] require(::Base.PkgId) at ./loading.jl:852  
> [6] macro expansion at ./logging.jl:311 [inlined]  
> [7] require(::Module, ::Symbol) at ./loading.jl:834

The next step should be updating my v0.6 syntax to v0.7. However, I’m not sure why is Julia 0.7 trying to precompile my code in `/Users/biona001/.julia/packages/IHT/xoihb/src` directory instead of the one inside the `.julia/dev/` directory? Should I be editing the code in `.julia/packages/IHT/xoihb` directly? And should my git track this particular subfolder?

I apologise in advance if this information is hidden somewhere in the documentation or stackexchange… but I’ve not been able to successfully precompile my code in 0.7 for 3 days now, and I still don’t know why…

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rdeits](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/rdeits/32/286_2.png) [@rdeits](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/rdeits)\
**Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 5:16am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/precompiling-a-code-when-first-upgrading-from-v0-6-to-v0-7/18986/2 "2018-12-26T05:16:59Z")

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> [@biona001](#):
>
> Should I be editing the code in `.julia/packages/IHT/xoihb` directly? And should my git track this particular subfolder?

No, and no. If you want to develop a package, you need to tell the package manager to `develop` it. That is, you need to do:

```julia
pkg> dev IHT

```

which will tell Julia to load the IHT package from `.julia/dev/IHT` instead of `.juila/packages/IHT`. You can then work on your code inside the `dev` folder and commit it as usual. Note that `pkg> add` does _not_ create that `dev` entry, so perhaps you already tried to `dev IHT` some time in the past while upgrading to 0.7?

You can read more about using the `dev` command here: [Pkg · The Julia Language](https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/stdlib/Pkg/index.html#Developing-packages-1)

As for the particular error you’re seeing, it’s probably because you were calling `Pkg.dir("some package name")`, which is no longer defined (because it no longer has an unambiguous answer in the new package manager). Fortunately, almost all uses of `Pkg.dir` in my experience were easy to replace with uses of `@ __DIR__ ` and/or `@ __FILE__ `.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![biona001](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/biona001/32/16497_2.png) [@biona001](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/biona001)\
**Post date:** [December 26, 2018, 5:55pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/precompiling-a-code-when-first-upgrading-from-v0-6-to-v0-7/18986/3 "2018-12-26T17:55:53Z")

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Hi, thanks for the reply.

So I realized that working with an unregistered package is what caused most of the hassle. Basically you need to `develop` an unregistered package like:

`] dev https://github.com/biona001/IHT.jl`.

which was not in the documentation, unfortunately. For other trouble shooting, I found [this post](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/new-pkg-questions/13333/5) helpful.

For future reference, I believe the code inside the `.julia/packages/xxxx/your-package` is supposed to be an environment - that is, a final code product that is there for reproducibility, and you shouldn’t be editing that code.