What does `activate` really do?

General Usage
1

I don’t know why but I am having a terrible time understanding environments in Julia. I really want to understand what activate does and how one should use it. Here is just one of the things I am not wrapping my head around.

In my v1.2 environment, I am able to add and using the Bootstrap package. That is,

julia> using Bootstrap
[ Info: Precompiling Bootstrap [e28b5b4c-05e8-5b66-bc03-6f0c0a0a06e0]

julia>

If I exit and restart Julia, and switch my environment to a project I am working on (in .julia/dev/), it dosn’t compile.

(v1.2) pkg> activate thvaccine
Activating environment at `~/.julia/dev/thvaccine/Project.toml`

(thvaccine) pkg>

julia> using Bootstrap
[ Info: Recompiling stale cache file /home/affans/.julia/compiled/v1.2/Bootstrap/0NS1M.ji for Bootstrap [e28b5b4c-05e8-5b66-bc03-6f0c0a0a06e0]
ERROR: LoadError: UndefVarError: levels not defined
Stacktrace:
 [1] include at ./boot.jl:328 [inlined]
 [2] include_relative(::Module, ::String) at ./loading.jl:1094
 [3] include(::Module, ::String) at ./Base.jl:31
 [4] top-level scope at none:2
 [5] eval at ./boot.jl:330 [inlined]
 [6] eval(::Expr) at ./client.jl:432
 [7] top-level scope at ./none:3
in expression starting at /home/affans/.julia/packages/StatsModels/9cHwk/src/StatsModels.jl:7
ERROR: LoadError: Failed to precompile StatsModels [3eaba693-59b7-5ba5-a881-562e759f1c8d] to /home/affans/.julia/compiled/v1.2/StatsModels/4MFnV.ji.
Stacktrace:
 [1] error(::String) at ./error.jl:33
 [2] compilecache(::Base.PkgId, ::String) at ./loading.jl:1253
 [3] _require(::Base.PkgId) at ./loading.jl:1013
 [4] require(::Base.PkgId) at ./loading.jl:911
 [5] require(::Module, ::Symbol) at ./loading.jl:906
 [6] include at ./boot.jl:328 [inlined]
 [7] include_relative(::Module, ::String) at ./loading.jl:1094
 [8] include(::Module, ::String) at ./Base.jl:31
 [9] top-level scope at none:2
 [10] eval at ./boot.jl:330 [inlined]
 [11] eval(::Expr) at ./client.jl:432
 [12] top-level scope at ./none:3
in expression starting at /home/affans/.julia/packages/Bootstrap/QldPq/src/Bootstrap.jl:13
ERROR: Failed to precompile Bootstrap [e28b5b4c-05e8-5b66-bc03-6f0c0a0a06e0] to /home/affans/.julia/compiled/v1.2/Bootstrap/0NS1M.ji.
Stacktrace:
 [1] error(::String) at ./error.jl:33
 [2] compilecache(::Base.PkgId, ::String) at ./loading.jl:1253
 [3] _require(::Base.PkgId) at ./loading.jl:1013
 [4] require(::Base.PkgId) at ./loading.jl:911
 [5] require(::Module, ::Symbol) at ./loading.jl:906

I am assuming this has something to do with my Project.toml files, and something with the wrong versions of StatsModel. My project dosn’t really depend on Bootstrap so I don’t want to add it to the project’s Project.toml file. I do want the package installed in my global environment for data analysis. I do want to be able to say using Bootstrap even when I am in my project’s environment. As far as I remember, using should pull the package from my v1.2 environment.

Is there a summary/blog post of how environments/activate really work?

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2

My attempt at a summary is here. Hope it is useful.

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3

The excellent Pkg presentation from this last year Juliacon may be helpful. There is a Pkg manual chapter and the Pkg documentation. It’s nice (but I find it quite difficult because there is so much (high/low level) material - I must read it again…:wink: )

activate switched/created a new environment (defined by two files, ~/.julia/dev/thvaccine/Project.toml and …Manifest.toml). In the (thvaccine) pkg> prompt you may check what is in this environment with status. With instantiate you ensure that everything needed has been downloaded and installed. Did you (thvaccine) pkg> add StatsModel here?

I’m not sure about your Bootstrap error. In principle it is perfectly fine that this package will be taken from the default, i.e. v1.2, environment. > LOAD_PATH displays the paths.

Maybe the problem goes away after you have instantiated the thvaccine environment?

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