How to update a racket package installation and restore raco pkg subcommand?

Question

I am trying to update an old racket package I had written ages ago to run on the new racket. I found the documentation extremely confusing and seemingly broke everything. Can you please suggest how things can be resolved?

While trying to run raco pkg install {path/to/package} I got an error saying my package was trying to find the old Racket 6.4 installation and since I have updated my operating system since then it didn't find it. I searched in that directory and could only find such references in the compiled/ folder. I skimmed the raco documentation and saw that raco setup --clean would remove that compiled folder. However, I thought it would be context specific: working on just the package who's directory I was in. That appears to not be the case. Now raco pkg doesn't even exist as a sub-command of raco!

How can I restore it and get back to trying to update my package so that it can be installed on the latest racket?

Answer 1

When you run raco, it works on the installation that it's a part of. So, for instance, if you have two copies of racket installed at /Users/clements/racket1/racket and /Users/clements/racket2/racket, then if I run the raco that's a part of the racket1 installation, I'll be updating the packages that are associated with the racket1 installation.

Sounds sensible, but I've messed this up myself, many times: depending on how your path is set up, the command raco may refer to either the racket1 or the racket2 installation. The problem here isn't really with racket, it's with the idea of paths, and how easy it is to mess things up when you have two installations containing the same binaries.

(And, of course, apologies if I'm misunderstanding your problem!)