Can `InstallPackage` please accept a GitHub repo URL?

[wilfwilson]

Currently, doing so fails:

gap> InstallPackage("https://github.com/gap-packages/orb");
#I  Getting PackageInfo URLs...
#I  Package "https://github.com/gap-packages/orb" not found in package list
false

...even though it seems like a reasonably reasonable thing to do, and git clone https://github.com/gap-packages/orb is a syntax that works.

So perhaps PackageManager could add support for it?

(See gap-actions/setup-gap#61 where some non-n00b GAP user assumed that such syntax would already work in PackageManager)

[mtorpey]

This is a good idea, although it might take a bit of careful doing.

At the moment, as you've noticed, PackageManager only treats a URL as a git repo if it ends in .git, which is a bit restrictive, but is unambiguous. The trick will be avoiding cases where the input is supposed to be a package name or an archive URL. I guess we should also try git if, for example, the string begins with https:// and doesn't end with a known archive extension or .g – that should be safe enough.

[wilfwilson]

Yeah, it's true you've got to be careful. An (overly?) cautious approach would be to match only on https://github.com/(non-slash-characters)+/(non-slash-characters+), or something like that. With optional www. And trailing forward slash. Etc.