You’re completely mad

https://hexdocs.pm/sourceror/readme.html#patching-the-source-code

Remember that your mix.exs file is code. That means that the deps function can return anything from anywhere, including using anything that is present in the erlang distribution like xmerl to read XML files for instance.

You could then define the dependencies in an xml file, which could allow more control of the data.

So you want to provide an app that can be added new dependencies to, at runtime? What is is exactly that you are trying to do? If the code added that way is not needed for the project to run then it is not an actual dependency ; maybe you need to implement a plugin solution for instance?

Hi dear @lud, I talked about this way I want to do in these post, I am open to receive any suggestion

and

and

in this video, you can see a simple demo

with these line I add a dep or delete it from my source
https://github.com/mishka-group/mishka_installer/blob/master/lib/installer/run_time_sourcing.ex#L10-L30

So, my user need to add his package into deps function and I create this for him/her

https://github.com/mishka-group/mishka_installer/blob/master/lib/installer/dep_handler.ex#L116-L127

So all the plugins are called from a JSON file which is created from my database

for example

  %MishkaInstaller.Installer.DepHandler{
    app: "mishka_social",
    version: "0.0.2 ",
    type: "hex",
    url: "https://hex.pm/packages/mishka_social",
    git_tag: nil,
    custom_command: nil,
    dependency_type: "force_update",
    update_server: nil,
    dependencies: [
      %{app: :phoenix, min: "1.6"},
      %{app: :phoenix_live_view, max: "0.17.7", min: "0.17.7"},
      %{app: :ueberauth, max: "0.17.7", min: "0.17.7"},
      %{app: :ueberauth_github, min: "0.8.1"},
      %{app: :ueberauth_google, min: "0.10.1"},
    ]
  }

So the only problem exist here that is keeping state when a dep was installed before. So my library let users register an event; before compiling I send a name of app and some information, if an app needs to save something, it prevents to force_update, if not it is going to be run the bottom function.

  # If you have a Task in your project you can load it in a list like [{:task_one, "ecto.migrate"}], it should be a list
  @spec deps(list()) :: list
  def deps(custom_command \\ []) when is_list(custom_command) do
    [{:get, "deps.get"}, {:compile, "deps.compile"}] ++ custom_command
    |> Enum.map(fn {operation, command} ->
      {stream, status} = System.cmd("mix", [command], into: IO.stream(), stderr_to_stdout: true)
      %{operation: operation, output: stream, status: status}
    end)
  end

In this function, when the lib gets an answer, it sends a pubsu to used admin dashboard

https://github.com/mishka-group/mishka_installer/blob/master/lib/installer/dep_changes_protector.ex#L83-L97

A simple dashboard I’m developing it: https://github.com/mishka-group/mishka_installer/blob/master/lib/installer/live/dep_getter.ex after that I add it in my CMS: GitHub - shahryarjb/mishka-cms: MishkaCms an open source and real time API base CMS Powered by Elixir and Phoenix

My solution for event

Ok so it looks like it is working, based on your demo.

I would still add special code to mix.exs to fetch deps from another file instead of modifying mix.exs itself. It can be an XML or it can be a binary file generater with :erlang.term_to_binary(new_deps).

create a new mix.exs file.

If you absolutely need to generate a new file then you can just change the path of the xml (or whatever format) in the mix.exs source. With the following code:

@xml_path "path/to/file.xml"

def deps do
    [
        {:a, "~> 1.2"},
        {:b, "~> 0.1.1"}
    ]
    ++ plugin_deps(@xml_path)
end

…a regex to update @xml_path "path/to/file.xml" is easy.

You may be interested in reading the code we use for something similar: GitHub - bonfire-networks/mess: Simple, file-based dependency management with git and local overrides.