Why isn't magit-version available?

Question

I have Git 2.5.3 installed and am using GNU Emacs 24.4.1 on Ubuntu. I just installed Magit from MELPA:

(require 'package)
(add-to-list 'package-archives '("melpa" . "https://melpa.org/packages/"))
(package-initialize)
(package-refresh-contents)
(package-install 'magit)

If I then try to use M-x magit-version RET to try to make sure it installed properly, Emacs helpfully tells me

M-x magit-version [No match]

But if I just type M-x magit- RET, I'm presented with a long list of Magit operations like magit-commit, magit-diff, etc. Everything seems to be all there except magit-version. How can I fix this?

Answer 1

The function magit-version is not autoloaded in magit.el. If you look at the source, you will notice that that function definition is not preceded by ;;;###autoload (as of Magit version 20150921.1712).

If you eval magit.el file, you will see that M-x magit-version would then be available.

How to get M-x magit-version working?

There are a couple of ways to do that:

• Try doing M-x magit-version only after the magit package gets loaded. For instance, you can do that after you launch a common magit command like M-x magit-status.

• You can add the below snippet to your emacs config if you use M-x magit-version quite frequently before using any other magit command.

  (autoload #'magit-version "magit" nil t)
  

• If you use use-package, you can add magit-version to the list of commands after the :commands key of (use-package magit ..) instead of the above autoload statement (as use-package does the same thing under the hood).

• Or you can open an issue on magit github asking the developer if he sees fit autoloading this function.

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Check out the Autoload chapter in Elisp Manual to learn more about autoloading.