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When installing a package from the package menu, can/will package-install do automatic byte compilation of the installed package files? Or is this something the user must do manually himself afterwards?

For example, I have installed auctex from the package menu, but there are no *.elc files in my ~/.emacs.d/elpa/auctex-11.89.5 directory. Also I see from the source of package.el that there is a function package--compile at line 942 (so that should indicate that it can byte-compile)

There is no mention of byte-compilation in the Manual as far as I can see.

I am also wondering that I might have deleted the *.elc files myself and forgotten about it.

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    I didn't read the package.el code, but my understanding was that it would compile all ELisp code except for some special files (typically, the autoloads and iirc one can also put a special comment in lisp files to prevent batch byte-compilation, this would be in the "Local Variables" section, no-byte-compile: t.
    – wvxvw
    Feb 13, 2017 at 10:29
  • If you think the manual needs improvement (e.g. it should mention byte-compiling), please consider filing a bug report: M-x report-emacs-bug.
    – Drew
    Feb 13, 2017 at 17:29

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package-install does byte-compile the files, yes. Not sure how/why your auctex install doesn't have any .elc files, tho. Maybe a bug, or a pilot error.

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