"No Changes to ~/PkgA/Manifest.toml" is misleading since there can be changes

[ericphanson]

This is a "known" issue but I couldn't find it filed anywhere. If resolve fixes the dependencies of a dev'd package in a way that doesn't add new dependencies to the overall Manifest, then "no changes" are reported, even if the Manifest is indeed changed.

❯ julia -q
(@v1.7) pkg> generate PkgA
  Generating  project PkgA:
    PkgA/Project.toml
    PkgA/src/PkgA.jl

(@v1.7) pkg> generate PkgB
  Generating  project PkgB:
    PkgB/Project.toml
    PkgB/src/PkgB.jl

(@v1.7) pkg> activate PkgB
  Activating project at `~/PkgB`

(PkgB) pkg> add Dates
    Updating registry at `~/.julia/registries/General.toml`
   Resolving package versions...
    Updating `~/PkgB/Project.toml`
  [ade2ca70] + Dates
    Updating `~/PkgB/Manifest.toml`
  [ade2ca70] + Dates
  [de0858da] + Printf
  [4ec0a83e] + Unicode
Precompiling project...
  1 dependency successfully precompiled in 1 seconds

(PkgB) pkg> activate PkgA
  Activating project at `~/PkgA`

(PkgA) pkg> dev ./PkgB
   Resolving package versions...
    Updating `~/PkgA/Project.toml`
  [1821aa1f] + PkgB v0.1.0 `../PkgB`
    Updating `~/PkgA/Manifest.toml`
  [1821aa1f] + PkgB v0.1.0 `../PkgB`
  [ade2ca70] + Dates
  [de0858da] + Printf
  [4ec0a83e] + Unicode

Ok, now we have PkgA which dev's PkgB, which depends on Dates. All is well. Now edit PkgB to do using Unicode. Then

> julia -q --project=PkgA
julia> using PkgB
[ Info: Precompiling PkgB [1821aa1f-13ce-41b2-bd12-ba9ec74d35d8]
┌ Warning: Package PkgB does not have Unicode in its dependencies:
│ - If you have PkgB checked out for development and have
│   added Unicode as a dependency but haven't updated your primary
│   environment's manifest file, try `Pkg.resolve()`.
│ - Otherwise you may need to report an issue with PkgB
└ Loading Unicode into PkgB from project dependency, future warnings for PkgB are suppressed.

Ok, we need to add Unicode to PkgB's deps and resolve:

(PkgA) pkg> activate PkgB
  Activating project at `~/PkgB`

(PkgB) pkg> add Unicode
   Resolving package versions...
    Updating `~/PkgB/Project.toml`
  [4ec0a83e] + Unicode
  No Changes to `~/PkgB/Manifest.toml`

(PkgB) pkg> activate PkgA
  Activating project at `~/PkgA`

(PkgA) pkg> resolve
  No Changes to `~/PkgA/Project.toml`
  No Changes to `~/PkgA/Manifest.toml`

No changes to the manifest or project! However, the problem has indeed been fixed:

❯ julia -q --project=PkgA
julia> using PkgB

(no warnings).

I think we should change "no changes" to something more accurate, like "No added or removed packages".

[giordano]

On Slack @IanButterworth suggested the following alternative message:

No changes to the dependencies in /path/to/Manifest.toml but metadata was updated

which I think nicely addresses the main issue reported here (the Manifest file did change even if list of dependencies didn't).