How to automatically install Emacs packages by specifying a list of package names?

Question

I am using package to manage my Emacs extensions. In order to synchronize my Emacs settings on different computers, I\'d like a way to specify a list of package

Answer 1

Call package-install with the package name as a symbol. You can find the package names for your packages by calling package-install interactively and completing on the name. The function package-installed-p will let you know if it's already been installed.

For example:

(mapc
 (lambda (package)
   (or (package-installed-p package)
       (package-install package)))
 '(package1 package2 package3))