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Table of Contents
The Nix Packages collection (Nixpkgs) is a set of thousands of packages for the Nix package manager, released under a permissive MIT/X11 license. Packages are available for several platforms, and can be used with the Nix package manager on most GNU/Linux distributions as well as NixOS.
This manual primarily describes how to write packages for the Nix Packages collection (Nixpkgs). Thus it’s mainly for packagers and developers who want to add packages to Nixpkgs. If you like to learn more about the Nix package manager and the Nix expression language, then you are kindly referred to the Nix manual. The NixOS distribution is documented in the NixOS manual.
Nix expressions describe how to build packages from source and are collected in the nixpkgs repository. Also included in the collection are Nix expressions for NixOS modules. With these expressions the Nix package manager can build binary packages.
Packages, including the Nix packages collection, are distributed through channels. The collection is distributed for users of Nix on non-NixOS distributions through the channel nixpkgs. Users of NixOS generally use one of the nixos-* channels, e.g. nixos-19.09, which includes all packages and modules for the stable NixOS 19.09. Stable NixOS releases are generally only given security updates. More up to date packages and modules are available via the nixos-unstable channel.
Both nixos-unstable and nixpkgs follow the master branch of the Nixpkgs repository, although both do lag the master branch by generally a couple of days. Updates to a channel are distributed as soon as all tests for that channel pass, e.g. this table shows the status of tests for the nixpkgs channel.
The tests are conducted by a cluster called Hydra, which also builds binary packages from the Nix expressions in Nixpkgs for x86_64-linux, i686-linux and x86_64-darwin. The binaries are made available via a binary cache.
The current Nix expressions of the channels are available in the nixpkgs repository in branches that correspond to the channel names (e.g. nixos-19.09-small).
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Nix comes with certain defaults about what packages can and cannot be installed, based on a package's metadata. By default, Nix will prevent installation if any of the following criteria are true:
The package is thought to be broken, and has had its meta.broken set to true.
The package isn't intended to run on the given system, as none of its meta.platforms match the given system.
The package's meta.license is set to a license which is considered to be unfree.
The package has known security vulnerabilities but has not or can not be updated for some reason, and a list of issues has been entered in to the package's meta.knownVulnerabilities.
Note that all this is checked during evaluation already, and the check includes any package that is evaluated. In particular, all build-time dependencies are checked. nix-env -qa will (attempt to) hide any packages that would be refused.
Each of these criteria can be altered in the nixpkgs configuration.
The nixpkgs configuration for a NixOS system is set in the configuration.nix, as in the following example:
{
nixpkgs.config = {
allowUnfree = true;
};
}
However, this does not allow unfree software for individual users. Their configurations are managed separately.
A user's nixpkgs configuration is stored in a user-specific configuration file located at ~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix. For example:
{
allowUnfree = true;
}
Note that we are not able to test or build unfree software on Hydra due to policy. Most unfree licenses prohibit us from either executing or distributing the software.
There are two ways to try compiling a package which has been marked as broken.
For allowing the build of a broken package once, you can use an environment variable for a single invocation of the nix tools:
$ export NIXPKGS_ALLOW_BROKEN=1
For permanently allowing broken packages to be built, you may add allowBroken = true; to your user's configuration file, like this:
{
allowBroken = true;
}
There are also two ways to try compiling a package which has been marked as unsuported for the given system.
For allowing the build of a broken package once, you can use an environment variable for a single invocation of the nix tools:
$ export NIXPKGS_ALLOW_UNSUPPORTED_SYSTEM=1
For permanently allowing broken packages to be built, you may add allowUnsupportedSystem = true; to your user's configuration file, like this:
{
allowUnsupportedSystem = true;
}
The difference between a package being unsupported on some system and being broken is admittedly a bit fuzzy. If a program ought to work on a certain platform, but doesn't, the platform should be included in meta.platforms, but marked as broken with e.g. meta.broken = !hostPlatform.isWindows. Of course, this begs the question of what "ought" means exactly. That is left to the package maintainer.
There are several ways to tweak how Nix handles a package which has been marked as unfree.
To temporarily allow all unfree packages, you can use an environment variable for a single invocation of the nix tools:
$ export NIXPKGS_ALLOW_UNFREE=1
It is possible to permanently allow individual unfree packages, while still blocking unfree packages by default using the allowUnfreePredicate configuration option in the user configuration file.
This option is a function which accepts a package as a parameter, and returns a boolean. The following example configuration accepts a package and always returns false:
{
allowUnfreePredicate = (pkg: false);
}
For a more useful example, try the following. This configuration only allows unfree packages named flash player and visual studio code:
{
allowUnfreePredicate = pkg: builtins.elem (lib.getName pkg) [
"flashplayer"
"vscode"
];
}
It is also possible to whitelist and blacklist licenses that are specifically acceptable or not acceptable, using whitelistedLicenses and blacklistedLicenses, respectively.
The following example configuration whitelists the licenses amd and wtfpl:
{
whitelistedLicenses = with stdenv.lib.licenses; [ amd wtfpl ];
}
The following example configuration blacklists the gpl3 and agpl3 licenses:
{
blacklistedLicenses = with stdenv.lib.licenses; [ agpl3 gpl3 ];
}
A complete list of licenses can be found in the file lib/licenses.nix of the nixpkgs tree.
There are several ways to tweak how Nix handles a package which has been marked as insecure.
To temporarily allow all insecure packages, you can use an environment variable for a single invocation of the nix tools:
$ export NIXPKGS_ALLOW_INSECURE=1
It is possible to permanently allow individual insecure packages, while still blocking other insecure packages by default using the permittedInsecurePackages configuration option in the user configuration file.
The following example configuration permits the installation of the hypothetically insecure package hello, version 1.2.3:
{
permittedInsecurePackages = [
"hello-1.2.3"
];
}
It is also possible to create a custom policy around which insecure packages to allow and deny, by overriding the allowInsecurePredicate configuration option.
The allowInsecurePredicate option is a function which accepts a package and returns a boolean, much like allowUnfreePredicate.
The following configuration example only allows insecure packages with very short names:
{
allowInsecurePredicate = pkg: builtins.stringLength (lib.getName pkg) <= 5;
}
Note that permittedInsecurePackages is only checked if allowInsecurePredicate is not specified.
packageOverrides
You can define a function called packageOverrides in your local ~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix to override Nix packages. It must be a function that takes pkgs as an argument and returns a modified set of packages.
{
packageOverrides = pkgs: rec {
foo = pkgs.foo.override { ... };
};
}
Using packageOverrides, it is possible to manage packages declaratively. This means that we can list all of our desired packages within a declarative Nix expression. For example, to have aspell, bc, ffmpeg, coreutils, gdb, nixUnstable, emscripten, jq, nox, and silver-searcher, we could use the following in ~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix:
{
packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; {
myPackages = pkgs.buildEnv {
name = "my-packages";
paths = [
aspell
bc
coreutils
gdb
ffmpeg
nixUnstable
emscripten
jq
nox
silver-searcher
];
};
};
}
To install it into our environment, you can just run nix-env -iA nixpkgs.myPackages. If you want to load the packages to be built from a working copy of nixpkgs you just run nix-env -f. -iA myPackages. To explore what's been installed, just look through ~/.nix-profile/. You can see that a lot of stuff has been installed. Some of this stuff is useful some of it isn't. Let's tell Nixpkgs to only link the stuff that we want:
{
packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; {
myPackages = pkgs.buildEnv {
name = "my-packages";
paths = [
aspell
bc
coreutils
gdb
ffmpeg
nixUnstable
emscripten
jq
nox
silver-searcher
];
pathsToLink = [ "/share" "/bin" ];
};
};
}
pathsToLink tells Nixpkgs to only link the paths listed which gets rid of the extra stuff in the profile. /bin and /share are good defaults for a user environment, getting rid of the clutter. If you are running on Nix on MacOS, you may want to add another path as well, /Applications, that makes GUI apps available.
After building that new environment, look through ~/.nix-profile to make sure everything is there that we wanted. Discerning readers will note that some files are missing. Look inside ~/.nix-profile/share/man/man1/ to verify this. There are no man pages for any of the Nix tools! This is because some packages like Nix have multiple outputs for things like documentation (see section 4). Let's make Nix install those as well.
{
packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; {
myPackages = pkgs.buildEnv {
name = "my-packages";
paths = [
aspell
bc
coreutils
ffmpeg
nixUnstable
emscripten
jq
nox
silver-searcher
];
pathsToLink = [ "/share/man" "/share/doc" "/bin" ];
extraOutputsToInstall = [ "man" "doc" ];
};
};
}
This provides us with some useful documentation for using our packages. However, if we actually want those manpages to be detected by man, we need to set up our environment. This can also be managed within Nix expressions.
{
packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; rec {
myProfile = writeText "my-profile" ''
export PATH=$HOME/.nix-profile/bin:/nix/var/nix/profiles/default/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
export MANPATH=$HOME/.nix-profile/share/man:/nix/var/nix/profiles/default/share/man:/usr/share/man
'';
myPackages = pkgs.buildEnv {
name = "my-packages";
paths = [
(runCommand "profile" {} ''
mkdir -p $out/etc/profile.d
cp ${myProfile} $out/etc/profile.d/my-profile.sh
'')
aspell
bc
coreutils
ffmpeg
man
nixUnstable
emscripten
jq
nox
silver-searcher
];
pathsToLink = [ "/share/man" "/share/doc" "/bin" "/etc" ];
extraOutputsToInstall = [ "man" "doc" ];
};
};
}
For this to work fully, you must also have this script sourced when you are logged in. Try adding something like this to your ~/.profile file:
#!/bin/sh
if [ -d $HOME/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d ]; then
for i in $HOME/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/*.sh; do
if [ -r $i ]; then
. $i
fi
done
fi
Now just run source $HOME/.profile and you can starting loading man pages from your environent.
Configuring GNU info is a little bit trickier than man pages. To work correctly, info needs a database to be generated. This can be done with some small modifications to our environment scripts.
{
packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; rec {
myProfile = writeText "my-profile" ''
export PATH=$HOME/.nix-profile/bin:/nix/var/nix/profiles/default/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
export MANPATH=$HOME/.nix-profile/share/man:/nix/var/nix/profiles/default/share/man:/usr/share/man
export INFOPATH=$HOME/.nix-profile/share/info:/nix/var/nix/profiles/default/share/info:/usr/share/info
'';
myPackages = pkgs.buildEnv {
name = "my-packages";
paths = [
(runCommand "profile" {} ''
mkdir -p $out/etc/profile.d
cp ${myProfile} $out/etc/profile.d/my-profile.sh
'')
aspell
bc
coreutils
ffmpeg
man
nixUnstable
emscripten
jq
nox
silver-searcher
texinfoInteractive
];
pathsToLink = [ "/share/man" "/share/doc" "/share/info" "/bin" "/etc" ];
extraOutputsToInstall = [ "man" "doc" "info" ];
postBuild = ''
if [ -x $out/bin/install-info -a -w $out/share/info ]; then
shopt -s nullglob
for i in $out/share/info/*.info $out/share/info/*.info.gz; do
$out/bin/install-info $i $out/share/info/dir
done
fi
'';
};
};
}
postBuild tells Nixpkgs to run a command after building the environment. In this case, install-info adds the installed info pages to dir which is GNU info's default root node. Note that texinfoInteractive is added to the environment to give the install-info command.
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This chapter describes how to extend and change Nixpkgs using overlays. Overlays are used to add layers in the fixed-point used by Nixpkgs to compose the set of all packages.
Nixpkgs can be configured with a list of overlays, which are applied in order. This means that the order of the overlays can be significant if multiple layers override the same package.
The list of overlays can be set either explicitly in a Nix expression, or through <nixpkgs-overlays> or user configuration files.
On a NixOS system the value of the nixpkgs.overlays option, if present, is passed to the system Nixpkgs directly as an argument. Note that this does not affect the overlays for non-NixOS operations (e.g. nix-env), which are looked up independently.
The list of overlays can be passed explicitly when importing nixpkgs, for example import <nixpkgs> { overlays = [ overlay1 overlay2 ]; }.
Further overlays can be added by calling the pkgs.extend or pkgs.appendOverlays, although it is often preferable to avoid these functions, because they recompute the Nixpkgs fixpoint, which is somewhat expensive to do.
The list of overlays is determined as follows.
First, if an overlays argument to the Nixpkgs function itself is given, then that is used and no path lookup will be performed.
Otherwise, if the Nix path entry <nixpkgs-overlays> exists, we look for overlays at that path, as described below.
See the section on NIX_PATH in the Nix manual for more details on how to set a value for <nixpkgs-overlays>.
If one of ~/.config/nixpkgs/overlays.nix and ~/.config/nixpkgs/overlays/ exists, then we look for overlays at that path, as described below. It is an error if both exist.
If we are looking for overlays at a path, then there are two cases:
If the path is a file, then the file is imported as a Nix expression and used as the list of overlays.
If the path is a directory, then we take the content of the directory, order it lexicographically, and attempt to interpret each as an overlay by:
Importing the file, if it is a .nix file.
Importing a top-level default.nix file, if it is a directory.
Because overlays that are set in NixOS configuration do not affect non-NixOS operations such as nix-env, the overlays.nix option provides a convenient way to use the same overlays for a NixOS system configuration and user configuration: the same file can be used as overlays.nix and imported as the value of nixpkgs.overlays.
Overlays are Nix functions which accept two arguments, conventionally called self and super, and return a set of packages. For example, the following is a valid overlay.
self: super:
{
boost = super.boost.override {
python = self.python3;
};
rr = super.callPackage ./pkgs/rr {
stdenv = self.stdenv_32bit;
};
}
The first argument (self) corresponds to the final package set. You should use this set for the dependencies of all packages specified in your overlay. For example, all the dependencies of rr in the example above come from self, as well as the overridden dependencies used in the boost override.
The second argument (super) corresponds to the result of the evaluation of the previous stages of Nixpkgs. It does not contain any of the packages added by the current overlay, nor any of the following overlays. This set should be used either to refer to packages you wish to override, or to access functions defined in Nixpkgs. For example, the original recipe of boost in the above example, comes from super, as well as the callPackage function.
The value returned by this function should be a set similar to pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix, containing overridden and/or new packages.
Overlays are similar to other methods for customizing Nixpkgs, in particular the packageOverrides attribute described in Section 2.5, “Modify packages via packageOverrides”. Indeed, packageOverrides acts as an overlay with only the super argument. It is therefore appropriate for basic use, but overlays are more powerful and easier to distribute.
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Sometimes one wants to override parts of nixpkgs, e.g. derivation attributes, the results of derivations.
These functions are used to make changes to packages, returning only single packages. Overlays, on the other hand, can be used to combine the overridden packages across the entire package set of Nixpkgs.
The function override is usually available for all the derivations in the nixpkgs expression (pkgs).
It is used to override the arguments passed to a function.
Example usages:
pkgs.foo.override { arg1 = val1; arg2 = val2; ... }
import pkgs.path { overlays = [ (self: super: {
foo = super.foo.override { barSupport = true ; };
})]};
mypkg = pkgs.callPackage ./mypkg.nix {
mydep = pkgs.mydep.override { ... };
}
In the first example, pkgs.foo is the result of a function call with some default arguments, usually a derivation. Using pkgs.foo.override will call the same function with the given new arguments.
The function overrideAttrs allows overriding the attribute set passed to a stdenv.mkDerivation call, producing a new derivation based on the original one. This function is available on all derivations produced by the stdenv.mkDerivation function, which is most packages in the nixpkgs expression pkgs.
Example usage:
helloWithDebug = pkgs.hello.overrideAttrs (oldAttrs: rec {
separateDebugInfo = true;
});
In the above example, the separateDebugInfo attribute is overridden to be true, thus building debug info for helloWithDebug, while all other attributes will be retained from the original hello package.
The argument oldAttrs is conventionally used to refer to the attr set originally passed to stdenv.mkDerivation.
separateDebugInfo is processed only by the stdenv.mkDerivation function, not the generated, raw Nix derivation. Thus, using overrideDerivation will not work in this case, as it overrides only the attributes of the final derivation. It is for this reason that overrideAttrs should be preferred in (almost) all cases to overrideDerivation, i.e. to allow using stdenv.mkDerivation to process input arguments, as well as the fact that it is easier to use (you can use the same attribute names you see in your Nix code, instead of the ones generated (e.g. buildInputs vs nativeBuildInputs), and it involves less typing).
overrideAttrs in almost all cases, see its documentation for the reasons why. overrideDerivation is not deprecated and will continue to work, but is less nice to use and does not have as many abilities as overrideAttrs.
~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix.
The function overrideDerivation creates a new derivation based on an existing one by overriding the original's attributes with the attribute set produced by the specified function. This function is available on all derivations defined using the makeOverridable function. Most standard derivation-producing functions, such as stdenv.mkDerivation, are defined using this function, which means most packages in the nixpkgs expression, pkgs, have this function.
Example usage:
mySed = pkgs.gnused.overrideDerivation (oldAttrs: {
name = "sed-4.2.2-pre";
src = fetchurl {
url = ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/sed/sed-4.2.2-pre.tar.bz2;
sha256 = "11nq06d131y4wmf3drm0yk502d2xc6n5qy82cg88rb9nqd2lj41k";
};
patches = [];
});
In the above example, the name, src, and patches of the derivation will be overridden, while all other attributes will be retained from the original derivation.
The argument oldAttrs is used to refer to the attribute set of the original derivation.
overrideDerivation function. For example, the name attribute reference in url = "mirror://gnu/hello/${name}.tar.gz"; is filled-in *before* the overrideDerivation function modifies the attribute set. This means that overriding the name attribute, in this example, *will not* change the value of the url attribute. Instead, we need to override both the name *and* url attributes.
The function lib.makeOverridable is used to make the result of a function easily customizable. This utility only makes sense for functions that accept an argument set and return an attribute set.
Example usage:
f = { a, b }: { result = a+b; };
c = lib.makeOverridable f { a = 1; b = 2; };
The variable c is the value of the f function applied with some default arguments. Hence the value of c.result is 3, in this example.
The variable c however also has some additional functions, like c.override which can be used to override the default arguments. In this example the value of (c.override { a = 4; }).result is 6.
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The nixpkgs repository has several utility functions to manipulate Nix expressions.
Nixpkgs provides a standard library at pkgs.lib, or through import <nixpkgs/lib>.
Located at lib/asserts.nix:21 in <nixpkgs>.
Print a trace message if pred is false.
Intended to be used to augment asserts with helpful error messages.
pred
Condition under which the msg should not be printed.
msg
Message to print.
Example 5.1. Printing when the predicate is false
assert lib.asserts.assertMsg ("foo" == "bar") "foo is not bar, silly"
stderr> trace: foo is not bar, silly
stderr> assert failed
Located at lib/asserts.nix:38 in <nixpkgs>.
Specialized asserts.assertMsg for checking if val is one of the elements of xs. Useful for checking enums.
name
The name of the variable the user entered val into, for inclusion in the error message.
val
The value of what the user provided, to be compared against the values in xs.
xs
The list of valid values.
Example 5.2. Ensuring a user provided a possible value
let sslLibrary = "bearssl";
in lib.asserts.assertOneOf "sslLibrary" sslLibrary [ "openssl" "bearssl" ];
=> false
stderr> trace: sslLibrary must be one of "openssl", "libressl", but is: "bearssl"
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:24 in <nixpkgs>.
Return an attribute from within nested attribute sets.
attrPath
A list of strings representing the path through the nested attribute set set.
default
Default value if attrPath does not resolve to an existing value.
set
The nested attributeset to select values from.
Example 5.3. Extracting a value from a nested attribute set
let set = { a = { b = 3; }; };
in lib.attrsets.attrByPath [ "a" "b" ] 0 set
=> 3
Example 5.4. No value at the path, instead using the default
lib.attrsets.attrByPath [ "a" "b" ] 0 {}
=> 0
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:42 in <nixpkgs>.
Determine if an attribute exists within a nested attribute set.
attrPath
A list of strings representing the path through the nested attribute set set.
set
The nested attributeset to check.
Example 5.5. A nested value does exist inside a set
lib.attrsets.hasAttrByPath
[ "a" "b" "c" "d" ]
{ a = { b = { c = { d = 123; }; }; }; }
=> true
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:57 in <nixpkgs>.
Create a new attribute set with value set at the nested attribute location specified in attrPath.
attrPath
A list of strings representing the path through the nested attribute set.
value
The value to set at the location described by attrPath.
Example 5.6. Creating a new nested attribute set
lib.attrsets.setAttrByPath [ "a" "b" ] 3
=> { a = { b = 3; }; }
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:73 in <nixpkgs>.
Like Section 5.1.2.1, “lib.attrset.attrByPath” except without a default, and it will throw if the value doesn't exist.
attrPath
A list of strings representing the path through the nested attribute set set.
set
The nested attribute set to find the value in.
Example 5.7. Succesfully getting a value from an attribute set
lib.attrsets.getAttrFromPath [ "a" "b" ] { a = { b = 3; }; }
=> 3
Example 5.8. Throwing after failing to get a value from an attribute set
lib.attrsets.getAttrFromPath [ "x" "y" ] { }
=> error: cannot find attribute `x.y'
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:84 in <nixpkgs>.
Return the specified attributes from a set. All values must exist.
nameList
The list of attributes to fetch from set. Each attribute name must exist on the attrbitue set.
set
The set to get attribute values from.
Example 5.9. Getting several values from an attribute set
lib.attrsets.attrVals [ "a" "b" "c" ] { a = 1; b = 2; c = 3; }
=> [ 1 2 3 ]
Example 5.10. Getting missing values from an attribute set
lib.attrsets.attrVals [ "d" ] { }
error: attribute 'd' missing
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:94 in <nixpkgs>.
Get all the attribute values from an attribute set.
Provides a backwards-compatible interface of builtins.attrValues for Nix version older than 1.8.
attrs
The attribute set.
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:113 in <nixpkgs>.
Collect each attribute named `attr' from the list of attribute sets, sets. Sets that don't contain the named attribute are ignored.
Provides a backwards-compatible interface of builtins.catAttrs for Nix version older than 1.9.
attr
Attribute name to select from each attribute set in sets.
sets
The list of attribute sets to select attr from.
Example 5.12. Collect an attribute from a list of attribute sets.
Attribute sets which don't have the attribute are ignored.
catAttrs "a" [{a = 1;} {b = 0;} {a = 2;}]
=> [ 1 2 ]
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:124 in <nixpkgs>.
Filter an attribute set by removing all attributes for which the given predicate return false.
pred
String -> Any -> Bool
Predicate which returns true to include an attribute, or returns false to exclude it.
name
The attribute's name
value
The attribute's value
Returns true to include the attribute, false to exclude the attribute.
set
The attribute set to filter
Example 5.13. Filtering an attributeset
filterAttrs (n: v: n == "foo") { foo = 1; bar = 2; }
=> { foo = 1; }
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:135 in <nixpkgs>.
Filter an attribute set recursively by removing all attributes for which the given predicate return false.
pred
String -> Any -> Bool
Predicate which returns true to include an attribute, or returns false to exclude it.
name
The attribute's name
value
The attribute's value
Returns true to include the attribute, false to exclude the attribute.
set
The attribute set to filter
Example 5.14. Recursively filtering an attribute set
lib.attrsets.filterAttrsRecursive
(n: v: v != null)
{
levelA = {
example = "hi";
levelB = {
hello = "there";
this-one-is-present = {
this-is-excluded = null;
};
};
this-one-is-also-excluded = null;
};
also-excluded = null;
}
=> {
levelA = {
example = "hi";
levelB = {
hello = "there";
this-one-is-present = { };
};
};
}
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:154 in <nixpkgs>.
Apply fold function to values grouped by key.
op
Any -> Any -> Any
Given a value val and a collector col, combine the two.
val
An attribute's value
col
The result of previous op calls with other values and nul.
nul
The null-value, the starting value.
list_of_attrs
A list of attribute sets to fold together by key.
Example 5.15. Combining an attribute of lists in to one attribute set
lib.attrsets.foldAttrs
(n: a: [n] ++ a) []
[
{ a = 2; b = 7; }
{ a = 3; }
{ b = 6; }
]
=> { a = [ 2 3 ]; b = [ 7 6 ]; }
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:178 in <nixpkgs>.
Recursively collect sets that verify a given predicate named pred from the set attrs. The recursion stops when pred returns true.
pred
Any -> Bool
Given an attribute's value, determine if recursion should stop.
value
The attribute set value.
attrs
The attribute set to recursively collect.
Example 5.16. Collecting all lists from an attribute set
lib.attrsets.collect isList { a = { b = ["b"]; }; c = [1]; }
=> [["b"] [1]]
Example 5.17. Collecting all attribute-sets which contain the outPath attribute name.
collect (x: x ? outPath)
{ a = { outPath = "a/"; }; b = { outPath = "b/"; }; }
=> [{ outPath = "a/"; } { outPath = "b/"; }]
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:194 in <nixpkgs>.
Utility function that creates a {name, value} pair as expected by builtins.listToAttrs.
name
The attribute name.
value
The attribute value.
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:207 in <nixpkgs>.
Apply a function to each element in an attribute set, creating a new attribute set.
Provides a backwards-compatible interface of builtins.mapAttrs for Nix version older than 2.1.
fn
String -> Any -> Any
Given an attribute's name and value, return a new value.
name
The name of the attribute.
value
The attribute's value.
Example 5.19. Modifying each value of an attribute set
lib.attrsets.mapAttrs
(name: value: name + "-" value)
{ x = "foo"; y = "bar"; }
=> { x = "x-foo"; y = "y-bar"; }
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:221 in <nixpkgs>.
Like mapAttrs, but allows the name of each attribute to be changed in addition to the value. The applied function should return both the new name and value as a nameValuePair.
fn
String -> Any -> { name = String; value = Any }
Given an attribute's name and value, return a new name value pair.
name
The name of the attribute.
value
The attribute's value.
set
The attribute set to map over.
Example 5.20. Change the name and value of each attribute of an attribute set
lib.attrsets.mapAttrs' (name: value: lib.attrsets.nameValuePair ("foo_" + name) ("bar-" + value))
{ x = "a"; y = "b"; }
=> { foo_x = "bar-a"; foo_y = "bar-b"; }
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:233 in <nixpkgs>.
Call fn for each attribute in the given set and return the result in a list.
fn
String -> Any -> Any
Given an attribute's name and value, return a new value.
name
The name of the attribute.
value
The attribute's value.
set
The attribute set to map over.
Example 5.21. Combine attribute values and names in to a list
lib.attrsets.mapAttrsToList (name: value: "${name}=${value}")
{ x = "a"; y = "b"; }
=> [ "x=a" "y=b" ]
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:250 in <nixpkgs>.
Like mapAttrs, except that it recursively applies itself to attribute sets. Also, the first argument of the argument function is a list of the names of the containing attributes.
f
[ String ] -> Any -> Any
Given a list of attribute names and value, return a new value.
name_path
The list of attribute names to this value.
For example, the name_path for the example string in the attribute set { foo = { bar = "example"; }; } is [ "foo" "bar" ].
value
The attribute's value.
set
The attribute set to recursively map over.
Example 5.22. A contrived example of using lib.attrsets.mapAttrsRecursive
mapAttrsRecursive
(path: value: concatStringsSep "-" (path ++ [value]))
{
n = {
a = "A";
m = {
b = "B";
c = "C";
};
};
d = "D";
}
=> {
n = {
a = "n-a-A";
m = {
b = "n-m-b-B";
c = "n-m-c-C";
};
};
d = "d-D";
}
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:271 in <nixpkgs>.
Like mapAttrsRecursive, but it takes an additional predicate function that tells it whether to recursive into an attribute set. If it returns false, mapAttrsRecursiveCond does not recurse, but does apply the map function. It is returns true, it does recurse, and does not apply the map function.
cond
(AttrSet -> Bool)
Determine if mapAttrsRecursive should recurse deeper in to the attribute set.
attributeset
An attribute set.
f
[ String ] -> Any -> Any
Given a list of attribute names and value, return a new value.
name_path
The list of attribute names to this value.
For example, the name_path for the example string in the attribute set { foo = { bar = "example"; }; } is [ "foo" "bar" ].
value
The attribute's value.
set
The attribute set to recursively map over.
Example 5.23. Only convert attribute values to JSON if the containing attribute set is marked for recursion
lib.attrsets.mapAttrsRecursiveCond
({ recurse ? false, ... }: recurse)
(name: value: builtins.toJSON value)
{
dorecur = {
recurse = true;
hello = "there";
};
dontrecur = {
converted-to- = "json";
};
}
=> {
dorecur = {
hello = "\"there\"";
recurse = "true";
};
dontrecur = "{\"converted-to\":\"json\"}";
}
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:291 in <nixpkgs>.
Generate an attribute set by mapping a function over a list of attribute names.
names
Names of values in the resulting attribute set.
f
String -> Any
Takes the name of the attribute and return the attribute's value.
name
The name of the attribute to generate a value for.
Example 5.24. Generate an attrset based on names only
lib.attrsets.genAttrs [ "foo" "bar" ] (name: "x_${name}")
=> { foo = "x_foo"; bar = "x_bar"; }
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:305 in <nixpkgs>.
Check whether the argument is a derivation. Any set with { type = "derivation"; } counts as a derivation.
value
The value which is possibly a derivation.
Example 5.25. A package is a derivation
lib.attrsets.isDerivation (import <nixpkgs> {}).ruby
=> true
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:308 in <nixpkgs>.
Converts a store path to a fake derivation.
path
A store path to convert to a derivation.
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:331 in <nixpkgs>.
Conditionally return an attribute set or an empty attribute set.
cond
Condition under which the as attribute set is returned.
as
The attribute set to return if cond is true.
Example 5.27. Return the provided attribute set when cond is true
lib.attrsets.optionalAttrs true { my = "set"; }
=> { my = "set"; }
Example 5.28. Return an empty attribute set when cond is false
lib.attrsets.optionalAttrs false { my = "set"; }
=> { }
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:341 in <nixpkgs>.
Merge sets of attributes and use the function f to merge attribute values where the attribute name is in names.
names
A list of attribute names to zip.
f
(String -> [ Any ] -> Any
Accepts an attribute name, all the values, and returns a combined value.
name
The name of the attribute each value came from.
vs
A list of values collected from the list of attribute sets.
sets
A list of attribute sets to zip together.
Example 5.29. Summing a list of attribute sets of numbers
lib.attrsets.zipAttrsWithNames
[ "a" "b" ]
(name: vals: "${name} ${toString (builtins.foldl' (a: b: a + b) 0 vals)}")
[
{ a = 1; b = 1; c = 1; }
{ a = 10; }
{ b = 100; }
{ c = 1000; }
]
=> { a = "a 11"; b = "b 101"; }
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:356 in <nixpkgs>.
Merge sets of attributes and use the function f to merge attribute values. Similar to Section 5.1.2.22, “lib.attrsets.zipAttrsWithNames” where all key names are passed for names.
f
(String -> [ Any ] -> Any
Accepts an attribute name, all the values, and returns a combined value.
name
The name of the attribute each value came from.
vs
A list of values collected from the list of attribute sets.
sets
A list of attribute sets to zip together.
Example 5.30. Summing a list of attribute sets of numbers
lib.attrsets.zipAttrsWith
(name: vals: "${name} ${toString (builtins.foldl' (a: b: a + b) 0 vals)}")
[
{ a = 1; b = 1; c = 1; }
{ a = 10; }
{ b = 100; }
{ c = 1000; }
]
=> { a = "a 11"; b = "b 101"; c = "c 1001"; }
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:363 in <nixpkgs>.
Merge sets of attributes and combine each attribute value in to a list. Similar to Section 5.1.2.23, “lib.attrsets.zipAttrsWith” where the merge function returns a list of all values.
sets
A list of attribute sets to zip together.
Example 5.31. Combining a list of attribute sets
lib.attrsets.zipAttrs
[
{ a = 1; b = 1; c = 1; }
{ a = 10; }
{ b = 100; }
{ c = 1000; }
]
=> { a = [ 1 10 ]; b = [ 1 100 ]; c = [ 1 1000 ]; }
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:393 in <nixpkgs>.
Does the same as the update operator // except that attributes are merged until the given predicate is verified. The predicate should accept 3 arguments which are the path to reach the attribute, a part of the first attribute set and a part of the second attribute set. When the predicate is verified, the value of the first attribute set is replaced by the value of the second attribute set.
pred
[ String ] -> AttrSet -> AttrSet -> Bool
path
The path to the values in the left and right hand sides.
l
The left hand side value.
r
The right hand side value.
lhs
The left hand attribute set of the merge.
rhs
The right hand attribute set of the merge.
Example 5.32. Recursively merging two attribute sets
lib.attrsets.recursiveUpdateUntil (path: l: r: path == ["foo"])
{
# first attribute set
foo.bar = 1;
foo.baz = 2;
bar = 3;
}
{
#second attribute set
foo.bar = 1;
foo.quz = 2;
baz = 4;
}
=> {
foo.bar = 1; # 'foo.*' from the second set
foo.quz = 2; #
bar = 3; # 'bar' from the first set
baz = 4; # 'baz' from the second set
}
Located at lib/attrsets.nix:424 in <nixpkgs>.
A recursive variant of the update operator //. The recursion stops when one of the attribute values is not an attribute set, in which case the right hand side value takes precedence over the left hand side value.
lhs
The left hand attribute set of the merge.
rhs
The right hand attribute set of the merge.
Example 5.33. Recursively merging two attribute sets
recursiveUpdate
{
boot.loader.grub.enable = true;
boot.loader.grub.device = "/dev/hda";
}
{
boot.loader.grub.device = "";
}
=> {
boot.loader.grub.enable = true;
boot.loader.grub.device = "";
}
Concatenate a list of strings.
Located at lib/strings.nix:21 in <nixpkgs>.
Map a function over a list and concatenate the resulting strings.
f
Function argument
list
Function argument
Example 5.35. lib.strings.concatMapStrings usage example
concatMapStrings (x: "a" + x) ["foo" "bar"] => "afooabar"
Located at lib/strings.nix:31 in <nixpkgs>.
Like `concatMapStrings` except that the f functions also gets the position as a parameter.
f
Function argument
list
Function argument
Example 5.36. lib.strings.concatImapStrings usage example
concatImapStrings (pos: x: "${toString pos}-${x}") ["foo" "bar"]
=> "1-foo2-bar"
Located at lib/strings.nix:42 in <nixpkgs>.
Place an element between each element of a list
separator
Separator to add between elements
list
Input list
Example 5.37. lib.strings.intersperse usage example
intersperse "/" ["usr" "local" "bin"] => ["usr" "/" "local" "/" "bin"].
Located at lib/strings.nix:52 in <nixpkgs>.
Concatenate a list of strings with a separator between each element
Example 5.38. lib.strings.concatStringsSep usage example
concatStringsSep "/" ["usr" "local" "bin"] => "usr/local/bin"
Located at lib/strings.nix:69 in <nixpkgs>.
Maps a function over a list of strings and then concatenates the result with the specified separator interspersed between elements.
sep
Separator to add between elements
f
Function to map over the list
list
List of input strings
Example 5.39. lib.strings.concatMapStringsSep usage example
concatMapStringsSep "-" (x: toUpper x) ["foo" "bar" "baz"] => "FOO-BAR-BAZ"
Located at lib/strings.nix:82 in <nixpkgs>.
Same as `concatMapStringsSep`, but the mapping function additionally receives the position of its argument.
sep
Separator to add between elements
f
Function that receives elements and their positions
list
List of input strings
Example 5.40. lib.strings.concatImapStringsSep usage example
concatImapStringsSep "-" (pos: x: toString (x / pos)) [ 6 6 6 ] => "6-3-2"
Located at lib/strings.nix:99 in <nixpkgs>.
Construct a Unix-style, colon-separated search path consisting of the given `subDir` appended to each of the given paths.
subDir
Directory name to append
paths
List of base paths
Example 5.41. lib.strings.makeSearchPath usage example
makeSearchPath "bin" ["/root" "/usr" "/usr/local"] => "/root/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin" makeSearchPath "bin" [""] => "/bin"
Located at lib/strings.nix:118 in <nixpkgs>.
Construct a Unix-style search path by appending the given `subDir` to the specified `output` of each of the packages. If no output by the given name is found, fallback to `.out` and then to the default.
output
Package output to use
subDir
Directory name to append
pkgs
List of packages
Example 5.42. lib.strings.makeSearchPathOutput usage example
makeSearchPathOutput "dev" "bin" [ pkgs.openssl pkgs.zlib ] => "/nix/store/9rz8gxhzf8sw4kf2j2f1grr49w8zx5vj-openssl-1.0.1r-dev/bin:/nix/store/wwh7mhwh269sfjkm6k5665b5kgp7jrk2-zlib-1.2.8/bin"
Located at lib/strings.nix:136 in <nixpkgs>.
Construct a library search path (such as RPATH) containing the libraries for a set of packages
Example 5.43. lib.strings.makeLibraryPath usage example
makeLibraryPath [ "/usr" "/usr/local" ]
=> "/usr/lib:/usr/local/lib"
pkgs = import <nixpkgs> { }
makeLibraryPath [ pkgs.openssl pkgs.zlib ]
=> "/nix/store/9rz8gxhzf8sw4kf2j2f1grr49w8zx5vj-openssl-1.0.1r/lib:/nix/store/wwh7mhwh269sfjkm6k5665b5kgp7jrk2-zlib-1.2.8/lib"
Located at lib/strings.nix:154 in <nixpkgs>.
Construct a binary search path (such as $PATH) containing the binaries for a set of packages.
Example 5.44. lib.strings.makeBinPath usage example
makeBinPath ["/root" "/usr" "/usr/local"] => "/root/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin"
Located at lib/strings.nix:163 in <nixpkgs>.
Depending on the boolean `cond', return either the given string or the empty string. Useful to concatenate against a bigger string.
cond
Condition
string
String to return if condition is true
Example 5.45. lib.strings.optionalString usage example
optionalString true "some-string" => "some-string" optionalString false "some-string" => ""
Located at lib/strings.nix:176 in <nixpkgs>.
Determine whether a string has given prefix.
pref
Prefix to check for
str
Input string
Example 5.46. lib.strings.hasPrefix usage example
hasPrefix "foo" "foobar" => true hasPrefix "foo" "barfoo" => false
Located at lib/strings.nix:192 in <nixpkgs>.
Determine whether a string has given suffix.
suffix
Suffix to check for
content
Input string
Example 5.47. lib.strings.hasSuffix usage example
hasSuffix "foo" "foobar" => false hasSuffix "foo" "barfoo" => true
Located at lib/strings.nix:208 in <nixpkgs>.
Determine whether a string contains the given infix
infix
Function argument
content
Function argument
Example 5.48. lib.strings.hasInfix usage example
hasInfix "bc" "abcd" => true hasInfix "ab" "abcd" => true hasInfix "cd" "abcd" => true hasInfix "foo" "abcd" => false
Located at lib/strings.nix:233 in <nixpkgs>.
Convert a string to a list of characters (i.e. singleton strings). This allows you to, e.g., map a function over each character. However, note that this will likely be horribly inefficient; Nix is not a general purpose programming language. Complex string manipulations should, if appropriate, be done in a derivation. Also note that Nix treats strings as a list of bytes and thus doesn't handle unicode.
s
Function argument
Example 5.49. lib.strings.stringToCharacters usage example
stringToCharacters "" => [ ] stringToCharacters "abc" => [ "a" "b" "c" ] stringToCharacters "💩" => [ "�" "�" "�" "�" ]
Located at lib/strings.nix:257 in <nixpkgs>.
Manipulate a string character by character and replace them by strings before concatenating the results.
f
Function to map over each individual character
s
Input string
Example 5.50. lib.strings.stringAsChars usage example
stringAsChars (x: if x == "a" then "i" else x) "nax" => "nix"
Located at lib/strings.nix:269 in <nixpkgs>.
Escape occurrence of the elements of `list` in `string` by prefixing it with a backslash.
list
Function argument
Located at lib/strings.nix:286 in <nixpkgs>.
Quote string to be used safely within the Bourne shell.
arg
Function argument
Example 5.52. lib.strings.escapeShellArg usage example
escapeShellArg "esc'ape\nme" => "'esc'\\''ape\nme'"
Located at lib/strings.nix:296 in <nixpkgs>.
Quote all arguments to be safely passed to the Bourne shell.
Example 5.53. lib.strings.escapeShellArgs usage example
escapeShellArgs ["one" "two three" "four'five"] => "'one' 'two three' 'four'\\''five'"
Located at lib/strings.nix:306 in <nixpkgs>.
Turn a string into a Nix expression representing that string
s
Function argument
Example 5.54. lib.strings.escapeNixString usage example
escapeNixString "hello\${}\n"
=> "\"hello\\\${}\\n\""
Located at lib/strings.nix:316 in <nixpkgs>.
Converts an ASCII string to lower-case.
Located at lib/strings.nix:344 in <nixpkgs>.
Converts an ASCII string to upper-case.
Located at lib/strings.nix:354 in <nixpkgs>.
Appends string context from another string. This is an implementation detail of Nix.
Strings in Nix carry an invisible `context` which is a list of strings representing store paths. If the string is later used in a derivation attribute, the derivation will properly populate the inputDrvs and inputSrcs.
a
Function argument
b
Function argument
Example 5.57. lib.strings.addContextFrom usage example
pkgs = import <nixpkgs> { };
addContextFrom pkgs.coreutils "bar"
=> "bar"
Located at lib/strings.nix:369 in <nixpkgs>.
Cut a string with a separator and produces a list of strings which were separated by this separator.
NOTE: this function is not performant and should never be used.
_sep
Function argument
_s
Function argument
Example 5.58. lib.strings.splitString usage example
splitString "." "foo.bar.baz" => [ "foo" "bar" "baz" ] splitString "/" "/usr/local/bin" => [ "" "usr" "local" "bin" ]
Located at lib/strings.nix:382 in <nixpkgs>.
Return a string without the specified prefix, if the prefix matches.
prefix
Prefix to remove if it matches
str
Input string
Example 5.59. lib.strings.removePrefix usage example
removePrefix "foo." "foo.bar.baz" => "bar.baz" removePrefix "xxx" "foo.bar.baz" => "foo.bar.baz"
Located at lib/strings.nix:415 in <nixpkgs>.
Return a string without the specified suffix, if the suffix matches.
suffix
Suffix to remove if it matches
str
Input string
Example 5.60. lib.strings.removeSuffix usage example
removeSuffix "front" "homefront" => "home" removeSuffix "xxx" "homefront" => "homefront"
Located at lib/strings.nix:439 in <nixpkgs>.
Return true if string v1 denotes a version older than v2.
v1
Function argument
v2
Function argument
Example 5.61. lib.strings.versionOlder usage example
versionOlder "1.1" "1.2" => true versionOlder "1.1" "1.1" => false
Located at lib/strings.nix:461 in <nixpkgs>.
Return true if string v1 denotes a version equal to or newer than v2.
v1
Function argument
v2
Function argument
Example 5.62. lib.strings.versionAtLeast usage example
versionAtLeast "1.1" "1.0" => true versionAtLeast "1.1" "1.1" => true versionAtLeast "1.1" "1.2" => false
Located at lib/strings.nix:473 in <nixpkgs>.
This function takes an argument that's either a derivation or a derivation's "name" attribute and extracts the name part from that argument.
x
Function argument
Example 5.63. lib.strings.getName usage example
getName "youtube-dl-2016.01.01" => "youtube-dl" getName pkgs.youtube-dl => "youtube-dl"
Located at lib/strings.nix:485 in <nixpkgs>.
This function takes an argument that's either a derivation or a derivation's "name" attribute and extracts the version part from that argument.
x
Function argument
Example 5.64. lib.strings.getVersion usage example
getVersion "youtube-dl-2016.01.01" => "2016.01.01" getVersion pkgs.youtube-dl => "2016.01.01"
Located at lib/strings.nix:502 in <nixpkgs>.
Extract name with version from URL. Ask for separator which is supposed to start extension.
url
Function argument
sep
Function argument
Example 5.65. lib.strings.nameFromURL usage example
nameFromURL "https://nixos.org/releases/nix/nix-1.7/nix-1.7-x86_64-linux.tar.bz2" "-" => "nix" nameFromURL "https://nixos.org/releases/nix/nix-1.7/nix-1.7-x86_64-linux.tar.bz2" "_" => "nix-1.7-x86"
Located at lib/strings.nix:518 in <nixpkgs>.
Create an --{enable,disable}-<feat> string that can be passed to standard GNU Autoconf scripts.
enable
Function argument
feat
Function argument
Example 5.66. lib.strings.enableFeature usage example
enableFeature true "shared" => "--enable-shared" enableFeature false "shared" => "--disable-shared"
Located at lib/strings.nix:534 in <nixpkgs>.
Create an --{enable-<feat>=<value>,disable-<feat>} string that can be passed to standard GNU Autoconf scripts.
enable
Function argument
feat
Function argument
value
Function argument
Example 5.67. lib.strings.enableFeatureAs usage example
enableFeature true "shared" "foo" => "--enable-shared=foo" enableFeature false "shared" (throw "ignored") => "--disable-shared"
Located at lib/strings.nix:545 in <nixpkgs>.
Create an --{with,without}-<feat> string that can be passed to standard GNU Autoconf scripts.
with_
Function argument
feat
Function argument
Example 5.68. lib.strings.withFeature usage example
withFeature true "shared" => "--with-shared" withFeature false "shared" => "--without-shared"
Located at lib/strings.nix:556 in <nixpkgs>.
Create an --{with-<feat>=<value>,without-<feat>} string that can be passed to standard GNU Autoconf scripts.
with_
Function argument
feat
Function argument
value
Function argument
Example 5.69. lib.strings.withFeatureAs usage example
with_Feature true "shared" "foo" => "--with-shared=foo" with_Feature false "shared" (throw "ignored") => "--without-shared"
Located at lib/strings.nix:567 in <nixpkgs>.
Create a fixed width string with additional prefix to match required width.
This function will fail if the input string is longer than the requested length.
width
Function argument
filler
Function argument
str
Function argument
Example 5.70. lib.strings.fixedWidthString usage example
fixedWidthString 5 "0" (toString 15) => "00015"
Located at lib/strings.nix:581 in <nixpkgs>.
Format a number adding leading zeroes up to fixed width.
width
Function argument
n
Function argument
Located at lib/strings.nix:598 in <nixpkgs>.
Check whether a value can be coerced to a string
x
Function argument
Located at lib/strings.nix:601 in <nixpkgs>.
Check whether a value is a store path.
x
Function argument
Example 5.72. lib.strings.isStorePath usage example
isStorePath "/nix/store/d945ibfx9x185xf04b890y4f9g3cbb63-python-2.7.11/bin/python"
=> false
isStorePath "/nix/store/d945ibfx9x185xf04b890y4f9g3cbb63-python-2.7.11/"
=> true
isStorePath pkgs.python
=> true
isStorePath [] || isStorePath 42 || isStorePath {} || …
=> false
Located at lib/strings.nix:619 in <nixpkgs>.
Parse a string string as an int.
str
Function argument
Example 5.73. lib.strings.toInt usage example
toInt "1337" => 1337 toInt "-4" => -4 toInt "3.14" => error: floating point JSON numbers are not supported
Located at lib/strings.nix:640 in <nixpkgs>.
Read a list of paths from `file`, relative to the `rootPath`. Lines beginning with `#` are treated as comments and ignored. Whitespace is significant.
NOTE: This function is not performant and should be avoided.
rootPath
Function argument
file
Function argument
Example 5.74. lib.strings.readPathsFromFile usage example
readPathsFromFile /prefix ./pkgs/development/libraries/qt-5/5.4/qtbase/series => [ "/prefix/dlopen-resolv.patch" "/prefix/tzdir.patch" "/prefix/dlopen-libXcursor.patch" "/prefix/dlopen-openssl.patch" "/prefix/dlopen-dbus.patch" "/prefix/xdg-config-dirs.patch" "/prefix/nix-profiles-library-paths.patch" "/prefix/compose-search-path.patch" ]
Located at lib/strings.nix:661 in <nixpkgs>.
Read the contents of a file removing the trailing \n
file
Function argument
Example 5.75. lib.strings.fileContents usage example
$ echo "1.0" > ./version fileContents ./version => "1.0"
Located at lib/strings.nix:680 in <nixpkgs>.
The identity function For when you need a function that does “nothing”.
x
The value to return
Located at lib/trivial.nix:12 in <nixpkgs>.
The constant function
Ignores the second argument. If called with only one argument, constructs a function that always returns a static value.
x
Value to return
y
Value to ignore
Located at lib/trivial.nix:26 in <nixpkgs>.
Pipes a value through a list of functions, left to right.
val
Function argument
functions
Function argument
Example 5.77. lib.trivial.pipe usage example
pipe 2 [
(x: x + 2) # 2 + 2 = 4
(x: x * 2) # 4 * 2 = 8
]
=> 8
# ideal to do text transformations
pipe [ "a/b" "a/c" ] [
# create the cp command
(map (file: ''cp "${src}/${file}" $out\n''))
# concatenate all commands into one string
lib.concatStrings
# make that string into a nix derivation
(pkgs.runCommand "copy-to-out" {})
]
=> <drv which copies all files to $out>
The output type of each function has to be the input type
of the next function, and the last function returns the
final value.
Located at lib/trivial.nix:61 in <nixpkgs>.
note please don’t add a function like `compose = flip pipe`. This would confuse users, because the order of the functions in the list is not clear. With pipe, it’s obvious that it goes first-to-last. With `compose`, not so much.
x
Function argument
y
Function argument
Located at lib/trivial.nix:80 in <nixpkgs>.
boolean “or”
x
Function argument
y
Function argument
Located at lib/trivial.nix:83 in <nixpkgs>.
boolean “and”
x
Function argument
y
Function argument
Located at lib/trivial.nix:86 in <nixpkgs>.
bitwise “and”
Located at lib/trivial.nix:89 in <nixpkgs>.
bitwise “or”
Located at lib/trivial.nix:94 in <nixpkgs>.
bitwise “xor”
Located at lib/trivial.nix:99 in <nixpkgs>.
bitwise “not”
Located at lib/trivial.nix:104 in <nixpkgs>.
Convert a boolean to a string.
This function uses the strings "true" and "false" to represent boolean values. Calling `toString` on a bool instead returns "1" and "" (sic!).
b
Function argument
Located at lib/trivial.nix:114 in <nixpkgs>.
Merge two attribute sets shallowly, right side trumps left
mergeAttrs :: attrs -> attrs -> attrs
x
Left attribute set
y
Right attribute set (higher precedence for equal keys)
Example 5.78. lib.trivial.mergeAttrs usage example
mergeAttrs { a = 1; b = 2; } { b = 3; c = 4; }
=> { a = 1; b = 3; c = 4; }
Located at lib/trivial.nix:124 in <nixpkgs>.
Flip the order of the arguments of a binary function.
f
Function argument
a
Function argument
b
Function argument
Located at lib/trivial.nix:138 in <nixpkgs>.
Apply function if the supplied argument is non-null.
f
Function to call
a
Argument to check for null before passing it to `f`
Example 5.80. lib.trivial.mapNullable usage example
mapNullable (x: x+1) null => null mapNullable (x: x+1) 22 => 23
Located at lib/trivial.nix:148 in <nixpkgs>.
Returns the current full nixpkgs version number.
Located at lib/trivial.nix:164 in <nixpkgs>.
Returns the current nixpkgs release number as string.
Located at lib/trivial.nix:167 in <nixpkgs>.
Returns the current nixpkgs release code name.
On each release the first letter is bumped and a new animal is chosen starting with that new letter.
Located at lib/trivial.nix:174 in <nixpkgs>.
Returns the current nixpkgs version suffix as string.
Located at lib/trivial.nix:177 in <nixpkgs>.
Attempts to return the the current revision of nixpkgs and returns the supplied default value otherwise.
default
Default value to return if revision can not be determined
Located at lib/trivial.nix:188 in <nixpkgs>.
Determine whether the function is being called from inside a Nix shell.
Located at lib/trivial.nix:206 in <nixpkgs>.
Return minimum of two numbers.
x
Function argument
y
Function argument
Located at lib/trivial.nix:212 in <nixpkgs>.
Return maximum of two numbers.
x
Function argument
y
Function argument
Located at lib/trivial.nix:215 in <nixpkgs>.
Integer modulus
base
Function argument
int
Function argument
Located at lib/trivial.nix:225 in <nixpkgs>.
C-style comparisons
a < b, compare a b => -1 a == b, compare a b => 0 a > b, compare a b => 1
a
Function argument
b
Function argument
Located at lib/trivial.nix:236 in <nixpkgs>.
Split type into two subtypes by predicate `p`, take all elements of the first subtype to be less than all the elements of the second subtype, compare elements of a single subtype with `yes` and `no` respectively.
p
Predicate
yes
Comparison function if predicate holds for both values
no
Comparison function if predicate holds for neither value
a
First value to compare
b
Second value to compare
Example 5.82. lib.trivial.splitByAndCompare usage example
let cmp = splitByAndCompare (hasPrefix "foo") compare compare; in cmp "a" "z" => -1 cmp "fooa" "fooz" => -1 cmp "f" "a" => 1 cmp "fooa" "a" => -1 # while compare "fooa" "a" => 1
Located at lib/trivial.nix:261 in <nixpkgs>.
Reads a JSON file.
Type :: path -> any
path
Function argument
Located at lib/trivial.nix:281 in <nixpkgs>.
Add metadata about expected function arguments to a function. The metadata should match the format given by builtins.functionArgs, i.e. a set from expected argument to a bool representing whether that argument has a default or not. setFunctionArgs : (a → b) → Map String Bool → (a → b)
This function is necessary because you can't dynamically create a function of the { a, b ? foo, ... }: format, but some facilities like callPackage expect to be able to query expected arguments.
f
Function argument
args
Function argument
Located at lib/trivial.nix:316 in <nixpkgs>.
Extract the expected function arguments from a function. This works both with nix-native { a, b ? foo, ... }: style functions and functions with args set with 'setFunctionArgs'. It has the same return type and semantics as builtins.functionArgs. setFunctionArgs : (a → b) → Map String Bool.
f
Function argument
Located at lib/trivial.nix:328 in <nixpkgs>.
Check whether something is a function or something annotated with function args.
f
Function argument
Located at lib/trivial.nix:333 in <nixpkgs>.
Create a list consisting of a single element. `singleton x` is sometimes more convenient with respect to indentation than `[x]` when x spans multiple lines.
x
Function argument
Located at lib/lists.nix:22 in <nixpkgs>.
Apply the function to each element in the list. Same as `map`, but arguments flipped.
xs
Function argument
f
Function argument
Located at lib/lists.nix:35 in <nixpkgs>.
“right fold” a binary function `op` between successive elements of `list` with `nul' as the starting value, i.e., `foldr op nul [x_1 x_2 ... x_n] == op x_1 (op x_2 ... (op x_n nul))`.
op
Function argument
nul
Function argument
list
Function argument
Example 5.85. lib.lists.foldr usage example
concat = foldr (a: b: a + b) "z" concat [ "a" "b" "c" ] => "abcz" # different types strange = foldr (int: str: toString (int + 1) + str) "a" strange [ 1 2 3 4 ] => "2345a"
Located at lib/lists.nix:52 in <nixpkgs>.
`fold` is an alias of `foldr` for historic reasons
Located at lib/lists.nix:63 in <nixpkgs>.
“left fold”, like `foldr`, but from the left: `foldl op nul [x_1 x_2 ... x_n] == op (... (op (op nul x_1) x_2) ... x_n)`.
op
Function argument
nul
Function argument
list
Function argument
Example 5.86. lib.lists.foldl usage example
lconcat = foldl (a: b: a + b) "z" lconcat [ "a" "b" "c" ] => "zabc" # different types lstrange = foldl (str: int: str + toString (int + 1)) "" strange [ 1 2 3 4 ] => "a2345"
Located at lib/lists.nix:80 in <nixpkgs>.
Strict version of `foldl`.
The difference is that evaluation is forced upon access. Usually used with small whole results (in contrast with lazily-generated list or large lists where only a part is consumed.)
Located at lib/lists.nix:96 in <nixpkgs>.
Map with index starting from 0
f
Function argument
list
Function argument
Example 5.87. lib.lists.imap0 usage example
imap0 (i: v: "${v}-${toString i}") ["a" "b"]
=> [ "a-0" "b-1" ]
Located at lib/lists.nix:106 in <nixpkgs>.
Map with index starting from 1
f
Function argument
list
Function argument
Example 5.88. lib.lists.imap1 usage example
imap1 (i: v: "${v}-${toString i}") ["a" "b"]
=> [ "a-1" "b-2" ]
Located at lib/lists.nix:116 in <nixpkgs>.
Map and concatenate the result.
Example 5.89. lib.lists.concatMap usage example
concatMap (x: [x] ++ ["z"]) ["a" "b"] => [ "a" "z" "b" "z" ]
Located at lib/lists.nix:126 in <nixpkgs>.
Flatten the argument into a single list; that is, nested lists are spliced into the top-level lists.
x
Function argument
Example 5.90. lib.lists.flatten usage example
flatten [1 [2 [3] 4] 5] => [1 2 3 4 5] flatten 1 => [1]
Located at lib/lists.nix:137 in <nixpkgs>.
Remove elements equal to 'e' from a list. Useful for buildInputs.
e
Element to remove from the list
Located at lib/lists.nix:150 in <nixpkgs>.
Find the sole element in the list matching the specified predicate, returns `default` if no such element exists, or `multiple` if there are multiple matching elements.
pred
Predicate
default
Default value to return if element was not found.
multiple
Default value to return if more than one element was found
list
Input list
Example 5.92. lib.lists.findSingle usage example
findSingle (x: x == 3) "none" "multiple" [ 1 3 3 ] => "multiple" findSingle (x: x == 3) "none" "multiple" [ 1 3 ] => 3 findSingle (x: x == 3) "none" "multiple" [ 1 9 ] => "none"
Located at lib/lists.nix:168 in <nixpkgs>.
Find the first element in the list matching the specified predicate or return `default` if no such element exists.
pred
Predicate
default
Default value to return
list
Input list
Example 5.93. lib.lists.findFirst usage example
findFirst (x: x > 3) 7 [ 1 6 4 ] => 6 findFirst (x: x > 9) 7 [ 1 6 4 ] => 7
Located at lib/lists.nix:193 in <nixpkgs>.
Return true if function `pred` returns true for at least one element of `list`.
Example 5.94. lib.lists.any usage example
any isString [ 1 "a" { } ]
=> true
any isString [ 1 { } ]
=> false
Located at lib/lists.nix:214 in <nixpkgs>.
Return true if function `pred` returns true for all elements of `list`.
Example 5.95. lib.lists.all usage example
all (x: x < 3) [ 1 2 ] => true all (x: x < 3) [ 1 2 3 ] => false
Located at lib/lists.nix:227 in <nixpkgs>.
Count how many elements of `list` match the supplied predicate function.
pred
Predicate
Located at lib/lists.nix:238 in <nixpkgs>.
Return a singleton list or an empty list, depending on a boolean value. Useful when building lists with optional elements (e.g. `++ optional (system == "i686-linux") flashplayer').
cond
Function argument
elem
Function argument
Example 5.97. lib.lists.optional usage example
optional true "foo" => [ "foo" ] optional false "foo" => [ ]
Located at lib/lists.nix:254 in <nixpkgs>.
Return a list or an empty list, depending on a boolean value.
cond
Condition
elems
List to return if condition is true
Example 5.98. lib.lists.optionals usage example
optionals true [ 2 3 ] => [ 2 3 ] optionals false [ 2 3 ] => [ ]
Located at lib/lists.nix:266 in <nixpkgs>.
If argument is a list, return it; else, wrap it in a singleton list. If you're using this, you should almost certainly reconsider if there isn't a more "well-typed" approach.
x
Function argument
Located at lib/lists.nix:283 in <nixpkgs>.
Return a list of integers from `first' up to and including `last'.
first
First integer in the range
last
Last integer in the range
Located at lib/lists.nix:295 in <nixpkgs>.
Splits the elements of a list in two lists, `right` and `wrong`, depending on the evaluation of a predicate.
Example 5.101. lib.lists.partition usage example
partition (x: x > 2) [ 5 1 2 3 4 ]
=> { right = [ 5 3 4 ]; wrong = [ 1 2 ]; }
Located at lib/lists.nix:314 in <nixpkgs>.
Splits the elements of a list into many lists, using the return value of a predicate. Predicate should return a string which becomes keys of attrset `groupBy' returns.
`groupBy'` allows to customise the combining function and initial value
op
Function argument
nul
Function argument
pred
Function argument
lst
Function argument
Example 5.102. lib.lists.groupBy' usage example
groupBy (x: boolToString (x > 2)) [ 5 1 2 3 4 ]
=> { true = [ 5 3 4 ]; false = [ 1 2 ]; }
groupBy (x: x.name) [ {name = "icewm"; script = "icewm &";}
{name = "xfce"; script = "xfce4-session &";}
{name = "icewm"; script = "icewmbg &";}
{name = "mate"; script = "gnome-session &";}
]
=> { icewm = [ { name = "icewm"; script = "icewm &"; }
{ name = "icewm"; script = "icewmbg &"; } ];
mate = [ { name = "mate"; script = "gnome-session &"; } ];
xfce = [ { name = "xfce"; script = "xfce4-session &"; } ];
}
groupBy' builtins.add 0 (x: boolToString (x > 2)) [ 5 1 2 3 4 ]
=> { true = 12; false = 3; }
Located at lib/lists.nix:343 in <nixpkgs>.
Merges two lists of the same size together. If the sizes aren't the same the merging stops at the shortest. How both lists are merged is defined by the first argument.
f
Function to zip elements of both lists
fst
First list
snd
Second list
Example 5.103. lib.lists.zipListsWith usage example
zipListsWith (a: b: a + b) ["h" "l"] ["e" "o"] => ["he" "lo"]
Located at lib/lists.nix:363 in <nixpkgs>.
Merges two lists of the same size together. If the sizes aren't the same the merging stops at the shortest.
Example 5.104. lib.lists.zipLists usage example
zipLists [ 1 2 ] [ "a" "b" ]
=> [ { fst = 1; snd = "a"; } { fst = 2; snd = "b"; } ]
Located at lib/lists.nix:382 in <nixpkgs>.
Reverse the order of the elements of a list.
xs
Function argument
Located at lib/lists.nix:393 in <nixpkgs>.
Depth-First Search (DFS) for lists `list != []`.
`before a b == true` means that `b` depends on `a` (there's an edge from `b` to `a`).
stopOnCycles
Function argument
before
Function argument
list
Function argument
Example 5.106. lib.lists.listDfs usage example
listDfs true hasPrefix [ "/home/user" "other" "/" "/home" ]
== { minimal = "/"; # minimal element
visited = [ "/home/user" ]; # seen elements (in reverse order)
rest = [ "/home" "other" ]; # everything else
}
listDfs true hasPrefix [ "/home/user" "other" "/" "/home" "/" ]
== { cycle = "/"; # cycle encountered at this element
loops = [ "/" ]; # and continues to these elements
visited = [ "/" "/home/user" ]; # elements leading to the cycle (in reverse order)
rest = [ "/home" "other" ]; # everything else
Located at lib/lists.nix:415 in <nixpkgs>.
Sort a list based on a partial ordering using DFS. This implementation is O(N^2), if your ordering is linear, use `sort` instead.
`before a b == true` means that `b` should be after `a` in the result.
before
Function argument
list
Function argument
Example 5.107. lib.lists.toposort usage example
toposort hasPrefix [ "/home/user" "other" "/" "/home" ]
== { result = [ "/" "/home" "/home/user" "other" ]; }
toposort hasPrefix [ "/home/user" "other" "/" "/home" "/" ]
== { cycle = [ "/home/user" "/" "/" ]; # path leading to a cycle
loops = [ "/" ]; } # loops back to these elements
toposort hasPrefix [ "other" "/home/user" "/home" "/" ]
== { result = [ "other" "/" "/home" "/home/user" ]; }
toposort (a: b: a < b) [ 3 2 1 ] == { result = [ 1 2 3 ]; }
Located at lib/lists.nix:454 in <nixpkgs>.
Sort a list based on a comparator function which compares two elements and returns true if the first argument is strictly below the second argument. The returned list is sorted in an increasing order. The implementation does a quick-sort.
Located at lib/lists.nix:482 in <nixpkgs>.
Compare two lists element-by-element.
cmp
Function argument
a
Function argument
b
Function argument
Example 5.109. lib.lists.compareLists usage example
compareLists compare [] [] => 0 compareLists compare [] [ "a" ] => -1 compareLists compare [ "a" ] [] => 1 compareLists compare [ "a" "b" ] [ "a" "c" ] => 1
Located at lib/lists.nix:511 in <nixpkgs>.
Sort list using "Natural sorting". Numeric portions of strings are sorted in numeric order.
lst
Function argument
Example 5.110. lib.lists.naturalSort usage example
naturalSort ["disk11" "disk8" "disk100" "disk9"] => ["disk8" "disk9" "disk11" "disk100"] naturalSort ["10.46.133.149" "10.5.16.62" "10.54.16.25"] => ["10.5.16.62" "10.46.133.149" "10.54.16.25"] naturalSort ["v0.2" "v0.15" "v0.0.9"] => [ "v0.0.9" "v0.2" "v0.15" ]
Located at lib/lists.nix:534 in <nixpkgs>.
Return the first (at most) N elements of a list.
count
Number of elements to take
Example 5.111. lib.lists.take usage example
take 2 [ "a" "b" "c" "d" ] => [ "a" "b" ] take 2 [ ] => [ ]
Located at lib/lists.nix:552 in <nixpkgs>.
Remove the first (at most) N elements of a list.
count
Number of elements to drop
list
Input list
Example 5.112. lib.lists.drop usage example
drop 2 [ "a" "b" "c" "d" ] => [ "c" "d" ] drop 2 [ ] => [ ]
Located at lib/lists.nix:566 in <nixpkgs>.
Return a list consisting of at most `count` elements of `list`, starting at index `start`.
start
Index at which to start the sublist
count
Number of elements to take
list
Input list
Example 5.113. lib.lists.sublist usage example
sublist 1 3 [ "a" "b" "c" "d" "e" ] => [ "b" "c" "d" ] sublist 1 3 [ ] => [ ]
Located at lib/lists.nix:583 in <nixpkgs>.
Return the last element of a list.
This function throws an error if the list is empty.
list
Function argument
Located at lib/lists.nix:607 in <nixpkgs>.
Return all elements but the last.
This function throws an error if the list is empty.
list
Function argument
Located at lib/lists.nix:621 in <nixpkgs>.
Return the image of the cross product of some lists by a function.
f
Function argument
Example 5.116. lib.lists.crossLists usage example
crossLists (x:y: "${toString x}${toString y}") [[1 2] [3 4]]
=> [ "13" "14" "23" "24" ]
Located at lib/lists.nix:632 in <nixpkgs>.
Remove duplicate elements from the list. O(n^2) complexity.
list
Function argument
Located at lib/lists.nix:643 in <nixpkgs>.
Intersects list 'e' and another list. O(nm) complexity.
e
Function argument
Located at lib/lists.nix:657 in <nixpkgs>.
Subtracts list 'e' from another list. O(nm) complexity.
e
Function argument
Example 5.119. lib.lists.subtractLists usage example
subtractLists [ 3 2 ] [ 1 2 3 4 5 3 ] => [ 1 4 5 ]
Located at lib/lists.nix:665 in <nixpkgs>.
Test if two lists have no common element. It should be slightly more efficient than (intersectLists a b == [])
a
Function argument
b
Function argument
Located at lib/lists.nix:670 in <nixpkgs>.
Conditionally trace the supplied message, based on a predicate.
pred
Predicate to check
msg
Message that should be traced
x
Value to return
Located at lib/debug.nix:35 in <nixpkgs>.
Trace the supplied value after applying a function to it, and return the original value.
f
Function to apply
x
Value to trace and return
Example 5.121. lib.debug.traceValFn usage example
traceValFn (v: "mystring ${v}") "foo"
trace: mystring foo
=> "foo"
Located at lib/debug.nix:53 in <nixpkgs>.
Trace the supplied value and return it.
Located at lib/debug.nix:68 in <nixpkgs>.
`builtins.trace`, but the value is `builtins.deepSeq`ed first.
x
The value to trace
y
The value to return
Example 5.123. lib.debug.traceSeq usage example
trace { a.b.c = 3; } null
trace: { a = <CODE>; }
=> null
traceSeq { a.b.c = 3; } null
trace: { a = { b = { c = 3; }; }; }
=> null
Located at lib/debug.nix:82 in <nixpkgs>.
Like `traceSeq`, but only evaluate down to depth n. This is very useful because lots of `traceSeq` usages lead to an infinite recursion.
depth
Function argument
x
Function argument
y
Function argument
Example 5.124. lib.debug.traceSeqN usage example
traceSeqN 2 { a.b.c = 3; } null
trace: { a = { b = {…}; }; }
=> null
Located at lib/debug.nix:97 in <nixpkgs>.
A combination of `traceVal` and `traceSeq` that applies a provided function to the value to be traced after `deepSeq`ing it.
f
Function to apply
v
Value to trace
Located at lib/debug.nix:114 in <nixpkgs>.
A combination of `traceVal` and `traceSeq`.
Located at lib/debug.nix:121 in <nixpkgs>.
A combination of `traceVal` and `traceSeqN` that applies a provided function to the value to be traced.
f
Function to apply
depth
Function argument
v
Value to trace
Located at lib/debug.nix:125 in <nixpkgs>.
A combination of `traceVal` and `traceSeqN`.
Located at lib/debug.nix:133 in <nixpkgs>.
Evaluate a set of tests. A test is an attribute set `{expr, expected}`, denoting an expression and its expected result. The result is a list of failed tests, each represented as `{name, expected, actual}`, denoting the attribute name of the failing test and its expected and actual results.
Used for regression testing of the functions in lib; see tests.nix for an example. Only tests having names starting with "test" are run.
Add attr { tests = ["testName"]; } to run these tests only.
tests
Tests to run
Located at lib/debug.nix:150 in <nixpkgs>.
Create a test assuming that list elements are `true`.
expr
Function argument
Located at lib/debug.nix:166 in <nixpkgs>.
Returns true when the given argument is an option
Example 5.126. lib.options.isOption usage example
isOption 1 // => false
isOption (mkOption {}) // => true
Located at lib/options.nix:19 in <nixpkgs>.
Creates an Option attribute set. mkOption accepts an attribute set with the following keys:
All keys default to `null` when not given.
pattern
Structured function argument
default
Default value used when no definition is given in the configuration.
defaultText
Textual representation of the default, for the manual.
example
Example value used in the manual.
description
String describing the option.
relatedPackages
Related packages used in the manual (see `genRelatedPackages` in ../nixos/lib/make-options-doc/default.nix).
type
Option type, providing type-checking and value merging.
apply
Function that converts the option value to something else.
internal
Whether the option is for NixOS developers only.
visible
Whether the option shows up in the manual.
readOnly
Whether the option can be set only once
options
Deprecated, used by types.optionSet.
Example 5.127. lib.options.mkOption usage example
mkOption { } // => { _type = "option"; }
mkOption { defaultText = "foo"; } // => { _type = "option"; defaultText = "foo"; }
Located at lib/options.nix:29 in <nixpkgs>.
Creates an Option attribute set for a boolean value option i.e an option to be toggled on or off:
name
Name for the created option
Example 5.128. lib.options.mkEnableOption usage example
mkEnableOption "foo"
=> { _type = "option"; default = false; description = "Whether to enable foo."; example = true; type = { ... }; }
Located at lib/options.nix:63 in <nixpkgs>.
This option accepts anything, but it does not produce any result.
This is useful for sharing a module across different module sets without having to implement similar features as long as the values of the options are not accessed.
attrs
Function argument
Located at lib/options.nix:77 in <nixpkgs>.
"Merge" option definitions by checking that they all have the same value.
loc
Function argument
defs
Function argument
Located at lib/options.nix:108 in <nixpkgs>.
Extracts values of all "value" keys of the given list.
Example 5.129. lib.options.getValues usage example
getValues [ { value = 1; } { value = 2; } ] // => [ 1 2 ]
getValues [ ] // => [ ]
Located at lib/options.nix:124 in <nixpkgs>.
Extracts values of all "file" keys of the given list
Example 5.130. lib.options.getFiles usage example
getFiles [ { file = "file1"; } { file = "file2"; } ] // => [ "file1" "file2" ]
getFiles [ ] // => [ ]
Located at lib/options.nix:134 in <nixpkgs>.
This function recursively removes all derivation attributes from `x` except for the `name` attribute.
This is to make the generation of `options.xml` much more efficient: the XML representation of derivations is very large (on the order of megabytes) and is not actually used by the manual generator.
x
Function argument
Located at lib/options.nix:173 in <nixpkgs>.
For use in the `example` option attribute. It causes the given text to be included verbatim in documentation. This is necessary for example values that are not simple values, e.g., functions.
text
Function argument
Located at lib/options.nix:185 in <nixpkgs>.
Convert an option, described as a list of the option parts in to a safe, human readable version.
parts
Function argument
Example 5.131. lib.options.showOption usage example
(showOption ["foo" "bar" "baz"]) == "foo.bar.baz" (showOption ["foo" "bar.baz" "tux"]) == "foo.\"bar.baz\".tux"
Located at lib/options.nix:196 in <nixpkgs>.
Generators are functions that create file formats from nix data structures, e. g. for configuration files. There are generators available for: INI, JSON and YAML
All generators follow a similar call interface: generatorName configFunctions data, where configFunctions is an attrset of user-defined functions that format nested parts of the content. They each have common defaults, so often they do not need to be set manually. An example is mkSectionName ? (name: libStr.escape [ "[" "]" ] name) from the INI generator. It receives the name of a section and sanitizes it. The default mkSectionName escapes [ and ] with a backslash.
Generators can be fine-tuned to produce exactly the file format required by your application/service. One example is an INI-file format which uses : as separator, the strings "yes"/"no" as boolean values and requires all string values to be quoted:
with lib;
let
customToINI = generators.toINI {
# specifies how to format a key/value pair
mkKeyValue = generators.mkKeyValueDefault {
# specifies the generated string for a subset of nix values
mkValueString = v:
if v == true then ''"yes"''
else if v == false then ''"no"''
else if isString v then ''"${v}"''
# and delegats all other values to the default generator
else generators.mkValueStringDefault {} v;
} ":";
};
# the INI file can now be given as plain old nix values
in customToINI {
main = {
pushinfo = true;
autopush = false;
host = "localhost";
port = 42;
};
mergetool = {
merge = "diff3";
};
}
This will produce the following INI file as nix string:
[main] autopush:"no" host:"localhost" port:42 pushinfo:"yes" str\:ange:"very::strange" [mergetool] merge:"diff3"
"${drv}".
Detailed documentation for each generator can be found in lib/generators.nix.
Nix is a unityped, dynamic language, this means every value can potentially appear anywhere. Since it is also non-strict, evaluation order and what ultimately is evaluated might surprise you. Therefore it is important to be able to debug nix expressions.
In the lib/debug.nix file you will find a number of functions that help (pretty-)printing values while evaluation is runnnig. You can even specify how deep these values should be printed recursively, and transform them on the fly. Please consult the docstrings in lib/debug.nix for usage information.
prefer-remote-fetch is an overlay that download sources on remote builder. This is useful when the evaluating machine has a slow upload while the builder can fetch faster directly from the source. To use it, put the following snippet as a new overlay:
self: super: (super.prefer-remote-fetch self super)
A full configuration example for that sets the overlay up for your own account, could look like this
$mkdir ~/.config/nixpkgs/overlays/$cat > ~/.config/nixpkgs/overlays/prefer-remote-fetch.nix <<EOF self: super: super.prefer-remote-fetch self super EOF
pkgs.nix-gitignore is a function that acts similarly to builtins.filterSource but also allows filtering with the help of the gitignore format.
pkgs.nix-gitignore exports a number of functions, but you'll most likely need either gitignoreSource or gitignoreSourcePure. As their first argument, they both accept either 1. a file with gitignore lines or 2. a string with gitignore lines, or 3. a list of either of the two. They will be concatenated into a single big string.
{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:
nix-gitignore.gitignoreSource [] ./source
# Simplest version
nix-gitignore.gitignoreSource "supplemental-ignores\n" ./source
# This one reads the ./source/.gitignore and concats the auxiliary ignores
nix-gitignore.gitignoreSourcePure "ignore-this\nignore-that\n" ./source
# Use this string as gitignore, don't read ./source/.gitignore.
nix-gitignore.gitignoreSourcePure ["ignore-this\nignore-that\n", ~/.gitignore] ./source
# It also accepts a list (of strings and paths) that will be concatenated
# once the paths are turned to strings via readFile.
These functions are derived from the Filter functions by setting the first filter argument to (_: _: true):
gitignoreSourcePure = gitignoreFilterSourcePure (_: _: true); gitignoreSource = gitignoreFilterSource (_: _: true);
Those filter functions accept the same arguments the builtins.filterSource function would pass to its filters, thus fn: gitignoreFilterSourcePure fn "" should be extensionally equivalent to filterSource. The file is blacklisted iff it's blacklisted by either your filter or the gitignoreFilter.
If you want to make your own filter from scratch, you may use
gitignoreFilter = ign: root: filterPattern (gitignoreToPatterns ign) root;
If you wish to use a filter that would search for .gitignore files in subdirectories, just like git does by default, use this function:
gitignoreFilterRecursiveSource = filter: patterns: root: # OR gitignoreRecursiveSource = gitignoreFilterSourcePure (_: _: true);
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
The standard build environment in the Nix Packages collection provides an environment for building Unix packages that does a lot of common build tasks automatically. In fact, for Unix packages that use the standard ./configure; make; make install build interface, you don’t need to write a build script at all; the standard environment does everything automatically. If stdenv doesn’t do what you need automatically, you can easily customise or override the various build phases.
stdenv
To build a package with the standard environment, you use the function stdenv.mkDerivation, instead of the primitive built-in function derivation, e.g.
stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "libfoo-1.2.3";
src = fetchurl {
url = http://example.org/libfoo-1.2.3.tar.bz2;
sha256 = "0x2g1jqygyr5wiwg4ma1nd7w4ydpy82z9gkcv8vh2v8dn3y58v5m";
};
}
(stdenv needs to be in scope, so if you write this in a separate Nix expression from pkgs/all-packages.nix, you need to pass it as a function argument.) Specifying a name and a src is the absolute minimum Nix requires. For convenience, you can also use pname and version attributes and mkDerivation will automatically set name to "${pname}-${version}" by default. Since RFC 0035, this is preferred for packages in Nixpkgs, as it allows us to reuse the version easily:
stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
pname = "libfoo";
version = "1.2.3";
src = fetchurl {
url = "http://example.org/libfoo-source-${version}.tar.bz2";
sha256 = "0x2g1jqygyr5wiwg4ma1nd7w4ydpy82z9gkcv8vh2v8dn3y58v5m";
};
}
Many packages have dependencies that are not provided in the standard environment. It’s usually sufficient to specify those dependencies in the buildInputs attribute:
stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "libfoo-1.2.3";
...
buildInputs = [libbar perl ncurses];
}
This attribute ensures that the bin subdirectories of these packages appear in the PATH environment variable during the build, that their include subdirectories are searched by the C compiler, and so on. (See Section 6.7, “Package setup hooks” for details.)
Often it is necessary to override or modify some aspect of the build. To make this easier, the standard environment breaks the package build into a number of phases, all of which can be overridden or modified individually: unpacking the sources, applying patches, configuring, building, and installing. (There are some others; see Section 6.5, “Phases”.) For instance, a package that doesn’t supply a makefile but instead has to be compiled “manually” could be handled like this:
stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "fnord-4.5";
...
buildPhase = ''
gcc foo.c -o foo
'';
installPhase = ''
mkdir -p $out/bin
cp foo $out/bin
'';
}
(Note the use of ''-style string literals, which are very convenient for large multi-line script fragments because they don’t need escaping of " and \, and because indentation is intelligently removed.)
There are many other attributes to customise the build. These are listed in Section 6.4, “Attributes”.
While the standard environment provides a generic builder, you can still supply your own build script:
stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "libfoo-1.2.3";
...
builder = ./builder.sh;
}where the builder can do anything it wants, but typically starts with
source $stdenv/setup
to let stdenv set up the environment (e.g., process the buildInputs). If you want, you can still use stdenv’s generic builder:
source $stdenv/setup
buildPhase() {
echo "... this is my custom build phase ..."
gcc foo.c -o foo
}
installPhase() {
mkdir -p $out/bin
cp foo $out/bin
}
genericBuild
stdenvThe standard environment provides the following packages:
The GNU C Compiler, configured with C and C++ support.
GNU coreutils (contains a few dozen standard Unix commands).
GNU findutils (contains find).
GNU diffutils (contains diff, cmp).
GNU sed.
GNU grep.
GNU awk.
GNU tar.
gzip, bzip2 and xz.
GNU Make. It has been patched to provide “nested” output that can be fed into the nix-log2xml command and log2html stylesheet to create a structured, readable output of the build steps performed by Make.
Bash. This is the shell used for all builders in the Nix Packages collection. Not using /bin/sh removes a large source of portability problems.
The patch command.
On Linux, stdenv also includes the patchelf utility.
As described in the Nix manual, almost any *.drv store path in a derivation's attribute set will induce a dependency on that derivation. mkDerivation, however, takes a few attributes intended to, between them, include all the dependencies of a package. This is done both for structure and consistency, but also so that certain other setup can take place. For example, certain dependencies need their bin directories added to the PATH. That is built-in, but other setup is done via a pluggable mechanism that works in conjunction with these dependency attributes. See Section 6.7, “Package setup hooks” for details.
Dependencies can be broken down along three axes: their host and target platforms relative to the new derivation's, and whether they are propagated. The platform distinctions are motivated by cross compilation; see Chapter 9, Cross-compilation for exactly what each platform means.
[1]
But even if one is not cross compiling, the platforms imply whether or not the dependency is needed at run-time or build-time, a concept that makes perfect sense outside of cross compilation. By default, the run-time/build-time distinction is just a hint for mental clarity, but with strictDeps set it is mostly enforced even in the native case.
The extension of PATH with dependencies, alluded to above, proceeds according to the relative platforms alone. The process is carried out only for dependencies whose host platform matches the new derivation's build platform i.e. dependencies which run on the platform where the new derivation will be built.
[2]
For each dependency dep of those dependencies, dep/binPATH environment variable.
The dependency is propagated when it forces some of its other-transitive (non-immediate) downstream dependencies to also take it on as an immediate dependency. Nix itself already takes a package's transitive dependencies into account, but this propagation ensures nixpkgs-specific infrastructure like setup hooks (mentioned above) also are run as if the propagated dependency.
It is important to note that dependencies are not necessarily propagated as the same sort of dependency that they were before, but rather as the corresponding sort so that the platform rules still line up. The exact rules for dependency propagation can be given by assigning to each dependency two integers based one how its host and target platforms are offset from the depending derivation's platforms. Those offsets are given below in the descriptions of each dependency list attribute. Algorithmically, we traverse propagated inputs, accumulating every propagated dependency's propagated dependencies and adjusting them to account for the "shift in perspective" described by the current dependency's platform offsets. This results in sort a transitive closure of the dependency relation, with the offsets being approximately summed when two dependency links are combined. We also prune transitive dependencies whose combined offsets go out-of-bounds, which can be viewed as a filter over that transitive closure removing dependencies that are blatantly absurd.
We can define the process precisely with Natural Deduction using the inference rules. This probably seems a bit obtuse, but so is the bash code that actually implements it! [3] They're confusing in very different ways so... hopefully if something doesn't make sense in one presentation, it will in the other!
let mapOffset(h, t, i) = i + (if i <= 0 then h else t - 1)
propagated-dep(h0, t0, A, B)
propagated-dep(h1, t1, B, C)
h0 + h1 in {-1, 0, 1}
h0 + t1 in {-1, 0, 1}
-------------------------------------- Transitive property
propagated-dep(mapOffset(h0, t0, h1),
mapOffset(h0, t0, t1),
A, C)
let mapOffset(h, t, i) = i + (if i <= 0 then h else t - 1)
dep(h0, _, A, B)
propagated-dep(h1, t1, B, C)
h0 + h1 in {-1, 0, 1}
h0 + t1 in {-1, 0, -1}
----------------------------- Take immediate dependencies' propagated dependencies
propagated-dep(mapOffset(h0, t0, h1),
mapOffset(h0, t0, t1),
A, C)
propagated-dep(h, t, A, B) ----------------------------- Propagated dependencies count as dependencies dep(h, t, A, B)
Some explanation of this monstrosity is in order. In the common case, the target offset of a dependency is the successor to the target offset: t = h + 1. That means that:
let f(h, t, i) = i + (if i <= 0 then h else t - 1) let f(h, h + 1, i) = i + (if i <= 0 then h else (h + 1) - 1) let f(h, h + 1, i) = i + (if i <= 0 then h else h) let f(h, h + 1, i) = i + h
This is where "sum-like" comes in from above: We can just sum all of the host offsets to get the host offset of the transitive dependency. The target offset is the transitive dependency is simply the host offset + 1, just as it was with the dependencies composed to make this transitive one; it can be ignored as it doesn't add any new information.
Because of the bounds checks, the uncommon cases are h = t and h + 2 = t. In the former case, the motivation for mapOffset is that since its host and target platforms are the same, no transitive dependency of it should be able to "discover" an offset greater than its reduced target offsets. mapOffset effectively "squashes" all its transitive dependencies' offsets so that none will ever be greater than the target offset of the original h = t package. In the other case, h + 1 is skipped over between the host and target offsets. Instead of squashing the offsets, we need to "rip" them apart so no transitive dependencies' offset is that one.
Overall, the unifying theme here is that propagation shouldn't be introducing transitive dependencies involving platforms the depending package is unaware of. [One can imagine the dependending package asking for dependencies with the platforms it knows about; other platforms it doesn't know how to ask for. The platform description in that scenario is a kind of unforagable capability.] The offset bounds checking and definition of mapOffset together ensure that this is the case. Discovering a new offset is discovering a new platform, and since those platforms weren't in the derivation "spec" of the needing package, they cannot be relevant. From a capability perspective, we can imagine that the host and target platforms of a package are the capabilities a package requires, and the depending package must provide the capability to the dependency.
Variables specifying dependencies
depsBuildBuild
A list of dependencies whose host and target platforms are the new derivation's build platform. This means a -1 host and -1 target offset from the new derivation's platforms. These are programs and libraries used at build time that produce programs and libraries also used at build time. If the dependency doesn't care about the target platform (i.e. isn't a compiler or similar tool), put it in nativeBuildInputs instead. The most common use of this buildPackages.stdenv.cc, the default C compiler for this role. That example crops up more than one might think in old commonly used C libraries.
Since these packages are able to be run at build-time, they are always added to the PATH, as described above. But since these packages are only guaranteed to be able to run then, they shouldn't persist as run-time dependencies. This isn't currently enforced, but could be in the future.
nativeBuildInputs
A list of dependencies whose host platform is the new derivation's build platform, and target platform is the new derivation's host platform. This means a -1 host offset and 0 target offset from the new derivation's platforms. These are programs and libraries used at build-time that, if they are a compiler or similar tool, produce code to run at run-time—i.e. tools used to build the new derivation. If the dependency doesn't care about the target platform (i.e. isn't a compiler or similar tool), put it here, rather than in depsBuildBuild or depsBuildTarget. This could be called depsBuildHost but nativeBuildInputs is used for historical continuity.
Since these packages are able to be run at build-time, they are added to the PATH, as described above. But since these packages are only guaranteed to be able to run then, they shouldn't persist as run-time dependencies. This isn't currently enforced, but could be in the future.
depsBuildTarget
A list of dependencies whose host platform is the new derivation's build platform, and target platform is the new derivation's target platform. This means a -1 host offset and 1 target offset from the new derivation's platforms. These are programs used at build time that produce code to run with code produced by the depending package. Most commonly, these are tools used to build the runtime or standard library that the currently-being-built compiler will inject into any code it compiles. In many cases, the currently-being-built-compiler is itself employed for that task, but when that compiler won't run (i.e. its build and host platform differ) this is not possible. Other times, the compiler relies on some other tool, like binutils, that is always built separately so that the dependency is unconditional.
This is a somewhat confusing concept to wrap one’s head around, and for good reason. As the only dependency type where the platform offsets are not adjacent integers, it requires thinking of a bootstrapping stage two away from the current one. It and its use-case go hand in hand and are both considered poor form: try to not need this sort of dependency, and try to avoid building standard libraries and runtimes in the same derivation as the compiler produces code using them. Instead strive to build those like a normal library, using the newly-built compiler just as a normal library would. In short, do not use this attribute unless you are packaging a compiler and are sure it is needed.
Since these packages are able to run at build time, they are added to the PATH, as described above. But since these packages are only guaranteed to be able to run then, they shouldn't persist as run-time dependencies. This isn't currently enforced, but could be in the future.
depsHostHost
A list of dependencies whose host and target platforms match the new derivation's host platform. This means a 0 host offset and 0 target offset from the new derivation's host platform. These are packages used at run-time to generate code also used at run-time. In practice, this would usually be tools used by compilers for macros or a metaprogramming system, or libraries used by the macros or metaprogramming code itself. It's always preferable to use a depsBuildBuild dependency in the derivation being built over a depsHostHost on the tool doing the building for this purpose.
buildInputs
A list of dependencies whose host platform and target platform match the new derivation's. This means a 0 host offset and a 1 target offset from the new derivation's host platform. This would be called depsHostTarget but for historical continuity. If the dependency doesn't care about the target platform (i.e. isn't a compiler or similar tool), put it here, rather than in depsBuildBuild.
These are often programs and libraries used by the new derivation at run-time, but that isn't always the case. For example, the machine code in a statically-linked library is only used at run-time, but the derivation containing the library is only needed at build-time. Even in the dynamic case, the library may also be needed at build-time to appease the linker.
depsTargetTarget
A list of dependencies whose host platform matches the new derivation's target platform. This means a 1 offset from the new derivation's platforms. These are packages that run on the target platform, e.g. the standard library or run-time deps of standard library that a compiler insists on knowing about. It's poor form in almost all cases for a package to depend on another from a future stage [future stage corresponding to positive offset]. Do not use this attribute unless you are packaging a compiler and are sure it is needed.
depsBuildBuildPropagated
The propagated equivalent of depsBuildBuild. This perhaps never ought to be used, but it is included for consistency [see below for the others].
propagatedNativeBuildInputs
The propagated equivalent of nativeBuildInputs. This would be called depsBuildHostPropagated but for historical continuity. For example, if package Y has propagatedNativeBuildInputs = [X], and package Z has buildInputs = [Y], then package Z will be built as if it included package X in its nativeBuildInputs. If instead, package Z has nativeBuildInputs = [Y], then Z will be built as if it included X in the depsBuildBuild of package Z, because of the sum of the two -1 host offsets.
depsBuildTargetPropagated
The propagated equivalent of depsBuildTarget. This is prefixed for the same reason of alerting potential users.
depsHostHostPropagated
The propagated equivalent of depsHostHost.
propagatedBuildInputs
The propagated equivalent of buildInputs. This would be called depsHostTargetPropagated but for historical continuity.
depsTargetTargetPropagated
The propagated equivalent of depsTargetTarget. This is prefixed for the same reason of alerting potential users.
Variables affecting stdenv initialisation
NIX_DEBUG
A natural number indicating how much information to log. If set to 1 or higher, stdenv will print moderate debugging information during the build. In particular, the gcc and ld wrapper scripts will print out the complete command line passed to the wrapped tools. If set to 6 or higher, the stdenv setup script will be run with set -x tracing. If set to 7 or higher, the gcc and ld wrapper scripts will also be run with set -x tracing.
Attributes affecting build properties
enableParallelBuilding
If set to true, stdenv will pass specific flags to make and other build tools to enable parallel building with up to build-cores workers.
Unless set to false, some build systems with good support for parallel building including cmake, meson, and qmake will set it to true.
Special variables
passthru
This is an attribute set which can be filled with arbitrary values. For example:
passthru = {
foo = "bar";
baz = {
value1 = 4;
value2 = 5;
};
}
Values inside it are not passed to the builder, so you can change them without triggering a rebuild. However, they can be accessed outside of a derivation directly, as if they were set inside a derivation itself, e.g. hello.baz.value1. We don't specify any usage or schema of passthru - it is meant for values that would be useful outside the derivation in other parts of a Nix expression (e.g. in other derivations). An example would be to convey some specific dependency of your derivation which contains a program with plugins support. Later, others who make derivations with plugins can use passed-through dependency to ensure that their plugin would be binary-compatible with built program.
passthru.updateScript
A script to be run by maintainers/scripts/update.nix when the package is matched. It needs to be an executable file, either on the file system:
passthru.updateScript = ./update.sh;
or inside the expression itself:
passthru.updateScript = writeScript "update-zoom-us" '' #!/usr/bin/env nix-shell #!nix-shell -i bash -p curl pcre common-updater-scripts set -eu -o pipefail version="$(curl -sI https://zoom.us/client/latest/zoom_x86_64.tar.xz | grep -Fi 'Location:' | pcregrep -o1 '/(([0-9]\.?)+)/')" update-source-version zoom-us "$version" '';
The attribute can also contain a list, a script followed by arguments to be passed to it:
passthru.updateScript = [ ../../update.sh pname "--requested-release=unstable" ];
The script will be usually run from the root of the Nixpkgs repository but you should not rely on that. Also note that the update scripts will be run in parallel by default; you should avoid running git commit or any other commands that cannot handle that.
For information about how to run the updates, execute nix-shell maintainers/scripts/update.nix.
The generic builder has a number of phases. Package builds are split into phases to make it easier to override specific parts of the build (e.g., unpacking the sources or installing the binaries). Furthermore, it allows a nicer presentation of build logs in the Nix build farm.
Each phase can be overridden in its entirety either by setting the environment variable namePhasenamePhasepostInstall or preFixup, as skipping some of the default actions may have unexpected consequences. The default script for each phase is defined in the file pkgs/stdenv/generic/setup.sh.
There are a number of variables that control what phases are executed and in what order:
Variables affecting phase control
phases
Specifies the phases. You can change the order in which phases are executed, or add new phases, by setting this variable. If it’s not set, the default value is used, which is $prePhases unpackPhase patchPhase $preConfigurePhases configurePhase $preBuildPhases buildPhase checkPhase $preInstallPhases installPhase fixupPhase installCheckPhase $preDistPhases distPhase $postPhases.
Usually, if you just want to add a few phases, it’s more convenient to set one of the variables below (such as preInstallPhases), as you then don’t specify all the normal phases.
prePhases
Additional phases executed before any of the default phases.
preConfigurePhases
Additional phases executed just before the configure phase.
preBuildPhases
Additional phases executed just before the build phase.
preInstallPhases
Additional phases executed just before the install phase.
preFixupPhases
Additional phases executed just before the fixup phase.
preDistPhases
Additional phases executed just before the distribution phase.
postPhases
Additional phases executed after any of the default phases.
The unpack phase is responsible for unpacking the source code of the package. The default implementation of unpackPhase unpacks the source files listed in the src environment variable to the current directory. It supports the following files by default:
These can optionally be compressed using gzip (.tar.gz, .tgz or .tar.Z), bzip2 (.tar.bz2, .tbz2 or .tbz) or xz (.tar.xz, .tar.lzma or .txz).
Zip files are unpacked using unzip. However, unzip is not in the standard environment, so you should add it to nativeBuildInputs yourself.
These are simply copied to the current directory. The hash part of the file name is stripped, e.g. /nix/store/1wydxgby13cz...-my-sources would be copied to my-sources.
Additional file types can be supported by setting the unpackCmd variable (see below).
Variables controlling the unpack phase
srcs / src
The list of source files or directories to be unpacked or copied. One of these must be set.
sourceRoot
After running unpackPhase, the generic builder changes the current directory to the directory created by unpacking the sources. If there are multiple source directories, you should set sourceRoot to the name of the intended directory.
setSourceRoot
Alternatively to setting sourceRoot, you can set setSourceRoot to a shell command to be evaluated by the unpack phase after the sources have been unpacked. This command must set sourceRoot.
preUnpack
Hook executed at the start of the unpack phase.
postUnpack
Hook executed at the end of the unpack phase.
dontUnpack
Set to true to skip the unpack phase.
dontMakeSourcesWritable
If set to 1, the unpacked sources are not made writable. By default, they are made writable to prevent problems with read-only sources. For example, copied store directories would be read-only without this.
unpackCmd
The unpack phase evaluates the string $unpackCmd for any unrecognised file. The path to the current source file is contained in the curSrc variable.
The patch phase applies the list of patches defined in the patches variable.
Variables controlling the patch phase
patches
The list of patches. They must be in the format accepted by the patch command, and may optionally be compressed using gzip (.gz), bzip2 (.bz2) or xz (.xz).
patchFlags
Flags to be passed to patch. If not set, the argument -p1 is used, which causes the leading directory component to be stripped from the file names in each patch.
prePatch
Hook executed at the start of the patch phase.
postPatch
Hook executed at the end of the patch phase.
The configure phase prepares the source tree for building. The default configurePhase runs ./configure (typically an Autoconf-generated script) if it exists.
Variables controlling the configure phase
configureScript
The name of the configure script. It defaults to ./configure if it exists; otherwise, the configure phase is skipped. This can actually be a command (like perl ./Configure.pl).
configureFlags
A list of strings passed as additional arguments to the configure script.
dontConfigure
Set to true to skip the configure phase.
configureFlagsArray
A shell array containing additional arguments passed to the configure script. You must use this instead of configureFlags if the arguments contain spaces.
dontAddPrefix
By default, the flag --prefix=$prefix is added to the configure flags. If this is undesirable, set this variable to true.
prefix
The prefix under which the package must be installed, passed via the --prefix option to the configure script. It defaults to $out.
prefixKey
The key to use when specifying the prefix. By default, this is set to --prefix= as that is used by the majority of packages.
dontAddDisableDepTrack
By default, the flag --disable-dependency-tracking is added to the configure flags to speed up Automake-based builds. If this is undesirable, set this variable to true.
dontFixLibtool
By default, the configure phase applies some special hackery to all files called ltmain.sh before running the configure script in order to improve the purity of Libtool-based packages
[4]
. If this is undesirable, set this variable to true.
dontDisableStatic
By default, when the configure script has --enable-static, the option --disable-static is added to the configure flags.
If this is undesirable, set this variable to true.
configurePlatforms
By default, when cross compiling, the configure script has --build=... and --host=... passed. Packages can instead pass [ "build" "host" "target" ] or a subset to control exactly which platform flags are passed. Compilers and other tools can use this to also pass the target platform.
[5]
preConfigure
Hook executed at the start of the configure phase.
postConfigure
Hook executed at the end of the configure phase.
The build phase is responsible for actually building the package (e.g. compiling it). The default buildPhase simply calls make if a file named Makefile, makefile or GNUmakefile exists in the current directory (or the makefile is explicitly set); otherwise it does nothing.
Variables controlling the build phase
dontBuild
Set to true to skip the build phase.
makefile
The file name of the Makefile.
makeFlags
A list of strings passed as additional flags to make. These flags are also used by the default install and check phase. For setting make flags specific to the build phase, use buildFlags (see below).
makeFlags = [ "PREFIX=$(out)" ];
makeFlagsArray
A shell array containing additional arguments passed to make. You must use this instead of makeFlags if the arguments contain spaces, e.g.
preBuild = '' makeFlagsArray+=(CFLAGS="-O0 -g" LDFLAGS="-lfoo -lbar") '';
Note that shell arrays cannot be passed through environment variables, so you cannot set makeFlagsArray in a derivation attribute (because those are passed through environment variables): you have to define them in shell code.
buildFlags / buildFlagsArray
A list of strings passed as additional flags to make. Like makeFlags and makeFlagsArray, but only used by the build phase.
preBuild
Hook executed at the start of the build phase.
postBuild
Hook executed at the end of the build phase.
You can set flags for make through the makeFlags variable.
Before and after running make, the hooks preBuild and postBuild are called, respectively.
The check phase checks whether the package was built correctly by running its test suite. The default checkPhase calls make check, but only if the doCheck variable is enabled.
Variables controlling the check phase
doCheck
Controls whether the check phase is executed. By default it is skipped, but if doCheck is set to true, the check phase is usually executed. Thus you should set
doCheck = true;
in the derivation to enable checks. The exception is cross compilation. Cross compiled builds never run tests, no matter how doCheck is set, as the newly-built program won't run on the platform used to build it.
makeFlags / makeFlagsArray / makefile
See the build phase for details.
checkTarget
The make target that runs the tests. Defaults to check.
checkFlags / checkFlagsArray
A list of strings passed as additional flags to make. Like makeFlags and makeFlagsArray, but only used by the check phase.
checkInputs
A list of dependencies used by the phase. This gets included in nativeBuildInputs when doCheck is set.
preCheck
Hook executed at the start of the check phase.
postCheck
Hook executed at the end of the check phase.
The install phase is responsible for installing the package in the Nix store under out. The default installPhase creates the directory $out and calls make install.
Variables controlling the install phase
dontInstall
Set to true to skip the install phase.
makeFlags / makeFlagsArray / makefile
See the build phase for details.
installTargets
The make targets that perform the installation. Defaults to install. Example:
installTargets = "install-bin install-doc";
installFlags / installFlagsArray
A list of strings passed as additional flags to make. Like makeFlags and makeFlagsArray, but only used by the install phase.
preInstall
Hook executed at the start of the install phase.
postInstall
Hook executed at the end of the install phase.
The fixup phase performs some (Nix-specific) post-processing actions on the files installed under $out by the install phase. The default fixupPhase does the following:
It moves the man/, doc/ and info/ subdirectories of $out to share/.
It strips libraries and executables of debug information.
On Linux, it applies the patchelf command to ELF executables and libraries to remove unused directories from the RPATH in order to prevent unnecessary runtime dependencies.
It rewrites the interpreter paths of shell scripts to paths found in PATH. E.g., /usr/bin/perl will be rewritten to /nix/store/ found in some-perl/bin/perlPATH.
Variables controlling the fixup phase
dontFixup
Set to true to skip the fixup phase.
dontStrip
If set, libraries and executables are not stripped. By default, they are.
dontStripHost
Like dontStrip, but only affects the strip command targetting the package's host platform. Useful when supporting cross compilation, but otherwise feel free to ignore.
dontStripTarget
Like dontStrip, but only affects the strip command targetting the packages' target platform. Useful when supporting cross compilation, but otherwise feel free to ignore.
dontMoveSbin
If set, files in $out/sbin are not moved to $out/bin. By default, they are.
stripAllList
List of directories to search for libraries and executables from which all symbols should be stripped. By default, it’s empty. Stripping all symbols is risky, since it may remove not just debug symbols but also ELF information necessary for normal execution.
stripAllFlags
Flags passed to the strip command applied to the files in the directories listed in stripAllList. Defaults to -s (i.e. --strip-all).
stripDebugList
List of directories to search for libraries and executables from which only debugging-related symbols should be stripped. It defaults to lib bin sbin.
stripDebugFlags
Flags passed to the strip command applied to the files in the directories listed in stripDebugList. Defaults to -S (i.e. --strip-debug).
dontPatchELF
If set, the patchelf command is not used to remove unnecessary RPATH entries. Only applies to Linux.
dontPatchShebangs
If set, scripts starting with #! do not have their interpreter paths rewritten to paths in the Nix store.
dontPruneLibtoolFiles
If set, libtool .la files associated with shared libraries won't have their dependency_libs field cleared.
forceShare
The list of directories that must be moved from $out to $out/share. Defaults to man doc info.
setupHook
A package can export a setup hook by setting this variable. The setup hook, if defined, is copied to $out/nix-support/setup-hook. Environment variables are then substituted in it using substituteAll.
preFixup
Hook executed at the start of the fixup phase.
postFixup
Hook executed at the end of the fixup phase.
separateDebugInfo
If set to true, the standard environment will enable debug information in C/C++ builds. After installation, the debug information will be separated from the executables and stored in the output named debug. (This output is enabled automatically; you don’t need to set the outputs attribute explicitly.) To be precise, the debug information is stored in debug/lib/debug/.build-id/XX/YYYY…XXYYYY… is the build ID of the binary — a SHA-1 hash of the contents of the binary. Debuggers like GDB use the build ID to look up the separated debug information.
For example, with GDB, you can add
set debug-file-directory ~/.nix-profile/lib/debug
to ~/.gdbinit. GDB will then be able to find debug information installed via nix-env -i.
The installCheck phase checks whether the package was installed correctly by running its test suite against the installed directories. The default installCheck calls make installcheck.
Variables controlling the installCheck phase
doInstallCheck
Controls whether the installCheck phase is executed. By default it is skipped, but if doInstallCheck is set to true, the installCheck phase is usually executed. Thus you should set
doInstallCheck = true;
in the derivation to enable install checks. The exception is cross compilation. Cross compiled builds never run tests, no matter how doInstallCheck is set, as the newly-built program won't run on the platform used to build it.
installCheckTarget
The make target that runs the install tests. Defaults to installcheck.
installCheckFlags / installCheckFlagsArray
A list of strings passed as additional flags to make. Like makeFlags and makeFlagsArray, but only used by the installCheck phase.
installCheckInputs
A list of dependencies used by the phase. This gets included in nativeBuildInputs when doInstallCheck is set.
preInstallCheck
Hook executed at the start of the installCheck phase.
postInstallCheck
Hook executed at the end of the installCheck phase.
The distribution phase is intended to produce a source distribution of the package. The default distPhase first calls make dist, then it copies the resulting source tarballs to $out/tarballs/. This phase is only executed if the attribute doDist is set.
Variables controlling the distribution phase
distTarget
The make target that produces the distribution. Defaults to dist.
distFlags / distFlagsArray
Additional flags passed to make.
tarballs
The names of the source distribution files to be copied to $out/tarballs/. It can contain shell wildcards. The default is *.tar.gz.
dontCopyDist
If set, no files are copied to $out/tarballs/.
preDist
Hook executed at the start of the distribution phase.
postDist
Hook executed at the end of the distribution phase.
The standard environment provides a number of useful functions.
makeWrapper executable wrapperfile args
Constructs a wrapper for a program with various possible arguments. For example:
# adds `FOOBAR=baz` to `$out/bin/foo`’s environment
makeWrapper $out/bin/foo $wrapperfile --set FOOBAR baz
# prefixes the binary paths of `hello` and `git`
# Be advised that paths often should be patched in directly
# (via string replacements or in `configurePhase`).
makeWrapper $out/bin/foo $wrapperfile --prefix PATH : ${lib.makeBinPath [ hello git ]}
There’s many more kinds of arguments, they are documented in nixpkgs/pkgs/build-support/setup-hooks/make-wrapper.sh.
wrapProgram is a convenience function you probably want to use most of the time.
substitute infile outfile subs
Performs string substitution on the contents of infile, writing the result to outfile. The substitutions in subs are of the following form:
--replace s1 s2
Replace every occurrence of the string s1 by s2.
--subst-var varName
Replace every occurrence of @ by the contents of the environment variable varName@varName. This is useful for generating files from templates, using @ in the template as placeholders.
...@
--subst-var-by varName s
Replace every occurrence of @ by the string varName@s.
Example:
substitute ./foo.in ./foo.out \
--replace /usr/bin/bar $bar/bin/bar \
--replace "a string containing spaces" "some other text" \
--subst-var someVar
substitute is implemented using the replace command. Unlike with the sed command, you don’t have to worry about escaping special characters. It supports performing substitutions on binary files (such as executables), though there you’ll probably want to make sure that the replacement string is as long as the replaced string.
substituteInPlace file subs
Like substitute, but performs the substitutions in place on the file file.
substituteAll infile outfile
Replaces every occurrence of @, where varName@varName is any environment variable, in infile, writing the result to outfile. For instance, if infile has the contents
#! @bash@/bin/sh PATH=@coreutils@/bin echo @foo@
and the environment contains bash=/nix/store/bmwp0q28cf21...-bash-3.2-p39 and coreutils=/nix/store/68afga4khv0w...-coreutils-6.12, but does not contain the variable foo, then the output will be
#! /nix/store/bmwp0q28cf21...-bash-3.2-p39/bin/sh PATH=/nix/store/68afga4khv0w...-coreutils-6.12/bin echo @foo@
That is, no substitution is performed for undefined variables.
Environment variables that start with an uppercase letter or an underscore are filtered out, to prevent global variables (like HOME) or private variables (like __ETC_PROFILE_DONE) from accidentally getting substituted. The variables also have to be valid bash “names”, as defined in the bash manpage (alphanumeric or _, must not start with a number).
substituteAllInPlace file
Like substituteAll, but performs the substitutions in place on the file file.
stripHash path
Strips the directory and hash part of a store path, outputting the name part to stdout. For example:
# prints coreutils-8.24 stripHash "/nix/store/9s9r019176g7cvn2nvcw41gsp862y6b4-coreutils-8.24"
If you wish to store the result in another variable, then the following idiom may be useful:
name="/nix/store/9s9r019176g7cvn2nvcw41gsp862y6b4-coreutils-8.24" someVar=$(stripHash $name)
wrapProgram executable makeWrapperArgs
Convenience function for makeWrapper that automatically creates a sane wrapper file. It takes all the same arguments as makeWrapper, except for --argv0.
It cannot be applied multiple times, since it will overwrite the wrapper file.
Nix itself considers a build-time dependency as merely something that should previously be built and accessible at build time—packages themselves are on their own to perform any additional setup. In most cases, that is fine, and the downstream derivation can deal with its own dependencies. But for a few common tasks, that would result in almost every package doing the same sort of setup work—depending not on the package itself, but entirely on which dependencies were used.
In order to alleviate this burden, the setup hook mechanism was written, where any package can include a shell script that [by convention rather than enforcement by Nix], any downstream reverse-dependency will source as part of its build process. That allows the downstream dependency to merely specify its dependencies, and lets those dependencies effectively initialize themselves. No boilerplate mirroring the list of dependencies is needed.
The setup hook mechanism is a bit of a sledgehammer though: a powerful feature with a broad and indiscriminate area of effect. The combination of its power and implicit use may be expedient, but isn't without costs. Nix itself is unchanged, but the spirit of added dependencies being effect-free is violated even if the letter isn't. For example, if a derivation path is mentioned more than once, Nix itself doesn't care and simply makes sure the dependency derivation is already built just the same—depending is just needing something to exist, and needing is idempotent. However, a dependency specified twice will have its setup hook run twice, and that could easily change the build environment (though a well-written setup hook will therefore strive to be idempotent so this is in fact not observable). More broadly, setup hooks are anti-modular in that multiple dependencies, whether the same or different, should not interfere and yet their setup hooks may well do so.
The most typical use of the setup hook is actually to add other hooks which are then run (i.e. after all the setup hooks) on each dependency. For example, the C compiler wrapper's setup hook feeds itself flags for each dependency that contains relevant libraries and headers. This is done by defining a bash function, and appending its name to one of envBuildBuildHooks, envBuildHostHooks, envBuildTargetHooks, envHostHostHooks, envHostTargetHooks, or envTargetTargetHooks. These 6 bash variables correspond to the 6 sorts of dependencies by platform (there's 12 total but we ignore the propagated/non-propagated axis).
Packages adding a hook should not hard code a specific hook, but rather choose a variable relative to how they are included. Returning to the C compiler wrapper example, if the wrapper itself is an n dependency, then it only wants to accumulate flags from n + 1 dependencies, as only those ones match the compiler's target platform. The hostOffset variable is defined with the current dependency's host offset targetOffset with its target offset, before its setup hook is sourced. Additionally, since most environment hooks don't care about the target platform, that means the setup hook can append to the right bash array by doing something like
addEnvHooks "$hostOffset" myBashFunction
The existence of setups hooks has long been documented and packages inside Nixpkgs are free to use this mechanism. Other packages, however, should not rely on these mechanisms not changing between Nixpkgs versions. Because of the existing issues with this system, there's little benefit from mandating it be stable for any period of time.
First, let’s cover some setup hooks that are part of Nixpkgs default stdenv. This means that they are run for every package built using stdenv.mkDerivation. Some of these are platform specific, so they may run on Linux but not Darwin or vice-versa.
move-docs.sh
This setup hook moves any installed documentation to the /share subdirectory directory. This includes the man, doc and info directories. This is needed for legacy programs that do not know how to use the share subdirectory.
compress-man-pages.sh
This setup hook compresses any man pages that have been installed. The compression is done using the gzip program. This helps to reduce the installed size of packages.
strip.sh
This runs the strip command on installed binaries and libraries. This removes unnecessary information like debug symbols when they are not needed. This also helps to reduce the installed size of packages.
patch-shebangs.sh
This setup hook patches installed scripts to use the full path to the shebang interpreter. A shebang interpreter is the first commented line of a script telling the operating system which program will run the script (e.g #!/bin/bash). In Nix, we want an exact path to that interpreter to be used. This often replaces /bin/sh with a path in the Nix store.
audit-tmpdir.sh
This verifies that no references are left from the install binaries to the directory used to build those binaries. This ensures that the binaries do not need things outside the Nix store. This is currently supported in Linux only.
multiple-outputs.sh
This setup hook adds configure flags that tell packages to install files into any one of the proper outputs listed in outputs. This behavior can be turned off by setting setOutputFlags to false in the derivation environment. See Chapter 8, Multiple-output packages for more information.
move-sbin.sh
This setup hook moves any binaries installed in the sbin subdirectory into bin. In addition, a link is provided from sbin to bin for compatibility.
move-lib64.sh
This setup hook moves any libraries installed in the lib64 subdirectory into lib. In addition, a link is provided from lib64 to lib for compatibility.
set-source-date-epoch-to-latest.sh
This sets SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH to the modification time of the most recent file.
The Bintools Wrapper wraps the binary utilities for a bunch of miscellaneous purposes. These are GNU Binutils when targetting Linux, and a mix of cctools and GNU binutils for Darwin. [The "Bintools" name is supposed to be a compromise between "Binutils" and "cctools" not denoting any specific implementation.] Specifically, the underlying bintools package, and a C standard library (glibc or Darwin's libSystem, just for the dynamic loader) are all fed in, and dependency finding, hardening (see below), and purity checks for each are handled by the Bintools Wrapper. Packages typically depend on CC Wrapper, which in turn (at run time) depends on the Bintools Wrapper.
The Bintools Wrapper was only just recently split off from CC Wrapper, so the division of labor is still being worked out. For example, it shouldn't care about the C standard library, but just take a derivation with the dynamic loader (which happens to be the glibc on linux). Dependency finding however is a task both wrappers will continue to need to share, and probably the most important to understand. It is currently accomplished by collecting directories of host-platform dependencies (i.e. buildInputs and nativeBuildInputs) in environment variables. The Bintools Wrapper's setup hook causes any lib and lib64 subdirectories to be added to NIX_LDFLAGS. Since the CC Wrapper and the Bintools Wrapper use the same strategy, most of the Bintools Wrapper code is sparsely commented and refers to the CC Wrapper. But the CC Wrapper's code, by contrast, has quite lengthy comments. The Bintools Wrapper merely cites those, rather than repeating them, to avoid falling out of sync.
A final task of the setup hook is defining a number of standard environment variables to tell build systems which executables fulfill which purpose. They are defined to just be the base name of the tools, under the assumption that the Bintools Wrapper's binaries will be on the path. Firstly, this helps poorly-written packages, e.g. ones that look for just gcc when CC isn't defined yet clang is to be used. Secondly, this helps packages not get confused when cross-compiling, in which case multiple Bintools Wrappers may simultaneously be in use.
[6]
BUILD_- and TARGET_-prefixed versions of the normal environment variable are defined for additional Bintools Wrappers, properly disambiguating them.
A problem with this final task is that the Bintools Wrapper is honest and defines LD as ld. Most packages, however, firstly use the C compiler for linking, secondly use LD anyways, defining it as the C compiler, and thirdly, only so define LD when it is undefined as a fallback. This triple-threat means Bintools Wrapper will break those packages, as LD is already defined as the actual linker which the package won't override yet doesn't want to use. The workaround is to define, just for the problematic package, LD as the C compiler. A good way to do this would be preConfigure = "LD=$CC".
The CC Wrapper wraps a C toolchain for a bunch of miscellaneous purposes. Specifically, a C compiler (GCC or Clang), wrapped binary tools, and a C standard library (glibc or Darwin's libSystem, just for the dynamic loader) are all fed in, and dependency finding, hardening (see below), and purity checks for each are handled by the CC Wrapper. Packages typically depend on the CC Wrapper, which in turn (at run-time) depends on the Bintools Wrapper.
Dependency finding is undoubtedly the main task of the CC Wrapper. This works just like the Bintools Wrapper, except that any include subdirectory of any relevant dependency is added to NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE. The setup hook itself contains some lengthy comments describing the exact convoluted mechanism by which this is accomplished.
Similarly, the CC Wrapper follows the Bintools Wrapper in defining standard environment variables with the names of the tools it wraps, for the same reasons described above. Importantly, while it includes a cc symlink to the c compiler for portability, the CC will be defined using the compiler's "real name" (i.e. gcc or clang). This helps lousy build systems that inspect on the name of the compiler rather than run it.
Here are some more packages that provide a setup hook. Since the list of hooks is extensible, this is not an exhaustive list. The mechanism is only to be used as a last resort, so it might cover most uses.
Adds the lib/site_perl subdirectory of each build input to the PERL5LIB environment variable. For instance, if buildInputs contains Perl, then the lib/site_perl subdirectory of each input is added to the PERL5LIB environment variable.
Adds the lib/${python.libPrefix}/site-packages subdirectory of each build input to the PYTHONPATH environment variable.
Adds the lib/pkgconfig and share/pkgconfig subdirectories of each build input to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable.
Adds the share/aclocal subdirectory of each build input to the ACLOCAL_PATH environment variable.
The autoreconfHook derivation adds autoreconfPhase, which runs autoreconf, libtoolize and automake, essentially preparing the configure script in autotools-based builds. Most autotools-based packages come with the configure script pre-generated, but this hook is necessary for a few packages and when you need to patch the package’s configure scripts.
Adds every file named catalog.xml found under the xml/dtd and xml/xsl subdirectories of each build input to the XML_CATALOG_FILES environment variable.
Adds the share/texmf-nix subdirectory of each build input to the TEXINPUTS environment variable.
Sets the QTDIR environment variable to Qt’s path.
Exports GDK_PIXBUF_MODULE_FILE environment variable to the builder. Add librsvg package to buildInputs to get svg support.
Creates a temporary package database and registers every Haskell build input in it (TODO: how?).
Hooks related to GNOME platform and related libraries like GLib, GTK and GStreamer are described in Section 15.7, “GNOME”.
This is a special setup hook which helps in packaging proprietary software in that it automatically tries to find missing shared library dependencies of ELF files based on the given buildInputs and nativeBuildInputs.
You can also specify a runtimeDependencies environment variable which lists dependencies that are unconditionally added to all executables.
This is useful for programs that use dlopen(3) to load libraries at runtime.
In certain situations you may want to run the main command (autoPatchelf) of the setup hook on a file or a set of directories instead of unconditionally patching all outputs. This can be done by setting the dontAutoPatchelf environment variable to a non-empty value.
The autoPatchelf command also recognizes a --no-recurse command line flag, which prevents it from recursing into subdirectories.
This hook will make a build pause instead of stopping when a failure happens. It prevents nix from cleaning up the build environment immediately and allows the user to attach to a build environment using the cntr command. Upon build error it will print instructions on how to use cntr, which can be used to enter the environment for debugging. Installing cntr and running the command will provide shell access to the build sandbox of failed build. At /var/lib/cntr the sandboxed filesystem is mounted. All commands and files of the system are still accessible within the shell. To execute commands from the sandbox use the cntr exec subcommand. cntr is only supported on Linux-based platforms. To use it first add cntr to your environment.systemPackages on NixOS or alternatively to the root user on non-NixOS systems. Then in the package that is supposed to be inspected, add breakpointHook to nativeBuildInputs.
nativeBuildInputs = [ breakpointHook ];
When a build failure happens there will be an instruction printed that shows how to attach with cntr to the build sandbox.
--option builders '' for nix-build or --builders '' for nix build.
This hook helps with installing manpages and shell completion files. It exposes 2 shell functions installManPage and installShellCompletion that can be used from your postInstall hook.
The installManPage function takes one or more paths to manpages to install. The manpages must have a section suffix, and may optionally be compressed (with .gz suffix). This function will place them into the correct directory.
The installShellCompletion function takes one or more paths to shell completion files. By default it will autodetect the shell type from the completion file extension, but you may also specify it by passing one of --bash, --fish, or --zsh. These flags apply to all paths listed after them (up until another shell flag is given). Each path may also have a custom installation name provided by providing a flag --name NAME before the path. If this flag is not provided, zsh completions will be renamed automatically such that foobar.zsh becomes _foobar.
nativeBuildInputs = [ installShellFiles ];
postInstall = ''
installManPage doc/foobar.1 doc/barfoo.3
# explicit behavior
installShellCompletion --bash --name foobar.bash share/completions.bash
installShellCompletion --fish --name foobar.fish share/completions.fish
installShellCompletion --zsh --name _foobar share/completions.zsh
# implicit behavior
installShellCompletion share/completions/foobar.{bash,fish,zsh}
'';
A few libraries automatically add to NIX_LDFLAGS their library, making their symbols automatically available to the linker. This includes libiconv and libintl (gettext). This is done to provide compatibility between GNU Linux, where libiconv and libintl are bundled in, and other systems where that might not be the case. Sometimes, this behavior is not desired. To disable this behavior, set dontAddExtraLibs.
Overrides the default configure phase to run the CMake command. By default, we use the Make generator of CMake. In addition, dependencies are added automatically to CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH so that packages are correctly detected by CMake. Some additional flags are passed in to give similar behavior to configure-based packages. You can disable this hook’s behavior by setting configurePhase to a custom value, or by setting dontUseCmakeConfigure. cmakeFlags controls flags passed only to CMake. By default, parallel building is enabled as CMake supports parallel building almost everywhere. When Ninja is also in use, CMake will detect that and use the ninja generator.
Overrides the build and install phases to run the “xcbuild” command. This hook is needed when a project only comes with build files for the XCode build system. You can disable this behavior by setting buildPhase and configurePhase to a custom value. xcbuildFlags controls flags passed only to xcbuild.
Overrides the configure phase to run meson to generate Ninja files. To run these files, you should accompany Meson with ninja. By default, enableParallelBuilding is enabled as Meson supports parallel building almost everywhere.
Variables controlling Meson
mesonFlags
Controls the flags passed to meson.
mesonBuildType
Which --buildtype to pass to Meson. We default to plain.
mesonAutoFeatures
What value to set -Dauto_features= to. We default to enabled.
mesonWrapMode
What value to set -Dwrap_mode= to. We default to nodownload as we disallow network access.
dontUseMesonConfigure
Disables using Meson's configurePhase.
Overrides the build, install, and check phase to run ninja instead of make. You can disable this behavior with the dontUseNinjaBuild, dontUseNinjaInstall, and dontUseNinjaCheck, respectively. Parallel building is enabled by default in Ninja.
This setup hook will allow you to unzip .zip files specified in $src. There are many similar packages like unrar, undmg, etc.
Overrides the configure, build, and install phases. This will run the "waf" script used by many projects. If wafPath (default ./waf) doesn’t exist, it will copy the version of waf available in Nixpkgs. wafFlags can be used to pass flags to the waf script.
Overrides the build, install, and check phases. This uses the scons build system as a replacement for make. scons does not provide a configure phase, so everything is managed at build and install time.
[measures taken to prevent dependencies on packages outside the store, and what you can do to prevent them]
GCC doesn't search in locations such as /usr/include. In fact, attempts to add such directories through the -I flag are filtered out. Likewise, the linker (from GNU binutils) doesn't search in standard locations such as /usr/lib. Programs built on Linux are linked against a GNU C Library that likewise doesn't search in the default system locations.
There are flags available to harden packages at compile or link-time. These can be toggled using the stdenv.mkDerivation parameters hardeningDisable and hardeningEnable.
Both parameters take a list of flags as strings. The special "all" flag can be passed to hardeningDisable to turn off all hardening. These flags can also be used as environment variables for testing or development purposes.
The following flags are enabled by default and might require disabling with hardeningDisable if the program to package is incompatible.
format
Adds the -Wformat -Wformat-security -Werror=format-security compiler options. At present, this warns about calls to printf and scanf functions where the format string is not a string literal and there are no format arguments, as in printf(foo);. This may be a security hole if the format string came from untrusted input and contains %n.
This needs to be turned off or fixed for errors similar to:
/tmp/nix-build-zynaddsubfx-2.5.2.drv-0/zynaddsubfx-2.5.2/src/UI/guimain.cpp:571:28: error: format not a string literal and no format arguments [-Werror=format-security]
printf(help_message);
^
cc1plus: some warnings being treated as errors
stackprotector
Adds the -fstack-protector-strong --param ssp-buffer-size=4 compiler options. This adds safety checks against stack overwrites rendering many potential code injection attacks into aborting situations. In the best case this turns code injection vulnerabilities into denial of service or into non-issues (depending on the application).
This needs to be turned off or fixed for errors similar to:
bin/blib.a(bios_console.o): In function `bios_handle_cup': /tmp/nix-build-ipxe-20141124-5cbdc41.drv-0/ipxe-5cbdc41/src/arch/i386/firmware/pcbios/bios_console.c:86: undefined reference to `__stack_chk_fail'
fortify
Adds the -O2 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 compiler options. During code generation the compiler knows a great deal of information about buffer sizes (where possible), and attempts to replace insecure unlimited length buffer function calls with length-limited ones. This is especially useful for old, crufty code. Additionally, format strings in writable memory that contain '%n' are blocked. If an application depends on such a format string, it will need to be worked around.
Additionally, some warnings are enabled which might trigger build failures if compiler warnings are treated as errors in the package build. In this case, set NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE to -Wno-error=warning-type.
This needs to be turned off or fixed for errors similar to:
malloc.c:404:15: error: return type is an incomplete type malloc.c:410:19: error: storage size of 'ms' isn't known
strdup.h:22:1: error: expected identifier or '(' before '__extension__'
strsep.c:65:23: error: register name not specified for 'delim'
installwatch.c:3751:5: error: conflicting types for '__open_2'
fcntl2.h:50:4: error: call to '__open_missing_mode' declared with attribute error: open with O_CREAT or O_TMPFILE in second argument needs 3 arguments
pic
Adds the -fPIC compiler options. This options adds support for position independent code in shared libraries and thus making ASLR possible.
Most notably, the Linux kernel, kernel modules and other code not running in an operating system environment like boot loaders won't build with PIC enabled. The compiler will is most cases complain that PIC is not supported for a specific build.
This needs to be turned off or fixed for assembler errors similar to:
ccbLfRgg.s: Assembler messages: ccbLfRgg.s:33: Error: missing or invalid displacement expression `private_key_len@GOTOFF'
strictoverflow
Signed integer overflow is undefined behaviour according to the C standard. If it happens, it is an error in the program as it should check for overflow before it can happen, not afterwards. GCC provides built-in functions to perform arithmetic with overflow checking, which are correct and faster than any custom implementation. As a workaround, the option -fno-strict-overflow makes gcc behave as if signed integer overflows were defined.
This flag should not trigger any build or runtime errors.
relro
Adds the -z relro linker option. During program load, several ELF memory sections need to be written to by the linker, but can be turned read-only before turning over control to the program. This prevents some GOT (and .dtors) overwrite attacks, but at least the part of the GOT used by the dynamic linker (.got.plt) is still vulnerable.
This flag can break dynamic shared object loading. For instance, the module systems of Xorg and OpenCV are incompatible with this flag. In almost all cases the bindnow flag must also be disabled and incompatible programs typically fail with similar errors at runtime.
bindnow
Adds the -z bindnow linker option. During program load, all dynamic symbols are resolved, allowing for the complete GOT to be marked read-only (due to relro). This prevents GOT overwrite attacks. For very large applications, this can incur some performance loss during initial load while symbols are resolved, but this shouldn't be an issue for daemons.
This flag can break dynamic shared object loading. For instance, the module systems of Xorg and PHP are incompatible with this flag. Programs incompatible with this flag often fail at runtime due to missing symbols, like:
intel_drv.so: undefined symbol: vgaHWFreeHWRec
The following flags are disabled by default and should be enabled with hardeningEnable for packages that take untrusted input like network services.
pie
Adds the -fPIE compiler and -pie linker options. Position Independent Executables are needed to take advantage of Address Space Layout Randomization, supported by modern kernel versions. While ASLR can already be enforced for data areas in the stack and heap (brk and mmap), the code areas must be compiled as position-independent. Shared libraries already do this with the pic flag, so they gain ASLR automatically, but binary .text regions need to be build with pie to gain ASLR. When this happens, ROP attacks are much harder since there are no static locations to bounce off of during a memory corruption attack.
For more in-depth information on these hardening flags and hardening in general, refer to the Debian Wiki, Ubuntu Wiki, Gentoo Wiki, and the Arch Wiki.
[1] The build platform is ignored because it is a mere implementation detail of the package satisfying the dependency: As a general programming principle, dependencies are always specified as interfaces, not concrete implementation.
[2]
Currently, this means for native builds all dependencies are put on the PATH. But in the future that may not be the case for sake of matching cross: the platforms would be assumed to be unique for native and cross builds alike, so only the depsBuild* and nativeBuildInputs would be added to the PATH.
[3]
The findInputs function, currently residing in pkgs/stdenv/generic/setup.sh, implements the propagation logic.
[4]
It clears the sys_lib_ variables in the Libtool script to prevent Libtool from using libraries in *search_path/usr/lib and such.
[5] Eventually these will be passed building natively as well, to improve determinism: build-time guessing, as is done today, is a risk of impurity.
[6] Each wrapper targets a single platform, so if binaries for multiple platforms are needed, the underlying binaries must be wrapped multiple times. As this is a property of the wrapper itself, the multiple wrappings are needed whether or not the same underlying binaries can target multiple platforms.
Table of Contents
Nix packages can declare meta-attributes that contain information about a package such as a description, its homepage, its license, and so on. For instance, the GNU Hello package has a meta declaration like this:
meta = with stdenv.lib; {
description = "A program that produces a familiar, friendly greeting";
longDescription = ''
GNU Hello is a program that prints "Hello, world!" when you run it.
It is fully customizable.
'';
homepage = https://www.gnu.org/software/hello/manual/;
license = licenses.gpl3Plus;
maintainers = [ maintainers.eelco ];
platforms = platforms.all;
};
Meta-attributes are not passed to the builder of the package. Thus, a change to a meta-attribute doesn’t trigger a recompilation of the package. The value of a meta-attribute must be a string.
The meta-attributes of a package can be queried from the command-line using nix-env:
$ nix-env -qa hello --json
{
"hello": {
"meta": {
"description": "A program that produces a familiar, friendly greeting",
"homepage": "https://www.gnu.org/software/hello/manual/",
"license": {
"fullName": "GNU General Public License version 3 or later",
"shortName": "GPLv3+",
"url": "http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.html"
},
"longDescription": "GNU Hello is a program that prints \"Hello, world!\" when you run it.\nIt is fully customizable.\n",
"maintainers": [
"Ludovic Court\u00e8s <ludo@gnu.org>"
],
"platforms": [
"i686-linux",
"x86_64-linux",
"armv5tel-linux",
"armv7l-linux",
"mips32-linux",
"x86_64-darwin",
"i686-cygwin",
"i686-freebsd",
"x86_64-freebsd",
"i686-openbsd",
"x86_64-openbsd"
],
"position": "/home/user/dev/nixpkgs/pkgs/applications/misc/hello/default.nix:14"
},
"name": "hello-2.9",
"system": "x86_64-linux"
}
}
nix-env knows about the description field specifically:
$ nix-env -qa hello --description
hello-2.3 A program that produces a familiar, friendly greeting
It is expected that each meta-attribute is one of the following:
description
A short (one-line) description of the package. This is shown by nix-env -q --description and also on the Nixpkgs release pages.
Don’t include a period at the end. Don’t include newline characters. Capitalise the first character. For brevity, don’t repeat the name of package — just describe what it does.
Wrong: "libpng is a library that allows you to decode PNG images."
Right: "A library for decoding PNG images"
longDescription
An arbitrarily long description of the package.
branch
Release branch. Used to specify that a package is not going to receive updates that are not in this branch; for example, Linux kernel 3.0 is supposed to be updated to 3.0.X, not 3.1.
homepage
The package’s homepage. Example: https://www.gnu.org/software/hello/manual/
downloadPage
The page where a link to the current version can be found. Example: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/hello/
changelog
A link or a list of links to the location of Changelog for a package. A link may use expansion to refer to the correct changelog version. Example: "https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hello.git/plain/NEWS?h=v${version}"
license
The license, or licenses, for the package. One from the attribute set defined in nixpkgs/lib/licenses.nix. At this moment using both a list of licenses and a single license is valid. If the license field is in the form of a list representation, then it means that parts of the package are licensed differently. Each license should preferably be referenced by their attribute. The non-list attribute value can also be a space delimited string representation of the contained attribute shortNames or spdxIds. The following are all valid examples:
Single license referenced by attribute (preferred) stdenv.lib.licenses.gpl3.
Single license referenced by its attribute shortName (frowned upon) "gpl3".
Single license referenced by its attribute spdxId (frowned upon) "GPL-3.0".
Multiple licenses referenced by attribute (preferred) with stdenv.lib.licenses; [ asl20 free ofl ].
Multiple licenses referenced as a space delimited string of attribute shortNames (frowned upon) "asl20 free ofl".
For details, see Section 7.2, “Licenses”.
maintainers
A list of names and e-mail addresses of the maintainers of this Nix expression. If you would like to be a maintainer of a package, you may want to add yourself to nixpkgs/maintainers/maintainer-list.nix and write something like [ stdenv.lib.maintainers.alice stdenv.lib.maintainers.bob ].
priority
The priority of the package, used by nix-env to resolve file name conflicts between packages. See the Nix manual page for nix-env for details. Example: "10" (a low-priority package).
platforms
The list of Nix platform types on which the package is supported. Hydra builds packages according to the platform specified. If no platform is specified, the package does not have prebuilt binaries. An example is:
meta.platforms = stdenv.lib.platforms.linux;
Attribute Set stdenv.lib.platforms defines various common lists of platforms types.
tests
meta attribute set but rather under the passthru attribute set. This is due to how meta attributes work, and the fact that they are supposed to contain only metadata, not derivations.
An attribute set with as values tests. A test is a derivation, which builds successfully when the test passes, and fails to build otherwise. A derivation that is a test needs to have meta.timeout defined.
The NixOS tests are available as nixosTests in parameters of derivations. For instance, the OpenSMTPD derivation includes lines similar to:
{ /* ... */, nixosTests }:
{
# ...
passthru.tests = {
basic-functionality-and-dovecot-integration = nixosTests.opensmtpd;
};
}
timeout
A timeout (in seconds) for building the derivation. If the derivation takes longer than this time to build, it can fail due to breaking the timeout. However, all computers do not have the same computing power, hence some builders may decide to apply a multiplicative factor to this value. When filling this value in, try to keep it approximately consistent with other values already present in nixpkgs.
hydraPlatforms
The list of Nix platform types for which the Hydra instance at hydra.nixos.org will build the package. (Hydra is the Nix-based continuous build system.) It defaults to the value of meta.platforms. Thus, the only reason to set meta.hydraPlatforms is if you want hydra.nixos.org to build the package on a subset of meta.platforms, or not at all, e.g.
meta.platforms = stdenv.lib.platforms.linux; meta.hydraPlatforms = [];
broken
If set to true, the package is marked as “broken”, meaning that it won’t show up in nix-env -qa, and cannot be built or installed. Such packages should be removed from Nixpkgs eventually unless they are fixed.
updateWalker
If set to true, the package is tested to be updated correctly by the update-walker.sh script without additional settings. Such packages have meta.version set and their homepage (or the page specified by meta.downloadPage) contains a direct link to the package tarball.
The meta.license attribute should preferrably contain a value from stdenv.lib.licenses defined in nixpkgs/lib/licenses.nix, or in-place license description of the same format if the license is unlikely to be useful in another expression.
Although it's typically better to indicate the specific license, a few generic options are available:
stdenv.lib.licenses.free, "free"
Catch-all for free software licenses not listed above.
stdenv.lib.licenses.unfreeRedistributable, "unfree-redistributable"
Unfree package that can be redistributed in binary form. That is, it’s legal to redistribute the output of the derivation. This means that the package can be included in the Nixpkgs channel.
Sometimes proprietary software can only be redistributed unmodified. Make sure the builder doesn’t actually modify the original binaries; otherwise we’re breaking the license. For instance, the NVIDIA X11 drivers can be redistributed unmodified, but our builder applies patchelf to make them work. Thus, its license is "unfree" and it cannot be included in the Nixpkgs channel.
stdenv.lib.licenses.unfree, "unfree"
Unfree package that cannot be redistributed. You can build it yourself, but you cannot redistribute the output of the derivation. Thus it cannot be included in the Nixpkgs channel.
stdenv.lib.licenses.unfreeRedistributableFirmware, "unfree-redistributable-firmware"
This package supplies unfree, redistributable firmware. This is a separate value from unfree-redistributable because not everybody cares whether firmware is free.
Table of Contents
The Nix language allows a derivation to produce multiple outputs, which is similar to what is utilized by other Linux distribution packaging systems. The outputs reside in separate Nix store paths, so they can be mostly handled independently of each other, including passing to build inputs, garbage collection or binary substitution. The exception is that building from source always produces all the outputs.
The main motivation is to save disk space by reducing runtime closure sizes; consequently also sizes of substituted binaries get reduced. Splitting can be used to have more granular runtime dependencies, for example the typical reduction is to split away development-only files, as those are typically not needed during runtime. As a result, closure sizes of many packages can get reduced to a half or even much less.
When installing a package via systemPackages or nix-env you have several options:
You can install particular outputs explicitly, as each is available in the Nix language as an attribute of the package. The outputs attribute contains a list of output names.
You can let it use the default outputs. These are handled by meta.outputsToInstall attribute that contains a list of output names.
TODO: more about tweaking the attribute, etc.
NixOS provides configuration option environment.extraOutputsToInstall that allows adding extra outputs of environment.systemPackages atop the default ones. It's mainly meant for documentation and debug symbols, and it's also modified by specific options.
packageOverrides” to override meta.outputsToInstall attributes, but that's a rather inconvenient way.
In the Nix language the individual outputs can be reached explicitly as attributes, e.g. coreutils.info, but the typical case is just using packages as build inputs.
When a multiple-output derivation gets into a build input of another derivation, the dev output is added if it exists, otherwise the first output is added. In addition to that, propagatedBuildOutputs of that package which by default contain $outputBin and $outputLib are also added. (See Section 8.4.2, “File type groups”.)
In some cases it may be desirable to combine different outputs under a single store path. A function symlinkJoin can be used to do this. (Note that it may negate some closure size benefits of using a multiple-output package.)
Here you find how to write a derivation that produces multiple outputs.
In nixpkgs there is a framework supporting multiple-output derivations. It tries to cover most cases by default behavior. You can find the source separated in <nixpkgs/pkgs/build-support/setup-hooks/multiple-outputs.sh>; it's relatively well-readable. The whole machinery is triggered by defining the outputs attribute to contain the list of desired output names (strings).
outputs = [ "bin" "dev" "out" "doc" ];
Often such a single line is enough. For each output an equally named environment variable is passed to the builder and contains the path in nix store for that output. Typically you also want to have the main out output, as it catches any files that didn't get elsewhere.
debug output, described at
separateDebugInfo
.
A commonly adopted convention in nixpkgs is that executables provided by the package are contained within its first output. This convention allows the dependent packages to reference the executables provided by packages in a uniform manner. For instance, provided with the knowledge that the perl package contains a perl executable it can be referenced as ${pkgs.perl}/bin/perl within a Nix derivation that needs to execute a Perl script.
The glibc package is a deliberate single exception to the “binaries first” convention. The glibc has libs as its first output allowing the libraries provided by glibc to be referenced directly (e.g. ${stdenv.glibc}/lib/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2). The executables provided by glibc can be accessed via its bin attribute (e.g. ${stdenv.glibc.bin}/bin/ldd).
The reason for why glibc deviates from the convention is because referencing a library provided by glibc is a very common operation among Nix packages. For instance, third-party executables packaged by Nix are typically patched and relinked with the relevant version of glibc libraries from Nix packages (please see the documentation on patchelf for more details).
The support code currently recognizes some particular kinds of outputs and either instructs the build system of the package to put files into their desired outputs or it moves the files during the fixup phase. Each group of file types has an outputFoo variable specifying the output name where they should go. If that variable isn't defined by the derivation writer, it is guessed – a default output name is defined, falling back to other possibilities if the output isn't defined.
$outputDev
is for development-only files. These include C(++) headers, pkg-config, cmake and aclocal files. They go to dev or out by default.
$outputBin
is meant for user-facing binaries, typically residing in bin/. They go to bin or out by default.
$outputLib
is meant for libraries, typically residing in lib/ and libexec/. They go to lib or out by default.
$outputDoc
is for user documentation, typically residing in share/doc/. It goes to doc or out by default.
$outputDevdoc
is for developer documentation. Currently we count gtk-doc and devhelp books in there. It goes to devdoc or is removed (!) by default. This is because e.g. gtk-doc tends to be rather large and completely unused by nixpkgs users.
$outputMan
is for man pages (except for section 3). They go to man or $outputBin by default.
$outputDevman
is for section 3 man pages. They go to devman or $outputMan by default.
$outputInfo
is for info pages. They go to info or $outputBin by default.
Some configure scripts don't like some of the parameters passed by default by the framework, e.g. --docdir=/foo/bar. You can disable this by setting setOutputFlags = false;.
The outputs of a single derivation can retain references to each other, but note that circular references are not allowed. (And each strongly-connected component would act as a single output anyway.)
Most of split packages contain their core functionality in libraries. These libraries tend to refer to various kind of data that typically gets into out, e.g. locale strings, so there is often no advantage in separating the libraries into lib, as keeping them in out is easier.
Some packages have hidden assumptions on install paths, which complicates splitting.
Table of Contents
"Cross-compilation" means compiling a program on one machine for another type of machine. For example, a typical use of cross-compilation is to compile programs for embedded devices. These devices often don't have the computing power and memory to compile their own programs. One might think that cross-compilation is a fairly niche concern. However, there are significant advantages to rigorously distinguishing between build-time and run-time environments! Significant, because the benefits apply even when one is developing and deploying on the same machine. Nixpkgs is increasingly adopting the opinion that packages should be written with cross-compilation in mind, and nixpkgs should evaluate in a similar way (by minimizing cross-compilation-specific special cases) whether or not one is cross-compiling.
This chapter will be organized in three parts. First, it will describe the basics of how to package software in a way that supports cross-compilation. Second, it will describe how to use Nixpkgs when cross-compiling. Third, it will describe the internal infrastructure supporting cross-compilation.
Nixpkgs follows the conventions of GNU autoconf. We distinguish between 3 types of platforms when building a derivation: build, host, and target. In summary, build is the platform on which a package is being built, host is the platform on which it will run. The third attribute, target, is relevant only for certain specific compilers and build tools.
In Nixpkgs, these three platforms are defined as attribute sets under the names buildPlatform, hostPlatform, and targetPlatform. They are always defined as attributes in the standard environment. That means one can access them like:
{ stdenv, fooDep, barDep, .. }: ...stdenv.buildPlatform....
buildPlatform
The "build platform" is the platform on which a package is built. Once someone has a built package, or pre-built binary package, the build platform should not matter and can be ignored.
hostPlatform
The "host platform" is the platform on which a package will be run. This is the simplest platform to understand, but also the one with the worst name.
targetPlatform
The "target platform" attribute is, unlike the other two attributes, not actually fundamental to the process of building software. Instead, it is only relevant for compatibility with building certain specific compilers and build tools. It can be safely ignored for all other packages.
The build process of certain compilers is written in such a way that the compiler resulting from a single build can itself only produce binaries for a single platform. The task of specifying this single "target platform" is thus pushed to build time of the compiler. The root cause of this is that the compiler (which will be run on the host) and the standard library/runtime (which will be run on the target) are built by a single build process.
There is no fundamental need to think about a single target ahead of time like this. If the tool supports modular or pluggable backends, both the need to specify the target at build time and the constraint of having only a single target disappear. An example of such a tool is LLVM.
Although the existence of a "target platfom" is arguably a historical mistake, it is a common one: examples of tools that suffer from it are GCC, Binutils, GHC and Autoconf. Nixpkgs tries to avoid sharing in the mistake where possible. Still, because the concept of a target platform is so ingrained, it is best to support it as is.
The exact schema these fields follow is a bit ill-defined due to a long and convoluted evolution, but this is slowly being cleaned up. You can see examples of ones used in practice in lib.systems.examples; note how they are not all very consistent. For now, here are few fields can count on them containing:
system
This is a two-component shorthand for the platform. Examples of this would be "x86_64-darwin" and "i686-linux"; see lib.systems.doubles for more. The first component corresponds to the CPU architecture of the platform and the second to the operating system of the platform ([cpu]-[os]). This format has built-in support in Nix, such as the builtins.currentSystem impure string.
config
This is a 3- or 4- component shorthand for the platform. Examples of this would be x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu and aarch64-apple-darwin14. This is a standard format called the "LLVM target triple", as they are pioneered by LLVM. In the 4-part form, this corresponds to [cpu]-[vendor]-[os]-[abi]. This format is strictly more informative than the "Nix host double", as the previous format could analogously be termed. This needs a better name than config!
parsed
This is a Nix representation of a parsed LLVM target triple with white-listed components. This can be specified directly, or actually parsed from the config. See lib.systems.parse for the exact representation.
libc
This is a string identifying the standard C library used. Valid identifiers include "glibc" for GNU libc, "libSystem" for Darwin's Libsystem, and "uclibc" for µClibc. It should probably be refactored to use the module system, like parse.
is*
These predicates are defined in lib.systems.inspect, and slapped onto every platform. They are superior to the ones in stdenv as they force the user to be explicit about which platform they are inspecting. Please use these instead of those.
platform
This is, quite frankly, a dumping ground of ad-hoc settings (it's an attribute set). See lib.systems.platforms for examples—there's hopefully one in there that will work verbatim for each platform that is working. Please help us triage these flags and give them better homes!
mkDerivation, see Section 6.3, “Specifying dependencies”. For a description of how everything is implemented, see Section 9.4.1, “Implementation of dependencies”.
In this section we explore the relationship between both runtime and build-time dependencies and the 3 Autoconf platforms.
A run time dependency between two packages requires that their host platforms match. This is directly implied by the meaning of "host platform" and "runtime dependency": The package dependency exists while both packages are running on a single host platform.
A build time dependency, however, has a shift in platforms between the depending package and the depended-on package. "build time dependency" means that to build the depending package we need to be able to run the depended-on's package. The depending package's build platform is therefore equal to the depended-on package's host platform.
If both the dependency and depending packages aren't compilers or other machine-code-producing tools, we're done. And indeed buildInputs and nativeBuildInputs have covered these simpler build-time and run-time (respectively) changes for many years. But if the dependency does produce machine code, we might need to worry about its target platform too. In principle, that target platform might be any of the depending package's build, host, or target platforms, but we prohibit dependencies from a "later" platform to an earlier platform to limit confusion because we've never seen a legitimate use for them.
Finally, if the depending package is a compiler or other machine-code-producing tool, it might need dependencies that run at "emit time". This is for compilers that (regrettably) insist on being built together with their source langauges' standard libraries. Assuming build != host != target, a run-time dependency of the standard library cannot be run at the compiler's build time or run time, but only at the run time of code emitted by the compiler.
Putting this all together, that means we have dependencies in the form "host → target", in at most the following six combinations:
Table 9.1. Possible dependency types
| Dependency's host platform | Dependency's target platform |
|---|---|
| build | build |
| build | host |
| build | target |
| host | host |
| host | target |
| target | target |
Some examples will make this table clearer. Suppose there's some package that is being built with a (build, host, target) platform triple of (foo, bar, baz). If it has a build-time library dependency, that would be a "host → build" dependency with a triple of (foo, foo, *) (the target platform is irrelevant). If it needs a compiler to be built, that would be a "build → host" dependency with a triple of (foo, foo, *) (the target platform is irrelevant). That compiler, would be built with another compiler, also "build → host" dependency, with a triple of (foo, foo, foo).
Some frequently encountered problems when packaging for cross-compilation should be answered here. Ideally, the information above is exhaustive, so this section cannot provide any new information, but it is ludicrous and cruel to expect everyone to spend effort working through the interaction of many features just to figure out the same answer to the same common problem. Feel free to add to this list!
Nixpkgs can be instantiated with localSystem alone, in which case there is no cross-compiling and everything is built by and for that system, or also with crossSystem, in which case packages run on the latter, but all building happens on the former. Both parameters take the same schema as the 3 (build, host, and target) platforms defined in the previous section. As mentioned above, lib.systems.examples has some platforms which are used as arguments for these parameters in practice. You can use them programmatically, or on the command line:
nix-build '<nixpkgs>' --arg crossSystem '(import <nixpkgs/lib>).systems.examples.fooBarBaz' -A whatever
Eventually we would like to make these platform examples an unnecessary convenience so that
nix-build '<nixpkgs>' --arg crossSystem '{ config = "<arch>-<os>-<vendor>-<abi>"; }' -A whateverworks in the vast majority of cases. The problem today is dependencies on other sorts of configuration which aren't given proper defaults. We rely on the examples to crudely to set those configuration parameters in some vaguely sane manner on the users behalf. Issue #34274 tracks this inconvenience along with its root cause in crufty configuration options.
While one is free to pass both parameters in full, there's a lot of logic to fill in missing fields. As discussed in the previous section, only one of system, config, and parsed is needed to infer the other two. Additionally, libc will be inferred from parse. Finally, localSystem.system is also impurely inferred based on the platform evaluation occurs. This means it is often not necessary to pass localSystem at all, as in the command-line example in the previous paragraph.
system, platform, along with the optional crossSystem to nixpkgs: import <nixpkgs> { system = ..; platform = ..; crossSystem = ..; }. Passing those two instead of localSystem is still supported for compatibility, but is discouraged. Indeed, much of the inference we do for these parameters is motivated by compatibility as much as convenience.
One would think that localSystem and crossSystem overlap horribly with the three *Platforms (buildPlatform, hostPlatform, and targetPlatform; see stage.nix or the manual). Actually, those identifiers are purposefully not used here to draw a subtle but important distinction: While the granularity of having 3 platforms is necessary to properly *build* packages, it is overkill for specifying the user's *intent* when making a build plan or package set. A simple "build vs deploy" dichotomy is adequate: the sliding window principle described in the previous section shows how to interpolate between the these two "end points" to get the 3 platform triple for each bootstrapping stage. That means for any package a given package set, even those not bound on the top level but only reachable via dependencies or buildPackages, the three platforms will be defined as one of localSystem or crossSystem, with the former replacing the latter as one traverses build-time dependencies. A last simple difference is that crossSystem should be null when one doesn't want to cross-compile, while the *Platforms are always non-null. localSystem is always non-null.
The categorizes of dependencies developed in Section 9.2.2, “Theory of dependency categorization” are specified as lists of derivations given to mkDerivation, as documented in Section 6.3, “Specifying dependencies”. In short, each list of dependencies for "host → target" of "foo → bar" is called depsFooBar, with exceptions for backwards compatibility that depsBuildHost is instead called nativeBuildInputs and depsHostTarget is instead called buildInputs. Nixpkgs is now structured so that each depsFooBar is automatically taken from pkgsFooBar. (These pkgsFooBars are quite new, so there is no special case for nativeBuildInputs and buildInputs.) For example, pkgsBuildHost.gcc should be used at build-time, while pkgsHostTarget.gcc should be used at run-time.
Now, for most of Nixpkgs's history, there were no pkgsFooBar attributes, and most packages have not been refactored to use it explicitly. Prior to those, there were just buildPackages, pkgs, and targetPackages. Those are now redefined as aliases to pkgsBuildHost, pkgsHostTarget, and pkgsTargetTarget. It is acceptable, even recommended, to use them for libraries to show that the host platform is irrelevant.
But before that, there was just pkgs, even though both buildInputs and nativeBuildInputs existed. [Cross barely worked, and those were implemented with some hacks on mkDerivation to override dependencies.] What this means is the vast majority of packages do not use any explicit package set to populate their dependencies, just using whatever callPackage gives them even if they do correctly sort their dependencies into the multiple lists described above. And indeed, asking that users both sort their dependencies, and take them from the right attribute set, is both too onerous and redundant, so the recommended approach (for now) is to continue just categorizing by list and not using an explicit package set.
To make this work, we "splice" together the six pkgsFooBar package sets and have callPackage actually take its arguments from that. This is currently implemented in pkgs/top-level/splice.nix. mkDerivation then, for each dependency attribute, pulls the right derivation out from the splice. This splicing can be skipped when not cross-compiling as the package sets are the same, but still is a bit slow for cross-compiling. We'd like to do something better, but haven't come up with anything yet.
Each of the package sets described above come from a single bootstrapping stage. While pkgs/top-level/default.nix, coordinates the composition of stages at a high level, pkgs/top-level/stage.nix "ties the knot" (creates the fixed point) of each stage. The package sets are defined per-stage however, so they can be thought of as edges between stages (the nodes) in a graph. Compositions like pkgsBuildTarget.targetPackages can be thought of as paths to this graph.
While there are many package sets, and thus many edges, the stages can also be arranged in a linear chain. In other words, many of the edges are redundant as far as connectivity is concerned. This hinges on the type of bootstrapping we do. Currently for cross it is:
(native, native, native)
(native, native, foreign)
(native, foreign, foreign)
In each stage, pkgsBuildHost refers to the previous stage, pkgsBuildBuild refers to the one before that, and pkgsHostTarget refers to the current one, and pkgsTargetTarget refers to the next one. When there is no previous or next stage, they instead refer to the current stage. Note how all the invariants regarding the mapping between dependency and depending packages' build host and target platforms are preserved. pkgsBuildTarget and pkgsHostHost are more complex in that the stage fitting the requirements isn't always a fixed chain of "prevs" and "nexts" away (modulo the "saturating" self-references at the ends). We just special case each instead. All the primary edges are implemented is in pkgs/stdenv/booter.nix, and secondarily aliases in pkgs/top-level/stage.nix.
If one looks at the 3 platform triples, one can see that they overlap such that one could put them together into a chain like:
(native, native, native, foreign, foreign)
If one imagines the saturating self references at the end being replaced with infinite stages, and then overlays those platform triples, one ends up with the infinite tuple:
(native..., native, native, native, foreign, foreign, foreign...)
On can then imagine any sequence of platforms such that there are bootstrap stages with their 3 platforms determined by "sliding a window" that is the 3 tuple through the sequence. This was the original model for bootstrapping. Without a target platform (assume a better world where all compilers are multi-target and all standard libraries are built in their own derivation), this is sufficient. Conversely if one wishes to cross compile "faster", with a "Canadian Cross" bootstraping stage where build != host != target, more bootstrapping stages are needed since no sliding window providess the pesky pkgsBuildTarget package set since it skips the Canadian cross stage's "host".
It is much better to refer to buildPackages than targetPackages, or more broadly package sets that do not mention "target". There are three reasons for this.
First, it is because bootstrapping stages do not have a unique targetPackages. For example a (x86-linux, x86-linux, arm-linux) and (x86-linux, x86-linux, x86-windows) package set both have a (x86-linux, x86-linux, x86-linux) package set. Because there is no canonical targetPackages for such a native (build == host == target) package set, we set their targetPackages
Second, it is because this is a frequent source of hard-to-follow "infinite recursions" / cycles. When only package sets that don't mention target are used, the package set forms a directed acyclic graph. This means that all cycles that exist are confined to one stage. This means they are a lot smaller, and easier to follow in the code or a backtrace. It also means they are present in native and cross builds alike, and so more likely to be caught by CI and other users.
Thirdly, it is because everything target-mentioning only exists to accommodate compilers with lousy build systems that insist on the compiler itself and standard library being built together. Of course that is bad because bigger derivations means longer rebuilds. It is also problematic because it tends to make the standard libraries less like other libraries than they could be, complicating code and build systems alike. Because of the other problems, and because of these innate disadvantages, compilers ought to be packaged another way where possible.
gccCross. Such *Cross derivations is a holdover from before we properly distinguished between the host and target platforms—the derivation with "Cross" in the name covered the build = host != target case, while the other covered the host = target, with build platform the same or not based on whether one was using its .nativeDrv or .crossDrv. This ugliness will disappear soon.
Table of Contents
Some common issues when packaging software for Darwin:
The Darwin stdenv uses clang instead of gcc. When referring to the compiler $CC or cc will work in both cases. Some builds hardcode gcc/g++ in their build scripts, that can usually be fixed with using something like makeFlags = [ "CC=cc" ]; or by patching the build scripts.
stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "libfoo-1.2.3";
# ...
buildPhase = ''
$CC -o hello hello.c
'';
}
On Darwin, libraries are linked using absolute paths, libraries are resolved by their install_name at link time. Sometimes packages won't set this correctly causing the library lookups to fail at runtime. This can be fixed by adding extra linker flags or by running install_name_tool -id during the fixupPhase.
stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "libfoo-1.2.3";
# ...
makeFlags = stdenv.lib.optional stdenv.isDarwin "LDFLAGS=-Wl,-install_name,$(out)/lib/libfoo.dylib";
}
Even if the libraries are linked using absolute paths and resolved via their install_name correctly, tests can sometimes fail to run binaries. This happens because the checkPhase runs before the libraries are installed.
This can usually be solved by running the tests after the installPhase or alternatively by using DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH. More information about this variable can be found in the dyld(1) manpage.
dyld: Library not loaded: /nix/store/7hnmbscpayxzxrixrgxvvlifzlxdsdir-jq-1.5-lib/lib/libjq.1.dylib Referenced from: /private/tmp/nix-build-jq-1.5.drv-0/jq-1.5/tests/../jq Reason: image not found ./tests/jqtest: line 5: 75779 Abort trap: 6
stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "libfoo-1.2.3";
# ...
doInstallCheck = true;
installCheckTarget = "check";
}
Some packages assume xcode is available and use xcrun to resolve build tools like clang, etc. This causes errors like xcode-select: error: no developer tools were found at '/Applications/Xcode.app' while the build doesn't actually depend on xcode.
stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "libfoo-1.2.3";
# ...
prePatch = ''
substituteInPlace Makefile \
--replace '/usr/bin/xcrun clang' clang
'';
}
The package xcbuild can be used to build projects that really depend on Xcode. However, this replacement is not 100% compatible with Xcode and can occasionally cause issues.
Table of Contents
When using Nix, you will frequently need to download source code and other files from the internet. Nixpkgs comes with a few helper functions that allow you to fetch fixed-output derivations in a structured way.
The two fetcher primitives are fetchurl and fetchzip. Both of these have two required arguments, a URL and a hash. The hash is typically sha256, although many more hash algorithms are supported. Nixpkgs contributors are currently recommended to use sha256. This hash will be used by Nix to identify your source. A typical usage of fetchurl is provided below.
{ stdenv, fetchurl }:
stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "hello";
src = fetchurl {
url = "http://www.example.org/hello.tar.gz";
sha256 = "1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111";
};
}
The main difference between fetchurl and fetchzip is in how they store the contents. fetchurl will store the unaltered contents of the URL within the Nix store. fetchzip on the other hand will decompress the archive for you, making files and directories directly accessible in the future. fetchzip can only be used with archives. Despite the name, fetchzip is not limited to .zip files and can also be used with any tarball.
fetchpatch works very similarly to fetchurl with the same arguments expected. It expects patch files as a source and and performs normalization on them before computing the checksum. For example it will remove comments or other unstable parts that are sometimes added by version control systems and can change over time.
Other fetcher functions allow you to add source code directly from a VCS such as subversion or git. These are mostly straightforward names based on the name of the command used with the VCS system. Because they give you a working repository, they act most like fetchzip.
fetchsvn
Used with Subversion. Expects url to a Subversion directory, rev, and sha256.
fetchgit
Used with Git. Expects url to a Git repo, rev, and sha256. rev in this case can be full the git commit id (SHA1 hash) or a tag name like refs/tags/v1.0.
fetchfossil
Used with Fossil. Expects url to a Fossil archive, rev, and sha256.
fetchcvs
Used with CVS. Expects cvsRoot, tag, and sha256.
fetchhg
Used with Mercurial. Expects url, rev, and sha256.
A number of fetcher functions wrap part of fetchurl and fetchzip. They are mainly convenience functions intended for commonly used destinations of source code in Nixpkgs. These wrapper fetchers are listed below.
fetchFromGitHub
fetchFromGitHub expects four arguments. owner is a string corresponding to the GitHub user or organization that controls this repository. repo corresponds to the name of the software repository. These are located at the top of every GitHub HTML page as owner/repo. rev corresponds to the Git commit hash or tag (e.g v1.0) that will be downloaded from Git. Finally, sha256 corresponds to the hash of the extracted directory. Again, other hash algorithms are also available but sha256 is currently preferred.
fetchFromGitLab
This is used with GitLab repositories. The arguments expected are very similar to fetchFromGitHub above.
fetchFromGitiles
This is used with Gitiles repositories. The arguments expected are similar to fetchgit.
fetchFromBitbucket
This is used with BitBucket repositories. The arguments expected are very similar to fetchFromGitHub above.
fetchFromSavannah
This is used with Savannah repositories. The arguments expected are very similar to fetchFromGitHub above.
fetchFromRepoOrCz
This is used with repo.or.cz repositories. The arguments expected are very similar to fetchFromGitHub above.
Nixpkgs provides a couple of functions that help with building derivations. The most important one, stdenv.mkDerivation, has already been documented above. The following functions wrap stdenv.mkDerivation, making it easier to use in certain cases.
runCommand
This takes three arguments, name, env, and buildCommand. name is just the name that Nix will append to the store path in the same way that stdenv.mkDerivation uses its name attribute. env is an attribute set specifying environment variables that will be set for this derivation. These attributes are then passed to the wrapped stdenv.mkDerivation. buildCommand specifies the commands that will be run to create this derivation. Note that you will need to create $out for Nix to register the command as successful.
An example of using runCommand is provided below.
(import <nixpkgs> {}).runCommand "my-example" {} ''
echo My example command is running
mkdir $out
echo I can write data to the Nix store > $out/message
echo I can also run basic commands like:
echo ls
ls
echo whoami
whoami
echo date
date
''
runCommandCC
This works just like runCommand. The only difference is that it also provides a C compiler in buildCommand’s environment. To minimize your dependencies, you should only use this if you are sure you will need a C compiler as part of running your command.
runCommandLocal
Variant of runCommand that forces the derivation to be built locally, it is not substituted. This is intended for very cheap commands (<1s execution time). It saves on the network roundrip and can speed up a build.
allowSubstitutes to false, so only use runCommandLocal if you are certain the user will always have a builder for the system of the derivation. This should be true for most trivial use cases (e.g. just copying some files to a different location or adding symlinks), because there the system is usually the same as builtins.currentSystem.
writeTextFile, writeText, writeTextDir, writeScript, writeScriptBin
These functions write text to the Nix store. This is useful for creating scripts from Nix expressions. writeTextFile takes an attribute set and expects two arguments, name and text. name corresponds to the name used in the Nix store path. text will be the contents of the file. You can also set executable to true to make this file have the executable bit set.
Many more commands wrap writeTextFile including writeText, writeTextDir, writeScript, and writeScriptBin. These are convenience functions over writeTextFile.
symlinkJoin
This can be used to put many derivations into the same directory structure. It works by creating a new derivation and adding symlinks to each of the paths listed. It expects two arguments, name, and paths. name is the name used in the Nix store path for the created derivation. paths is a list of paths that will be symlinked. These paths can be to Nix store derivations or any other subdirectory contained within.
Table of Contents
This chapter describes several special builders.
buildFHSUserEnv provides a way to build and run FHS-compatible lightweight sandboxes. It creates an isolated root with bound /nix/store, so its footprint in terms of disk space needed is quite small. This allows one to run software which is hard or unfeasible to patch for NixOS -- 3rd-party source trees with FHS assumptions, games distributed as tarballs, software with integrity checking and/or external self-updated binaries. It uses Linux namespaces feature to create temporary lightweight environments which are destroyed after all child processes exit, without root user rights requirement. Accepted arguments are:
name
Environment name.
targetPkgs
Packages to be installed for the main host's architecture (i.e. x86_64 on x86_64 installations). Along with libraries binaries are also installed.
multiPkgs
Packages to be installed for all architectures supported by a host (i.e. i686 and x86_64 on x86_64 installations). Only libraries are installed by default.
extraBuildCommands
Additional commands to be executed for finalizing the directory structure.
extraBuildCommandsMulti
Like extraBuildCommands, but executed only on multilib architectures.
extraOutputsToInstall
Additional derivation outputs to be linked for both target and multi-architecture packages.
extraInstallCommands
Additional commands to be executed for finalizing the derivation with runner script.
runScript
A command that would be executed inside the sandbox and passed all the command line arguments. It defaults to bash.
One can create a simple environment using a shell.nix like that:
{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:
(pkgs.buildFHSUserEnv {
name = "simple-x11-env";
targetPkgs = pkgs: (with pkgs;
[ udev
alsaLib
]) ++ (with pkgs.xorg;
[ libX11
libXcursor
libXrandr
]);
multiPkgs = pkgs: (with pkgs;
[ udev
alsaLib
]);
runScript = "bash";
}).env
Running nix-shell would then drop you into a shell with these libraries and binaries available. You can use this to run closed-source applications which expect FHS structure without hassles: simply change runScript to the application path, e.g. ./bin/start.sh -- relative paths are supported.
pkgs.mkShell is a special kind of derivation that is only useful when using it combined with nix-shell. It will in fact fail to instantiate when invoked with nix-build.
{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:
pkgs.mkShell {
# this will make all the build inputs from hello and gnutar
# available to the shell environment
inputsFrom = with pkgs; [ hello gnutar ];
buildInputs = [ pkgs.gnumake ];
}
Table of Contents
This chapter describes tools for creating various types of images.
pkgs.appimageTools is a set of functions for extracting and wrapping AppImage files. They are meant to be used if traditional packaging from source is infeasible, or it would take too long. To quickly run an AppImage file, pkgs.appimage-run can be used as well.
appimageTools API is unstable and may be subject to backwards-incompatible changes in the future.
There are different formats for AppImages, see the specification for details.
Type 1 images are ISO 9660 files that are also ELF executables.
Type 2 images are ELF executables with an appended filesystem.
They can be told apart with file -k:
$file -k type1.AppImage type1.AppImage: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV) ISO 9660 CD-ROM filesystem data 'AppImage' (Lepton 3.x), scale 0-0, spot sensor temperature 0.000000, unit celsius, color scheme 0, calibration: offset 0.000000, slope 0.000000, dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, for GNU/Linux 2.6.18, BuildID[sha1]=d629f6099d2344ad82818172add1d38c5e11bc6d, stripped\012- data$file -k type2.AppImage type2.AppImage: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV) (Lepton 3.x), scale 232-60668, spot sensor temperature -4.187500, color scheme 15, show scale bar, calibration: offset -0.000000, slope 0.000000 (Lepton 2.x), scale 4111-45000, spot sensor temperature 412442.250000, color scheme 3, minimum point enabled, calibration: offset -75402534979642766821519867692934234112.000000, slope 5815371847733706829839455140374904832.000000, dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, for GNU/Linux 2.6.18, BuildID[sha1]=79dcc4e55a61c293c5e19edbd8d65b202842579f, stripped\012- data
Note how the type 1 AppImage is described as an ISO 9660 CD-ROM filesystem, and the type 2 AppImage is not.
Depending on the type of AppImage you're wrapping, you'll have to use wrapType1 or wrapType2.
appimageTools.wrapType2 { # or wrapType1
name = "patchwork"; 
src = fetchurl { 
url = https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork/releases/download/v3.11.4/Patchwork-3.11.4-linux-x86_64.AppImage;
sha256 = "1blsprpkvm0ws9b96gb36f0rbf8f5jgmw4x6dsb1kswr4ysf591s";
};
extraPkgs = pkgs: with pkgs; [ ]; 
}
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pkgs.dockerTools is a set of functions for creating and manipulating Docker images according to the Docker Image Specification v1.2.0 . Docker itself is not used to perform any of the operations done by these functions.
This function is analogous to the docker build command, in that it can be used to build a Docker-compatible repository tarball containing a single image with one or multiple layers. As such, the result is suitable for being loaded in Docker with docker load.
The parameters of buildImage with relative example values are described below:
The above example will build a Docker image redis/latest from the given base image. Loading and running this image in Docker results in redis-server being started automatically.
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Note:
Using this parameter requires the kvm device to be available.
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After the new layer has been created, its closure (to which contents, config and runAsRoot contribute) will be copied in the layer itself. Only new dependencies that are not already in the existing layers will be copied.
At the end of the process, only one new single layer will be produced and added to the resulting image.
The resulting repository will only list the single image image/tag. In the case of Example 14.1, “Docker build” it would be redis/latest.
It is possible to inspect the arguments with which an image was built using its buildArgs attribute.
getProtocolByName: does not exist (no such protocol name: tcp) you may need to add pkgs.iana-etc to contents.
Error_Protocol ("certificate has unknown CA",True,UnknownCa) you may need to add pkgs.cacert to contents.
Example 14.2. Impurely Defining a Docker Layer's Creation Date
By default buildImage will use a static date of one second past the UNIX Epoch. This allows buildImage to produce binary reproducible images. When listing images with docker images, the newly created images will be listed like this:
$ docker images REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE hello latest 08c791c7846e 48 years ago 25.2MB
You can break binary reproducibility but have a sorted, meaningful CREATED column by setting created to now.
pkgs.dockerTools.buildImage {
name = "hello";
tag = "latest";
created = "now";
contents = pkgs.hello;
config.Cmd = [ "/bin/hello" ];
}
and now the Docker CLI will display a reasonable date and sort the images as expected:
$ docker images REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE hello latest de2bf4786de6 About a minute ago 25.2MB
however, the produced images will not be binary reproducible.
Create a Docker image with many of the store paths being on their own layer to improve sharing between images.
name
The name of the resulting image.
tag optional
Tag of the generated image.
Default: the output path's hash
contents optional
Top level paths in the container. Either a single derivation, or a list of derivations.
Default: []
config optional
Run-time configuration of the container. A full list of the options are available at in the Docker Image Specification v1.2.0 .
Default: {}
created optional
Date and time the layers were created. Follows the same now exception supported by buildImage.
Default: 1970-01-01T00:00:01Z
maxLayers optional
Maximum number of layers to create.
Default: 100
Maximum: 125
extraCommands optional
Shell commands to run while building the final layer, without access to most of the layer contents. Changes to this layer are "on top" of all the other layers, so can create additional directories and files.
Each path directly listed in contents will have a symlink in the root of the image.
For example:
pkgs.dockerTools.buildLayeredImage {
name = "hello";
contents = [ pkgs.hello ];
}
will create symlinks for all the paths in the hello package:
/bin/hello -> /nix/store/h1zb1padqbbb7jicsvkmrym3r6snphxg-hello-2.10/bin/hello /share/info/hello.info -> /nix/store/h1zb1padqbbb7jicsvkmrym3r6snphxg-hello-2.10/share/info/hello.info /share/locale/bg/LC_MESSAGES/hello.mo -> /nix/store/h1zb1padqbbb7jicsvkmrym3r6snphxg-hello-2.10/share/locale/bg/LC_MESSAGES/hello.mo
The closure of config is automatically included in the closure of the final image.
This allows you to make very simple Docker images with very little code. This container will start up and run hello:
pkgs.dockerTools.buildLayeredImage {
name = "hello";
config.Cmd = [ "${pkgs.hello}/bin/hello" ];
}
Increasing the maxLayers increases the number of layers which have a chance to be shared between different images.
Modern Docker installations support up to 128 layers, however older versions support as few as 42.
If the produced image will not be extended by other Docker builds, it is safe to set maxLayers to 128. However it will be impossible to extend the image further.
The first (maxLayers-2) most "popular" paths will have their own individual layers, then layer #maxLayers-1 will contain all the remaining "unpopular" paths, and finally layer #maxLayers will contain the Image configuration.
Docker's Layers are not inherently ordered, they are content-addressable and are not explicitly layered until they are composed in to an Image.
This function is analogous to the docker pull command, in that it can be used to pull a Docker image from a Docker registry. By default Docker Hub is used to pull images.
Its parameters are described in the example below:
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nix-prefetch-docker command can be used to get required image parameters:
$ nix run nixpkgs.nix-prefetch-docker -c nix-prefetch-docker --image-name mysql --image-tag 5
Since a given imageName may transparently refer to a manifest list of images which support multiple architectures and/or operating systems, you can supply the --os and --arch arguments to specify exactly which image you want. By default it will match the OS and architecture of the host the command is run on.
$ nix-prefetch-docker --image-name mysql --image-tag 5 --arch x86_64 --os linux
Desired image name and tag can be set using --final-image-name and --final-image-tag arguments:
$ nix-prefetch-docker --image-name mysql --image-tag 5 --final-image-name eu.gcr.io/my-project/mysql --final-image-tag prod
This function is analogous to the docker export command, in that it can be used to flatten a Docker image that contains multiple layers. It is in fact the result of the merge of all the layers of the image. As such, the result is suitable for being imported in Docker with docker import.
kvm device to be available.
The parameters of exportImage are the following:
Example 14.4. Docker export
exportImage {
fromImage = someLayeredImage;
fromImageName = null;
fromImageTag = null;
name = someLayeredImage.name;
}
The parameters relative to the base image have the same synopsis as described in Section 14.2.1, “buildImage”, except that fromImage is the only required argument in this case.
The name argument is the name of the derivation output, which defaults to fromImage.name.
This constant string is a helper for setting up the base files for managing users and groups, only if such files don't exist already. It is suitable for being used in a runAsRoot 
script for cases like in the example below:
Example 14.5. Shadow base files
buildImage {
name = "shadow-basic";
runAsRoot = ''
#!${pkgs.runtimeShell}
${shadowSetup}
groupadd -r redis
useradd -r -g redis redis
mkdir /data
chown redis:redis /data
'';
}
Creating base files like /etc/passwd or /etc/login.defs is necessary for shadow-utils to manipulate users and groups.
pkgs.ociTools is a set of functions for creating containers according to the OCI container specification v1.0.0. Beyond that it makes no assumptions about the container runner you choose to use to run the created container.
This function creates a simple OCI container that runs a single command inside of it. An OCI container consists of a config.json and a rootfs directory.The nix store of the container will contain all referenced dependencies of the given command.
The parameters of buildContainer with an example value are described below:
Example 14.6. Build Container
buildContainer {
args = [ (with pkgs; writeScript "run.sh" ''
#!${bash}/bin/bash
${coreutils}/bin/exec ${bash}/bin/bash
'').outPath ];
mounts = {
"/data" = {
type = "none";
source = "/var/lib/mydata";
options = [ "bind" ];
};
};
readonly = false;
}
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pkgs.snapTools is a set of functions for creating Snapcraft images. Snap and Snapcraft is not used to perform these operations.
makeSnap takes a single named argument, meta. This argument mirrors the upstream snap.yaml format exactly.
The base should not be be specified, as makeSnap will force set it.
Currently, makeSnap does not support creating GUI stubs.
Example 14.7. Making a Hello World Snap
The following expression packages GNU Hello as a Snapcraft snap.
let
inherit (import <nixpkgs> { }) snapTools hello;
in snapTools.makeSnap {
meta = {
name = "hello";
summary = hello.meta.description;
description = hello.meta.longDescription;
architectures = [ "amd64" ];
confinement = "strict";
apps.hello.command = "${hello}/bin/hello";
};
}
nix-build this expression and install it with snap install ./result --dangerous. hello will now be the Snapcraft version of the package.
Example 14.8. Making a Graphical Snap
Graphical programs require many more integrations with the host. This example uses Firefox as an example, because it is one of the most complicated programs we could package.
let
inherit (import <nixpkgs> { }) snapTools firefox;
in snapTools.makeSnap {
meta = {
name = "nix-example-firefox";
summary = firefox.meta.description;
architectures = [ "amd64" ];
apps.nix-example-firefox = {
command = "${firefox}/bin/firefox";
plugs = [
"pulseaudio"
"camera"
"browser-support"
"avahi-observe"
"cups-control"
"desktop"
"desktop-legacy"
"gsettings"
"home"
"network"
"mount-observe"
"removable-media"
"x11"
];
};
confinement = "strict";
};
}
nix-build this expression and install it with snap install ./result --dangerous. nix-example-firefox will now be the Snapcraft version of the Firefox package.
The specific meaning behind plugs can be looked up in the Snapcraft interface documentation.
Table of Contents
The standard build environment makes it easy to build typical Autotools-based packages with very little code. Any other kind of package can be accomodated by overriding the appropriate phases of stdenv. However, there are specialised functions in Nixpkgs to easily build packages for other programming languages, such as Perl or Haskell. These are described in this chapter.
The Android build environment provides three major features and a number of supporting features.
The first use case is deploying the SDK with a desired set of plugins or subsets of an SDK.
with import <nixpkgs> {};
let
androidComposition = androidenv.composeAndroidPackages {
toolsVersion = "25.2.5";
platformToolsVersion = "27.0.1";
buildToolsVersions = [ "27.0.3" ];
includeEmulator = false;
emulatorVersion = "27.2.0";
platformVersions = [ "24" ];
includeSources = false;
includeDocs = false;
includeSystemImages = false;
systemImageTypes = [ "default" ];
abiVersions = [ "armeabi-v7a" ];
lldbVersions = [ "2.0.2558144" ];
cmakeVersions = [ "3.6.4111459" ];
includeNDK = false;
ndkVersion = "16.1.4479499";
useGoogleAPIs = false;
useGoogleTVAddOns = false;
includeExtras = [
"extras;google;gcm"
];
};
in
androidComposition.androidsdk
The above function invocation states that we want an Android SDK with the above specified plugin versions. By default, most plugins are disabled. Notable exceptions are the tools, platform-tools and build-tools sub packages.
The following parameters are supported:
toolsVersion, specifies the version of the tools package to use
platformsToolsVersion specifies the version of the platform-tools plugin
buildToolsVersion specifies the versions of the build-tools plugins to use.
includeEmulator specifies whether to deploy the emulator package (false by default). When enabled, the version of the emulator to deploy can be specified by setting the emulatorVersion parameter.
includeDocs specifies whether the documentation catalog should be included.
lldbVersions specifies what LLDB versions should be deployed.
cmakeVersions specifies which CMake versions should be deployed.
includeNDK specifies that the Android NDK bundle should be included. Defaults to: false.
ndkVersion specifies the NDK version that we want to use.
includeExtras is an array of identifier strings referring to arbitrary add-on packages that should be installed.
platformVersions specifies which platform SDK versions should be included.
For each platform version that has been specified, we can apply the following options:
includeSystemImages specifies whether a system image for each platform SDK should be included.
includeSources specifies whether the sources for each SDK version should be included.
useGoogleAPIs specifies that for each selected platform version the Google API should be included.
useGoogleTVAddOns specifies that for each selected platform version the Google TV add-on should be included.
For each requested system image we can specify the following options:
systemImageTypes specifies what kind of system images should be included. Defaults to: default.
abiVersions specifies what kind of ABI version of each system image should be included. Defaults to: armeabi-v7a.
Most of the function arguments have reasonable default settings.
When building the above expression with:
$ nix-build
The Android SDK gets deployed with all desired plugin versions.
We can also deploy subsets of the Android SDK. For example, to only the platform-tools package, you can evaluate the following expression:
with import <nixpkgs> {};
let
androidComposition = androidenv.composeAndroidPackages {
# ...
};
in
androidComposition.platform-tools
In addition to composing an Android package set manually, it is also possible to use a predefined composition that contains all basic packages for a specific Android version, such as version 9.0 (API-level 28).
The following Nix expression can be used to deploy the entire SDK with all basic plugins:
with import <nixpkgs> {};
androidenv.androidPkgs_9_0.androidsdk
It is also possible to use one plugin only:
with import <nixpkgs> {};
androidenv.androidPkgs_9_0.platform-tools
In addition to the SDK, it is also possible to build an Ant-based Android project and automatically deploy all the Android plugins that a project requires.
with import <nixpkgs> {};
androidenv.buildApp {
name = "MyAndroidApp";
src = ./myappsources;
release = true;
# If release is set to true, you need to specify the following parameters
keyStore = ./keystore;
keyAlias = "myfirstapp";
keyStorePassword = "mykeystore";
keyAliasPassword = "myfirstapp";
# Any Android SDK parameters that install all the relevant plugins that a
# build requires
platformVersions = [ "24" ];
# When we include the NDK, then ndk-build is invoked before Ant gets invoked
includeNDK = true;
}
Aside from the app-specific build parameters (name, src, release and keystore parameters), the buildApp {} function supports all the function parameters that the SDK composition function (the function shown in the previous section) supports.
This build function is particularly useful when it is desired to use Hydra: the Nix-based continuous integration solution to build Android apps. An Android APK gets exposed as a build product and can be installed on any Android device with a web browser by navigating to the build result page.
For testing purposes, it can also be quite convenient to automatically generate scripts that spawn emulator instances with all desired configuration settings.
An emulator spawn script can be configured by invoking the emulateApp {} function:
with import <nixpkgs> {};
androidenv.emulateApp {
name = "emulate-MyAndroidApp";
platformVersion = "28";
abiVersion = "x86_64"; # armeabi-v7a, mips, x86
systemImageType = "google_apis_playstore";
}
It is also possible to specify an APK to deploy inside the emulator and the package and activity names to launch it:
with import <nixpkgs> {};
androidenv.emulateApp {
name = "emulate-MyAndroidApp";
platformVersion = "24";
abiVersion = "armeabi-v7a"; # mips, x86, x86_64
systemImageType = "default";
useGoogleAPIs = false;
app = ./MyApp.apk;
package = "MyApp";
activity = "MainActivity";
}
In addition to prebuilt APKs, you can also bind the APK parameter to a buildApp {} function invocation shown in the previous example.
When using any of the previously shown functions, it may be a bit inconvenient to find out what options are supported, since the Android SDK provides many plugins.
A shell script in the pkgs/development/mobile/androidenv/ sub directory can be used to retrieve all possible options:
sh ./querypackages.sh packages build-tools
The above command-line instruction queries all build-tools versions in the generated packages.nix expression.
Most of the Nix expressions are generated from XML files that the Android package manager uses. To update the expressions run the generate.sh script that is stored in the pkgs/development/mobile/androidenv/ sub directory:
sh ./generate.sh
In this document and related Nix expressions, we use the term, BEAM, to describe the environment. BEAM is the name of the Erlang Virtual Machine and, as far as we're concerned, from a packaging perspective, all languages that run on the BEAM are interchangeable. That which varies, like the build system, is transparent to users of any given BEAM package, so we make no distinction.
All BEAM-related expressions are available via the top-level beam attribute, which includes:
interpreters: a set of compilers running on the BEAM, including multiple Erlang/OTP versions (beam.interpreters.erlangR19, etc), Elixir (beam.interpreters.elixir) and LFE (beam.interpreters.lfe).
packages: a set of package builders (Mix and rebar3), each compiled with a specific Erlang/OTP version, e.g. beam.packages.erlangR19.
The default Erlang compiler, defined by beam.interpreters.erlang, is aliased as erlang. The default BEAM package set is defined by beam.packages.erlang and aliased at the top level as beamPackages.
To create a package builder built with a custom Erlang version, use the lambda, beam.packagesWith, which accepts an Erlang/OTP derivation and produces a package builder similar to beam.packages.erlang.
Many Erlang/OTP distributions available in beam.interpreters have versions with ODBC and/or Java enabled or without wx (no observer support). For example, there's beam.interpreters.erlangR22_odbc_javac, which corresponds to beam.interpreters.erlangR22 and beam.interpreters.erlangR22_nox, which corresponds to beam.interpreters.erlangR22.
We provide a version of Rebar3, under rebar3. We also provide a helper to fetch Rebar3 dependencies from a lockfile under fetchRebar3Deps.
Both Mix and Erlang.mk work exactly as expected. There is a bootstrap process that needs to be run for both, however, which is supported by the buildMix and buildErlangMk derivations, respectively.
BEAM builders are not registered at the top level, simply because they are not relevant to the vast majority of Nix users. To install any of those builders into your profile, refer to them by their attribute path beamPackages.rebar3:
$ nix-env -f "<nixpkgs>" -iA beamPackages.rebar3
The Nix function, buildRebar3, defined in beam.packages.erlang.buildRebar3 and aliased at the top level, can be used to build a derivation that understands how to build a Rebar3 project.
If a package needs to compile native code via Rebar3's port compilation mechanism, add compilePort = true; to the derivation.
Erlang.mk functions similarly to Rebar3, except we use buildErlangMk instead of buildRebar3.
Mix functions similarly to Rebar3, except we use buildMix instead of buildRebar3.
Alternatively, we can use buildHex as a shortcut:
Usually, we need to create a shell.nix file and do our development inside of the environment specified therein. Just install your version of erlang and other interpreter, and then user your normal build tools. As an example with elixir:
{ pkgs ? import "<nixpkgs"> {} }:
with pkgs;
let
elixir = beam.packages.erlangR22.elixir_1_9;
in
mkShell {
buildInputs = [ elixir ];
ERL_INCLUDE_PATH="${erlang}/lib/erlang/usr/include";
}
Using a shell.nix as described (see Section 15.2.6.1, “Creating a Shell”) should just work.
Bower is a package manager for web site front-end components. Bower packages (comprising of build artefacts and sometimes sources) are stored in git repositories, typically on Github. The package registry is run by the Bower team with package metadata coming from the bower.json file within each package.
The end result of running Bower is a bower_components directory which can be included in the web app's build process.
Bower can be run interactively, by installing nodePackages.bower. More interestingly, the Bower components can be declared in a Nix derivation, with the help of nodePackages.bower2nix.
Suppose you have a bower.json with the following contents:
Example 15.1. bower.json
{
"name": "my-web-app",
"dependencies": {
"angular": "~1.5.0",
"bootstrap": "~3.3.6"
}
}
Running bower2nix will produce something like the following output:
{ fetchbower, buildEnv }:
buildEnv { name = "bower-env"; ignoreCollisions = true; paths = [
(fetchbower "angular" "1.5.3" "~1.5.0" "1749xb0firxdra4rzadm4q9x90v6pzkbd7xmcyjk6qfza09ykk9y")
(fetchbower "bootstrap" "3.3.6" "~3.3.6" "1vvqlpbfcy0k5pncfjaiskj3y6scwifxygfqnw393sjfxiviwmbv")
(fetchbower "jquery" "2.2.2" "1.9.1 - 2" "10sp5h98sqwk90y4k6hbdviwqzvzwqf47r3r51pakch5ii2y7js1")
]; }
Using the bower2nix command line arguments, the output can be redirected to a file. A name like bower-packages.nix would be fine.
The resulting derivation is a union of all the downloaded Bower packages (and their dependencies). To use it, they still need to be linked together by Bower, which is where buildBowerComponents is useful.
buildBowerComponents function
The function is implemented in pkgs/development/bower-modules/generic/default.nix. Example usage:
In Example 15.2, “buildBowerComponents”, the following arguments are of special significance to the function:
|
|
|
|
buildBowerComponents will run Bower to link together the output of bower2nix, resulting in a bower_components directory which can be used.
Here is an example of a web frontend build process using gulp. You might use grunt, or anything else.
Example 15.3. Example build script (gulpfile.js)
var gulp = require('gulp');
gulp.task('default', [], function () {
gulp.start('build');
});
gulp.task('build', [], function () {
console.log("Just a dummy gulp build");
gulp
.src(["./bower_components/**/*"])
.pipe(gulp.dest("./gulpdist/"));
});
Example 15.4. Full example — default.nix
{ myWebApp ? { outPath = ./.; name = "myWebApp"; }
, pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {}
}:
pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "my-web-app-frontend";
src = myWebApp;
buildInputs = [ pkgs.nodePackages.gulp ];
bowerComponents = pkgs.buildBowerComponents {
name = "my-web-app";
generated = ./bower-packages.nix;
src = myWebApp;
};
buildPhase = ''
cp --reflink=auto --no-preserve=mode -R $bowerComponents/bower_components .
export HOME=$PWD
${pkgs.nodePackages.gulp}/bin/gulp build 
'';
installPhase = "mv gulpdist $out";
}
A few notes about Example 15.4, “Full example — default.nix”:
|
The result of |
|
Whether to symlink or copy the |
|
gulp requires |
| The actual build command. Other tools could be used. |
ENOCACHE errors from buildBowerComponents
This means that Bower was looking for a package version which doesn't exist in the generated bower-packages.nix.
If bower.json has been updated, then run bower2nix again.
It could also be a bug in bower2nix or fetchbower. If possible, try reformulating the version specification in bower.json.
Coq libraries should be installed in $(out)/lib/coq/${coq.coq-version}/user-contrib/. Such directories are automatically added to the $COQPATH environment variable by the hook defined in the Coq derivation.
Some extensions (plugins) might require OCaml and sometimes other OCaml packages. The coq.ocamlPackages attribute can be used to depend on the same package set Coq was built against.
Coq libraries may be compatible with some specific versions of Coq only. The compatibleCoqVersions attribute is used to precisely select those versions of Coq that are compatible with this derivation.
Here is a simple package example. It is a pure Coq library, thus it depends on Coq. It builds on the Mathematical Components library, thus it also takes mathcomp as buildInputs. Its Makefile has been generated using coq_makefile so we only have to set the $COQLIB variable at install time.
{ stdenv, fetchFromGitHub, coq, mathcomp }:
stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
name = "coq${coq.coq-version}-multinomials-${version}";
version = "1.0";
src = fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "math-comp";
repo = "multinomials";
rev = version;
sha256 = "1qmbxp1h81cy3imh627pznmng0kvv37k4hrwi2faa101s6bcx55m";
};
buildInputs = [ coq ];
propagatedBuildInputs = [ mathcomp ];
installFlags = "COQLIB=$(out)/lib/coq/${coq.coq-version}/";
meta = {
description = "A Coq/SSReflect Library for Monoidal Rings and Multinomials";
inherit (src.meta) homepage;
license = stdenv.lib.licenses.cecill-b;
inherit (coq.meta) platforms;
};
passthru = {
compatibleCoqVersions = v: builtins.elem v [ "8.5" "8.6" "8.7" ];
};
}
This section uses Mint as an example for how to build a Crystal package.
If the Crystal project has any dependencies, the first step is to get a shards.nix file encoding those. Get a copy of the project and go to its root directory such that its shard.lock file is in the current directory, then run crystal2nix in it
$ git clone https://github.com/mint-lang/mint $ cd mint $ git checkout 0.5.0 $ nix-shell -p crystal2nix --run crystal2nix
This should have generated a shards.nix file.
Next create a Nix file for your derivation and use pkgs.crystal.buildCrystalPackage as follows:
with import <nixpkgs> {};
crystal.buildCrystalPackage rec {
pname = "mint";
version = "0.5.0";
src = fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "mint-lang";
repo = "mint";
rev = version;
sha256 = "0vxbx38c390rd2ysvbwgh89v2232sh5rbsp3nk9wzb70jybpslvl";
};
# Insert the path to your shards.nix file here
shardsFile = ./shards.nix;
...
}
This won’t build anything yet, because we haven’t told it what files build. We can specify a mapping from binary names to source files with the crystalBinaries attribute. The project’s compilation instructions should show this. For Mint, the binary is called “mint”, which is compiled from the source file src/mint.cr, so we’ll specify this as follows:
crystalBinaries.mint.src = "src/mint.cr"; # ...
Additionally you can override the default crystal build options (which are currently --release --progress --no-debug --verbose) with
crystalBinaries.mint.options = [ "--release" "--verbose" ];
Depending on the project, you might need additional steps to get it to compile successfully. In Mint’s case, we need to link against openssl, so in the end the Nix file looks as follows:
with import <nixpkgs> {};
crystal.buildCrystalPackage rec {
version = "0.5.0";
pname = "mint";
src = fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "mint-lang";
repo = "mint";
rev = version;
sha256 = "0vxbx38c390rd2ysvbwgh89v2232sh5rbsp3nk9wzb70jybpslvl";
};
shardsFile = ./shards.nix;
crystalBinaries.mint.src = "src/mint.cr";
buildInputs = [ openssl ];
}
Emscripten: An LLVM-to-JavaScript Compiler
This section of the manual covers how to use emscripten in nixpkgs.
Minimal requirements:
nix
nixpkgs
Modes of use of emscripten:
Imperative usage (on the command line):
If you want to work with emcc, emconfigure and emmake as you are used to from Ubuntu and similar distributions you can use these commands:
nix-env -i emscripten
nix-shell -p emscripten
Declarative usage:
This mode is far more power full since this makes use of nix for dependency management of emscripten libraries and targets by using the mkDerivation which is implemented by pkgs.emscriptenStdenv and pkgs.buildEmscriptenPackage. The source for the packages is in pkgs/top-level/emscripten-packages.nix and the abstraction behind it in pkgs/development/em-modules/generic/default.nix.
build and install all packages:
nix-env -iA emscriptenPackages
dev-shell for zlib implementation hacking:
nix-shell -A emscriptenPackages.zlib
A few things to note:
export EMCC_DEBUG=2 is nice for debugging
~/.emscripten, the build artifact cache sometimes creates issues and needs to be removed from time to time
Let’s see two different examples from pkgs/top-level/emscripten-packages.nix:
pkgs.zlib.override
pkgs.buildEmscriptenPackage
Both are interesting concepts.
A special requirement of the pkgs.buildEmscriptenPackage is the doCheck = true is a default meaning that each emscriptenPackage requires a checkPhase implemented.
Use export EMCC_DEBUG=2 from within a emscriptenPackage’s phase to get more detailed debug output what is going wrong.
~/.emscripten cache is requiring us to set HOME=$TMPDIR in individual phases. This makes compilation slower but also makes it more deterministic.
This example uses zlib from nixpkgs but instead of compiling C to ELF it compiles C to JS since we were using pkgs.zlib.override and changed stdenv to pkgs.emscriptenStdenv. A few adaptions and hacks were set in place to make it working. One advantage is that when pkgs.zlib is updated, it will automatically update this package as well. However, this can also be the downside…
See the zlib example:
zlib = (pkgs.zlib.override {
stdenv = pkgs.emscriptenStdenv;
}).overrideDerivation
(old: rec {
buildInputs = old.buildInputs ++ [ pkgconfig ];
# we need to reset this setting!
NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE="";
configurePhase = ''
# FIXME: Some tests require writing at $HOME
HOME=$TMPDIR
runHook preConfigure
#export EMCC_DEBUG=2
emconfigure ./configure --prefix=$out --shared
runHook postConfigure
'';
dontStrip = true;
outputs = [ "out" ];
buildPhase = ''
emmake make
'';
installPhase = ''
emmake make install
'';
checkPhase = ''
echo "================= testing zlib using node ================="
echo "Compiling a custom test"
set -x
emcc -O2 -s EMULATE_FUNCTION_POINTER_CASTS=1 test/example.c -DZ_SOLO \
libz.so.${old.version} -I . -o example.js
echo "Using node to execute the test"
${pkgs.nodejs}/bin/node ./example.js
set +x
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
echo "test failed for some reason"
exit 1;
else
echo "it seems to work! very good."
fi
echo "================= /testing zlib using node ================="
'';
postPatch = pkgs.stdenv.lib.optionalString pkgs.stdenv.isDarwin ''
substituteInPlace configure \
--replace '/usr/bin/libtool' 'ar' \
--replace 'AR="libtool"' 'AR="ar"' \
--replace 'ARFLAGS="-o"' 'ARFLAGS="-r"'
'';
});
This xmlmirror example features a emscriptenPackage which is defined completely from this context and no pkgs.zlib.override is used.
xmlmirror = pkgs.buildEmscriptenPackage rec {
name = "xmlmirror";
buildInputs = [ pkgconfig autoconf automake libtool gnumake libxml2 nodejs openjdk json_c ];
nativeBuildInputs = [ pkgconfig zlib ];
src = pkgs.fetchgit {
url = "https://gitlab.com/odfplugfest/xmlmirror.git";
rev = "4fd7e86f7c9526b8f4c1733e5c8b45175860a8fd";
sha256 = "1jasdqnbdnb83wbcnyrp32f36w3xwhwp0wq8lwwmhqagxrij1r4b";
};
configurePhase = ''
rm -f fastXmlLint.js*
# a fix for ERROR:root:For asm.js, TOTAL_MEMORY must be a multiple of 16MB, was 234217728
# https://gitlab.com/odfplugfest/xmlmirror/issues/8
sed -e "s/TOTAL_MEMORY=234217728/TOTAL_MEMORY=268435456/g" -i Makefile.emEnv
# https://github.com/kripken/emscripten/issues/6344
# https://gitlab.com/odfplugfest/xmlmirror/issues/9
sed -e "s/\$(JSONC_LDFLAGS) \$(ZLIB_LDFLAGS) \$(LIBXML20_LDFLAGS)/\$(JSONC_LDFLAGS) \$(LIBXML20_LDFLAGS) \$(ZLIB_LDFLAGS) /g" -i Makefile.emEnv
# https://gitlab.com/odfplugfest/xmlmirror/issues/11
sed -e "s/-o fastXmlLint.js/-s EXTRA_EXPORTED_RUNTIME_METHODS='[\"ccall\", \"cwrap\"]' -o fastXmlLint.js/g" -i Makefile.emEnv
'';
buildPhase = ''
HOME=$TMPDIR
make -f Makefile.emEnv
'';
outputs = [ "out" "doc" ];
installPhase = ''
mkdir -p $out/share
mkdir -p $doc/share/${name}
cp Demo* $out/share
cp -R codemirror-5.12 $out/share
cp fastXmlLint.js* $out/share
cp *.xsd $out/share
cp *.js $out/share
cp *.xhtml $out/share
cp *.html $out/share
cp *.json $out/share
cp *.rng $out/share
cp README.md $doc/share/${name}
'';
checkPhase = ''
'';
};
Use nix-shell -I nixpkgs=/some/dir/nixpkgs -A emscriptenPackages.libz and from there you can go trough the individual steps. This makes it easy to build a good unit test or list the files of the project.
nix-shell -I nixpkgs=/some/dir/nixpkgs -A emscriptenPackages.libz
cd /tmp/
unpackPhase
cd libz-1.2.3
configurePhase
buildPhase
… happy hacking…
Using this toolchain makes it easy to leverage nix from NixOS, MacOSX or even Windows (WSL+ubuntu+nix). This toolchain is reproducible, behaves like the rest of the packages from nixpkgs and contains a set of well working examples to learn and adapt from.
If in trouble, ask the maintainers.
Programs in the GNOME universe are written in various languages but they all use GObject-based libraries like GLib, GTK or GStreamer. These libraries are often modular, relying on looking into certain directories to find their modules. However, due to Nix’s specific file system organization, this will fail without our intervention. Fortunately, the libraries usually allow overriding the directories through environment variables, either natively or thanks to a patch in nixpkgs. Wrapping the executables to ensure correct paths are available to the application constitutes a significant part of packaging a modern desktop application. In this section, we will describe various modules needed by such applications, environment variables needed to make the modules load, and finally a script that will do the work for us.
GSettings API is often used for storing settings. GSettings schemas are required, to know the type and other metadata of the stored values. GLib looks for glib-2.0/schemas/gschemas.compiled files inside the directories of XDG_DATA_DIRS.
On Linux, GSettings API is implemented using dconf backend. You will need to add dconf GIO module to GIO_EXTRA_MODULES variable, otherwise the memory backend will be used and the saved settings will not be persistent.
Last you will need the dconf database D-Bus service itself. You can enable it using programs.dconf.enable.
Some applications will also require gsettings-desktop-schemas for things like reading proxy configuration or user interface customization. This dependency is often not mentioned by upstream, you should grep for org.gnome.desktop and org.gnome.system to see if the schemas are needed.
When an application uses icons, an icon theme should be available in XDG_DATA_DIRS during runtime. The package for the default, icon-less hicolor-icon-theme (should be propagated by every icon theme) contains a setup hook that will pick up icon themes from buildInputs and pass it to our wrapper. Unfortunately, relying on that would mean every user has to download the theme included in the package expression no matter their preference. For that reason, we leave the installation of icon theme on the user. If you use one of the desktop environments, you probably already have an icon theme installed.
To avoid costly file system access when locating icons, GTK, as well as Qt, can rely on icon-theme.cache files from the themes’ top-level directories. These files are generated using gtk-update-icon-cache, which is expected to be run whenever an icon is added or removed to an icon theme (typically an application icon into hicolor theme) and some programs do indeed run this after icon installation. However, since packages are installed into their own prefix by Nix, this would lead to conflicts. For that reason, gtk3 provides a setup hook that will clean the file from installation. Since most applications only ship their own icon that will be loaded on start-up, it should not affect them too much. On the other hand, icon themes are much larger and more widely used so we need to cache them. Because we recommend installing icon themes globally, we will generate the cache files from all packages in a profile using a NixOS module. You can enable the cache generation using gtk.iconCache.enable option if your desktop environment does not already do that.
Previously, a GTK theme needed to be in XDG_DATA_DIRS. This is no longer necessary for most programs since GTK incorporated Adwaita theme. Some programs (for example, those designed for elementary HIG) might require a special theme like pantheon.elementary-gtk-theme.
GObject introspection allows applications to use C libraries in other languages easily. It does this through typelib files searched in GI_TYPELIB_PATH.
If your application uses GStreamer or Grilo, you should set GST_PLUGIN_SYSTEM_PATH_1_0 and GRL_PLUGIN_PATH, respectively.
Given the requirements above, the package expression would become messy quickly:
preFixup = ''
for f in $(find $out/bin/ $out/libexec/ -type f -executable); do
wrapProgram "$f" \
--prefix GIO_EXTRA_MODULES : "${getLib dconf}/lib/gio/modules" \
--prefix XDG_DATA_DIRS : "$out/share" \
--prefix XDG_DATA_DIRS : "$out/share/gsettings-schemas/${name}" \
--prefix XDG_DATA_DIRS : "${gsettings-desktop-schemas}/share/gsettings-schemas/${gsettings-desktop-schemas.name}" \
--prefix XDG_DATA_DIRS : "${hicolor-icon-theme}/share" \
--prefix GI_TYPELIB_PATH : "${lib.makeSearchPath "lib/girepository-1.0" [ pango json-glib ]}"
done
'';
Fortunately, there is wrapGAppsHook, that does the wrapping for us. In particular, it works in conjunction with other setup hooks that will populate the variable:
wrapGAppsHook itself will add the package’s share directory to XDG_DATA_DIRS.
glib setup hook will populate GSETTINGS_SCHEMAS_PATH and then wrapGAppsHook will prepend it to XDG_DATA_DIRS.
One of gtk3’s setup hooks will remove icon-theme.cache files from package’s icon theme directories to avoid conflicts. Icon theme packages should prevent this with dontDropIconThemeCache = true;.
dconf.lib is a dependency of wrapGAppsHook, which then also adds it to the GIO_EXTRA_MODULES variable.
hicolor-icon-theme’s setup hook will add icon themes to XDG_ICON_DIRS which is prepended to XDG_DATA_DIRS by wrapGAppsHook.
gobject-introspection setup hook populates GI_TYPELIB_PATH variable with lib/girepository-1.0 directories of dependencies, which is then added to wrapper by wrapGAppsHook. It also adds share directories of dependencies to XDG_DATA_DIRS, which is intended to promote GIR files but it also pollutes the closures of packages using wrapGAppsHook.
strictDeps enabled, like Python packages. In those cases, you will need to disable it with strictDeps = false;.
Setup hooks of gst_all_1.gstreamer and gnome3.grilo will populate the GST_PLUGIN_SYSTEM_PATH_1_0 and GRL_PLUGIN_PATH variables, respectively, which will then be added to the wrapper by wrapGAppsHook.
You can also pass additional arguments to makeWrapper using gappsWrapperArgs in preFixup hook:
preFixup = ''
gappsWrapperArgs+=(
# Thumbnailers
--prefix XDG_DATA_DIRS : "${gdk-pixbuf}/share"
--prefix XDG_DATA_DIRS : "${librsvg}/share"
--prefix XDG_DATA_DIRS : "${shared-mime-info}/share"
)
'';
Most GNOME package offer updateScript, it is therefore possible to update to latest source tarball by running nix-shell maintainers/scripts/update.nix --argstr package gnome3.nautilus or even en masse with nix-shell maintainers/scripts/update.nix --argstr path gnome3. Read the package’s NEWS file to see what changed.
GLib-GIO-ERROR **: 06:04:50.903: No GSettings schemas are installed on the system
There are no schemas avalable in XDG_DATA_DIRS. Temporarily add a random package containing schemas like gsettings-desktop-schemas to buildInputs. glib and wrapGAppsHook setup hooks will take care of making the schemas available to application and you will see the actual missing schemas with the next error. Or you can try looking through the source code for the actual schemas used.
GLib-GIO-ERROR **: 06:04:50.903: Settings schema ‘org.gnome.foo’ is not installed
Package is missing some GSettings schemas. You can find out the package containing the schema with nix-locate org.gnome.foo.gschema.xml and let the hooks handle the wrapping as above.
This is because derivers like python.pkgs.buildPythonApplication or qt5.mkDerivation have setup-hooks automatically added that produce wrappers with makeWrapper. The simplest way to workaround that is to disable the wrapGAppsHook automatic wrapping with dontWrapGApps = true; and pass the arguments it intended to pass to makeWrapper to another.
In the case of a Python application it could look like:
python3.pkgs.buildPythonApplication {
pname = "gnome-music";
version = "3.32.2";
nativeBuildInputs = [
wrapGAppsHook
gobject-introspection
...
];
dontWrapGApps = true;
# Arguments to be passed to `makeWrapper`, only used by buildPython*
preFixup = ''
makeWrapperArgs+=("''${gappsWrapperArgs[@]}")
'';
}
And for a QT app like:
mkDerivation {
pname = "calibre";
version = "3.47.0";
nativeBuildInputs = [
wrapGAppsHook
qmake
...
];
dontWrapGApps = true;
# Arguments to be passed to `makeWrapper`, only used by qt5’s mkDerivation
preFixup = ''
qtWrapperArgs+=("''${gappsWrapperArgs[@]}")
'';
}
You can rely on applications depending on the library setting the necessary environment variables but that is often easy to miss. Instead we recommend to patch the paths in the source code whenever possible. Here are some examples:
Replacing a GI_TYPELIB_PATH in GNOME Shell extension – we are using substituteAll to include the path to a typelib into a patch.
The following examples are hardcoding GSettings schema paths. To get the schema paths we use the functions
glib.getSchemaPath Takes a nix package attribute as an argument.
glib.makeSchemaPath Takes a package output like $out and a derivation name. You should use this if the schemas you need to hardcode are in the same derivation.
Hard-coding GSettings schema path in Vala plug-in (dynamically loaded library) – here, substituteAll cannot be used since the schema comes from the same package preventing us from pass its path to the function, probably due to a Nix bug.
Hard-coding GSettings schema path in C library – nothing special other than using Coccinelle patch to generate the patch itself.
bin and libexec directories.
You can manually trigger the wrapping with wrapGApp in preFixup phase. It takes a path to a program as a first argument; the remaining arguments are passed directly to wrapProgram function.
The function buildGoModule builds Go programs managed with Go modules. It builds a Go modules through a two phase build:
An intermediate fetcher derivation. This derivation will be used to fetch all of the dependencies of the Go module.
A final derivation will use the output of the intermediate derivation to build the binaries and produce the final output.
Example 15.5. buildGoModule
pet = buildGoModule rec {
pname = "pet";
version = "0.3.4";
src = fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "knqyf263";
repo = "pet";
rev = "v${version}";
sha256 = "0m2fzpqxk7hrbxsgqplkg7h2p7gv6s1miymv3gvw0cz039skag0s";
};
modSha256 = "1879j77k96684wi554rkjxydrj8g3hpp0kvxz03sd8dmwr3lh83j";
subPackages = [ "." ];
meta = with lib; {
description = "Simple command-line snippet manager, written in Go";
homepage = https://github.com/knqyf263/pet;
license = licenses.mit;
maintainers = with maintainers; [ kalbasit ];
platforms = platforms.linux ++ platforms.darwin;
};
}
Example 15.5, “buildGoModule” is an example expression using buildGoModule, the following arguments are of special significance to the function:
|
|
|
|
modSha256 can also take null as an input. When `null` is used as a value, the derivation won't be a fixed-output derivation but disable the build sandbox instead. This can be useful outside of nixpkgs where re-generating the modSha256 on each mod.sum changes is cumbersome, but will fail to build by Hydra, as builds with a disabled sandbox are discouraged.
The function buildGoPackage builds legacy Go programs, not supporting Go modules.
Example 15.6. buildGoPackage
deis = buildGoPackage rec {
pname = "deis";
version = "1.13.0";
goPackagePath = "github.com/deis/deis";
subPackages = [ "client" ];
src = fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "deis";
repo = "deis";
rev = "v${version}";
sha256 = "1qv9lxqx7m18029lj8cw3k7jngvxs4iciwrypdy0gd2nnghc68sw";
};
goDeps = ./deps.nix;
buildFlags = [ "--tags" "release" ];
}
Example 15.6, “buildGoPackage” is an example expression using buildGoPackage, the following arguments are of special significance to the function:
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In this example only |
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|
The goDeps attribute can be imported from a separate nix file that defines which Go libraries are needed and should be included in GOPATH for buildPhase.
Example 15.7. deps.nix
[
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To extract dependency information from a Go package in automated way use go2nix. It can produce complete derivation and goDeps file for Go programs.
buildGoPackage produces Multiple-output packages where bin includes program binaries. You can test build a Go binary as follows:
$ nix-build -A deis.bin
or build all outputs with:
$ nix-build -A deis.all
bin output will be installed by default with nix-env -i or systemPackages.
You may use Go packages installed into the active Nix profiles by adding the following to your ~/.bashrc:
for p in $NIX_PROFILES; do
GOPATH="$p/share/go:$GOPATH"
done
Nixpkgs distributes build instructions for all Haskell packages registered on Hackage, but strangely enough normal Nix package lookups don’t seem to discover any of them, except for the default version of ghc, cabal-install, and stack:
$ nix-env -i alex error: selector ‘alex’ matches no derivations $ nix-env -qa ghc ghc-7.10.2
The Haskell package set is not registered in the top-level namespace because it is huge. If all Haskell packages were visible to these commands, then name-based search/install operations would be much slower than they are now. We avoided that by keeping all Haskell-related packages in a separate attribute set called haskellPackages, which the following command will list:
$ nix-env -f "<nixpkgs>" -qaP -A haskellPackages haskellPackages.a50 a50-0.5 haskellPackages.AAI AAI-0.2.0.1 haskellPackages.abacate abacate-0.0.0.0 haskellPackages.abc-puzzle abc-puzzle-0.2.1 haskellPackages.abcBridge abcBridge-0.15 haskellPackages.abcnotation abcnotation-1.9.0 haskellPackages.abeson abeson-0.1.0.1 [... some 14000 entries omitted ...]
To install any of those packages into your profile, refer to them by their attribute path (first column):
nix-env -f "<nixpkgs>" -iA haskellPackages.Allure ...
The attribute path of any Haskell packages corresponds to the name of that particular package on Hackage: the package cabal-install has the attribute haskellPackages.cabal-install, and so on. (Actually, this convention causes trouble with packages like 3dmodels and 4Blocks, because these names are invalid identifiers in the Nix language. The issue of how to deal with these rare corner cases is currently unresolved.)
Haskell packages whose Nix name (second column) begins with a haskell- prefix are packages that provide a library whereas packages without that prefix provide just executables. Libraries may provide executables too, though: the package haskell-pandoc, for example, installs both a library and an application. You can install and use Haskell executables just like any other program in Nixpkgs, but using Haskell libraries for development is a bit trickier and we’ll address that subject in great detail in section How to create a development environment.
Attribute paths are deterministic inside of Nixpkgs, but the path necessary to reach Nixpkgs varies from system to system. We dodged that problem by giving nix-env an explicit -f "<nixpkgs>" parameter, but if you call nix-env without that flag, then chances are the invocation fails:
$ nix-env -iA haskellPackages.cabal-install
error: attribute ‘haskellPackages’ in selection path
‘haskellPackages.cabal-install’ not found
On NixOS, for example, Nixpkgs does not exist in the top-level namespace by default. To figure out the proper attribute path, it’s easiest to query for the path of a well-known Nixpkgs package, i.e.:
$ nix-env -qaP coreutils nixos.coreutils coreutils-8.23
If your system responds like that (most NixOS installations will), then the attribute path to haskellPackages is nixos.haskellPackages. Thus, if you want to use nix-env without giving an explicit -f flag, then that’s the way to do it:
nix-env -qaP -A nixos.haskellPackages nix-env -iA nixos.haskellPackages.cabal-install
Our current default compiler is GHC 8.6.x and the haskellPackages set contains packages built with that particular version. Nixpkgs contains the last three major releases of GHC and there is a whole family of package sets available that defines Hackage packages built with each of those compilers, too:
nix-env -f "<nixpkgs>" -qaP -A haskell.packages.ghc844 nix-env -f "<nixpkgs>" -qaP -A haskell.packages.ghc882
The name haskellPackages is really just a synonym for haskell.packages.ghc865, because we prefer that package set internally and recommend it to our users as their default choice, but ultimately you are free to compile your Haskell packages with any GHC version you please. The following command displays the complete list of available compilers:
$ nix-env -f "<nixpkgs>" -qaP -A haskell.compiler haskell.compiler.ghc8101 ghc-8.10.0.20191210 haskell.compiler.integer-simple.ghc8101 ghc-8.10.0.20191210 haskell.compiler.ghcHEAD ghc-8.10.20191119 haskell.compiler.integer-simple.ghcHEAD ghc-8.10.20191119 haskell.compiler.ghc822Binary ghc-8.2.2-binary haskell.compiler.ghc844 ghc-8.4.4 haskell.compiler.ghc863Binary ghc-8.6.3-binary haskell.compiler.ghc865 ghc-8.6.5 haskell.compiler.integer-simple.ghc865 ghc-8.6.5 haskell.compiler.ghc881 ghc-8.8.1 haskell.compiler.integer-simple.ghc881 ghc-8.8.1 haskell.compiler.ghc882 ghc-8.8.2 haskell.compiler.integer-simple.ghc882 ghc-8.8.2 haskell.compiler.ghc883 ghc-8.8.3 haskell.compiler.integer-simple.ghc883 ghc-8.8.3 haskell.compiler.ghcjs ghcjs-8.6.0.1
We have no package sets for jhc or uhc yet, unfortunately, but for every version of GHC listed above, there exists a package set based on that compiler. Also, the attributes haskell.compiler.ghcXYC and haskell.packages.ghcXYC.ghc are synonymous for the sake of convenience.
A simple development environment consists of a Haskell compiler and one or both of the tools cabal-install and stack. We saw in section How to install Haskell packages how you can install those programs into your user profile:
nix-env -f "<nixpkgs>" -iA haskellPackages.ghc haskellPackages.cabal-install
Instead of the default package set haskellPackages, you can also use the more precise name haskell.compiler.ghc7102, which has the advantage that it refers to the same GHC version regardless of what Nixpkgs considers “default” at any given time.
Once you’ve made those tools available in $PATH, it’s possible to build Hackage packages the same way people without access to Nix do it all the time:
cabal get lens-4.11 && cd lens-4.11 cabal install -j --dependencies-only cabal configure cabal build
If you enjoy working with Cabal sandboxes, then that’s entirely possible too: just execute the command
cabal sandbox init
before installing the required dependencies.
The nix-shell utility makes it easy to switch to a different compiler version; just enter the Nix shell environment with the command
nix-shell -p haskell.compiler.ghc784
to bring GHC 7.8.4 into $PATH. Alternatively, you can use Stack instead of nix-shell directly to select compiler versions and other build tools per-project. It uses nix-shell under the hood when Nix support is turned on. See How to build a Haskell project using Stack.
If you’re using cabal-install, re-running cabal configure inside the spawned shell switches your build to use that compiler instead. If you’re working on a project that doesn’t depend on any additional system libraries outside of GHC, then it’s even sufficient to just run the cabal configure command inside of the shell:
nix-shell -p haskell.compiler.ghc784 --command "cabal configure"
Afterwards, all other commands like cabal build work just fine in any shell environment, because the configure phase recorded the absolute paths to all required tools like GHC in its build configuration inside of the dist/ directory. Please note, however, that nix-collect-garbage can break such an environment because the Nix store paths created by nix-shell aren’t “alive” anymore once nix-shell has terminated. If you find that your Haskell builds no longer work after garbage collection, then you’ll have to re-run cabal configure inside of a new nix-shell environment.
GHC expects to find all installed libraries inside of its own lib directory. This approach works fine on traditional Unix systems, but it doesn’t work for Nix, because GHC’s store path is immutable once it’s built. We cannot install additional libraries into that location. As a consequence, our copies of GHC don’t know any packages except their own core libraries, like base, containers, Cabal, etc.
We can register additional libraries to GHC, however, using a special build function called ghcWithPackages. That function expects one argument: a function that maps from an attribute set of Haskell packages to a list of packages, which determines the libraries known to that particular version of GHC. For example, the Nix expression ghcWithPackages (pkgs: [pkgs.mtl]) generates a copy of GHC that has the mtl library registered in addition to its normal core packages:
$ nix-shell -p "haskellPackages.ghcWithPackages (pkgs: [pkgs.mtl])"
[nix-shell:~]$ ghc-pkg list mtl
/nix/store/zy79...-ghc-7.10.2/lib/ghc-7.10.2/package.conf.d:
mtl-2.2.1
This function allows users to define their own development environment by means of an override. After adding the following snippet to ~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix,
{
packageOverrides = super: let self = super.pkgs; in
{
myHaskellEnv = self.haskell.packages.ghc7102.ghcWithPackages
(haskellPackages: with haskellPackages; [
# libraries
arrows async cgi criterion
# tools
cabal-install haskintex
]);
};
}
it’s possible to install that compiler with nix-env -f "<nixpkgs>" -iA myHaskellEnv. If you’d like to switch that development environment to a different version of GHC, just replace the ghc7102 bit in the previous definition with the appropriate name. Of course, it’s also possible to define any number of these development environments! (You can’t install two of them into the same profile at the same time, though, because that would result in file conflicts.)
The generated ghc program is a wrapper script that re-directs the real GHC executable to use a new lib directory — one that we specifically constructed to contain all those packages the user requested:
$ cat $(type -p ghc) #! /nix/store/xlxj...-bash-4.3-p33/bin/bash -e export NIX_GHC=/nix/store/19sm...-ghc-7.10.2/bin/ghc export NIX_GHCPKG=/nix/store/19sm...-ghc-7.10.2/bin/ghc-pkg export NIX_GHC_DOCDIR=/nix/store/19sm...-ghc-7.10.2/share/doc/ghc/html export NIX_GHC_LIBDIR=/nix/store/19sm...-ghc-7.10.2/lib/ghc-7.10.2 exec /nix/store/j50p...-ghc-7.10.2/bin/ghc "-B$NIX_GHC_LIBDIR" "$@"
The variables $NIX_GHC, $NIX_GHCPKG, etc. point to the new store path ghcWithPackages constructed specifically for this environment. The last line of the wrapper script then executes the real ghc, but passes the path to the new lib directory using GHC’s -B flag.
The purpose of those environment variables is to work around an impurity in the popular ghc-paths library. That library promises to give its users access to GHC’s installation paths. Only, the library can’t possible know that path when it’s compiled, because the path GHC considers its own is determined only much later, when the user configures it through ghcWithPackages. So we patched ghc-paths to return the paths found in those environment variables at run-time rather than trying to guess them at compile-time.
To make sure that mechanism works properly all the time, we recommend that you set those variables to meaningful values in your shell environment, too, i.e. by adding the following code to your ~/.bashrc:
if type >/dev/null 2>&1 -p ghc; then eval "$(egrep ^export "$(type -p ghc)")" fi
If you are certain that you’ll use only one GHC environment which is located in your user profile, then you can use the following code, too, which has the advantage that it doesn’t contain any paths from the Nix store, i.e. those settings always remain valid even if a nix-env -u operation updates the GHC environment in your profile:
if [ -e ~/.nix-profile/bin/ghc ]; then export NIX_GHC="$HOME/.nix-profile/bin/ghc" export NIX_GHCPKG="$HOME/.nix-profile/bin/ghc-pkg" export NIX_GHC_DOCDIR="$HOME/.nix-profile/share/doc/ghc/html" export NIX_GHC_LIBDIR="$HOME/.nix-profile/lib/ghc-$($NIX_GHC --numeric-version)" fi
If you plan to use your environment for interactive programming, not just compiling random Haskell code, you might want to replace ghcWithPackages in all the listings above with ghcWithHoogle.
This environment generator not only produces an environment with GHC and all the specified libraries, but also generates a hoogle and haddock indexes for all the packages, and provides a wrapper script around hoogle binary that uses all those things. A precise name for this thing would be “ghcWithPackagesAndHoogleAndDocumentationIndexes”, which is, regrettably, too long and scary.
For example, installing the following environment
{
packageOverrides = super: let self = super.pkgs; in
{
myHaskellEnv = self.haskellPackages.ghcWithHoogle
(haskellPackages: with haskellPackages; [
# libraries
arrows async cgi criterion
# tools
cabal-install haskintex
]);
};
}
allows one to browse module documentation index not too dissimilar to this for all the specified packages and their dependencies by directing a browser of choice to ~/.nix-profile/share/doc/hoogle/index.html (or /run/current-system/sw/share/doc/hoogle/index.html in case you put it in environment.systemPackages in NixOS).
After you’ve marveled enough at that try adding the following to your ~/.ghc/ghci.conf
:def hoogle \s -> return $ ":! hoogle search -cl --count=15 \"" ++ s ++ "\"" :def doc \s -> return $ ":! hoogle search -cl --info \"" ++ s ++ "\""
and test it by typing into ghci:
:hoogle a -> a :doc a -> a
Be sure to note the links to haddock files in the output. With any modern and properly configured terminal emulator you can just click those links to navigate there.
Finally, you can run
hoogle server --local -p 8080
and navigate to http://localhost:8080/ for your own local Hoogle. The --local flag makes the hoogle server serve files from your nix store over http, without the flag it will use file:// URIs. Note, however, that Firefox and possibly other browsers disallow navigation from http:// to file:// URIs for security reasons, which might be quite an inconvenience. Versions before v5 did not have this flag. See this page for workarounds.
For NixOS users there’s a service which runs this exact command for you. Specify the packages you want documentation for and the haskellPackages set you want them to come from. Add the following to configuration.nix.
services.hoogle = {
enable = true;
packages = (hpkgs: with hpkgs; [text cryptonite]);
haskellPackages = pkgs.haskellPackages;
};
Stack is a popular build tool for Haskell projects. It has first-class support for Nix. Stack can optionally use Nix to automatically select the right version of GHC and other build tools to build, test and execute apps in an existing project downloaded from somewhere on the Internet. Pass the --nix flag to any stack command to do so, e.g.
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/yesodweb/wai.git cd wai stack --nix build
If you want stack to use Nix by default, you can add a nix section to the stack.yaml file, as explained in the Stack documentation. For example:
nix: enable: true packages: [pkgconfig zeromq zlib]
The example configuration snippet above tells Stack to create an ad hoc environment for nix-shell as in the below section, in which the pkgconfig, zeromq and zlib packages from Nixpkgs are available. All stack commands will implicitly be executed inside this ad hoc environment.
Some projects have more sophisticated needs. For examples, some ad hoc environments might need to expose Nixpkgs packages compiled in a certain way, or with extra environment variables. In these cases, you’ll need a shell field instead of packages:
nix: enable: true shell-file: shell.nix
For more on how to write a shell.nix file see the below section. You’ll need to express a derivation. Note that Nixpkgs ships with a convenience wrapper function around mkDerivation called haskell.lib.buildStackProject to help you create this derivation in exactly the way Stack expects. However for this to work you need to disable the sandbox, which you can do by using --option sandbox relaxed or --option sandbox false to the Nix command. All of the same inputs as mkDerivation can be provided. For example, to build a Stack project that including packages that link against a version of the R library compiled with special options turned on:
with (import <nixpkgs> { });
let R = pkgs.R.override { enableStrictBarrier = true; };
in
haskell.lib.buildStackProject {
name = "HaskellR";
buildInputs = [ R zeromq zlib ];
}
You can select a particular GHC version to compile with by setting the ghc attribute as an argument to buildStackProject. Better yet, let Stack choose what GHC version it wants based on the snapshot specified in stack.yaml (only works with Stack >= 1.1.3):
{nixpkgs ? import <nixpkgs> { }, ghc ? nixpkgs.ghc}:
with nixpkgs;
let R = pkgs.R.override { enableStrictBarrier = true; };
in
haskell.lib.buildStackProject {
name = "HaskellR";
buildInputs = [ R zeromq zlib ];
inherit ghc;
}
The easiest way to create an ad hoc development environment is to run nix-shell with the appropriate GHC environment given on the command-line:
nix-shell -p "haskellPackages.ghcWithPackages (pkgs: with pkgs; [mtl pandoc])"
For more sophisticated use-cases, however, it’s more convenient to save the desired configuration in a file called shell.nix that looks like this:
{ nixpkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {}, compiler ? "ghc7102" }:
let
inherit (nixpkgs) pkgs;
ghc = pkgs.haskell.packages.${compiler}.ghcWithPackages (ps: with ps; [
monad-par mtl
]);
in
pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "my-haskell-env-0";
buildInputs = [ ghc ];
shellHook = "eval $(egrep ^export ${ghc}/bin/ghc)";
}
Now run nix-shell — or even nix-shell --pure — to enter a shell environment that has the appropriate compiler in $PATH. If you use --pure, then add all other packages that your development environment needs into the buildInputs attribute. If you’d like to switch to a different compiler version, then pass an appropriate compiler argument to the expression, i.e. nix-shell --argstr compiler ghc784.
If you need such an environment because you’d like to compile a Hackage package outside of Nix — i.e. because you’re hacking on the latest version from Git —, then the package set provides suitable nix-shell environments for you already! Every Haskell package has an env attribute that provides a shell environment suitable for compiling that particular package. If you’d like to hack the lens library, for example, then you just have to check out the source code and enter the appropriate environment:
$ cabal get lens-4.11 && cd lens-4.11 Downloading lens-4.11... Unpacking to lens-4.11/ $ nix-shell "<nixpkgs>" -A haskellPackages.lens.env [nix-shell:/tmp/lens-4.11]$
At point, you can run cabal configure, cabal build, and all the other development commands. Note that you need cabal-install installed in your $PATH already to use it here — the nix-shell environment does not provide it.
If your own Haskell packages have build instructions for Cabal, then you can convert those automatically into build instructions for Nix using the cabal2nix utility, which you can install into your profile by running nix-env -i cabal2nix.
For example, let’s assume that you’re working on a private project called foo. To generate a Nix build expression for it, change into the project’s top-level directory and run the command:
cabal2nix . > foo.nix
Then write the following snippet into a file called default.nix:
{ nixpkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {}, compiler ? "ghc7102" }:
nixpkgs.pkgs.haskell.packages.${compiler}.callPackage ./foo.nix { }
Finally, store the following code in a file called shell.nix:
{ nixpkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {}, compiler ? "ghc7102" }:
(import ./default.nix { inherit nixpkgs compiler; }).env
At this point, you can run nix-build to have Nix compile your project and install it into a Nix store path. The local directory will contain a symlink called result after nix-build returns that points into that location. Of course, passing the flag --argstr compiler ghc763 allows switching the build to any version of GHC currently supported.
Furthermore, you can call nix-shell to enter an interactive development environment in which you can use cabal configure and cabal build to develop your code. That environment will automatically contain a proper GHC derivation with all the required libraries registered as well as all the system-level libraries your package might need.
If your package does not depend on any system-level libraries, then it’s sufficient to run
nix-shell --command "cabal configure"
once to set up your build. cabal-install determines the absolute paths to all resources required for the build and writes them into a config file in the dist/ directory. Once that’s done, you can run cabal build and any other command for that project even outside of the nix-shell environment. This feature is particularly nice for those of us who like to edit their code with an IDE, like Emacs’ haskell-mode, because it’s not necessary to start Emacs inside of nix-shell just to make it find out the necessary settings for building the project; cabal-install has already done that for us.
If you want to do some quick-and-dirty hacking and don’t want to bother setting up a default.nix and shell.nix file manually, then you can use the --shell flag offered by cabal2nix to have it generate a stand-alone nix-shell environment for you. With that feature, running
cabal2nix --shell . > shell.nix nix-shell --command "cabal configure"
is usually enough to set up a build environment for any given Haskell package. You can even use that generated file to run nix-build, too:
nix-build shell.nix
If you have multiple private Haskell packages that depend on each other, then you’ll have to register those packages in the Nixpkgs set to make them visible for the dependency resolution performed by callPackage. First of all, change into each of your projects top-level directories and generate a default.nix file with cabal2nix:
cd ~/src/foo && cabal2nix . > default.nix cd ~/src/bar && cabal2nix . > default.nix
Then edit your ~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix file to register those builds in the default Haskell package set:
{
packageOverrides = super: let self = super.pkgs; in
{
haskellPackages = super.haskellPackages.override {
overrides = self: super: {
foo = self.callPackage ../src/foo {};
bar = self.callPackage ../src/bar {};
};
};
};
}
Once that’s accomplished, nix-env -f "<nixpkgs>" -qA haskellPackages will show your packages like any other package from Hackage, and you can build them
nix-build "<nixpkgs>" -A haskellPackages.foo
or enter an interactive shell environment suitable for building them:
nix-shell "<nixpkgs>" -A haskellPackages.bar.env
Every Haskell package set takes a function called overrides that you can use to manipulate the package as much as you please. One useful application of this feature is to replace the default mkDerivation function with one that enables library profiling for all packages. To accomplish that add the following snippet to your ~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix file:
{
packageOverrides = super: let self = super.pkgs; in
{
profiledHaskellPackages = self.haskellPackages.override {
overrides = self: super: {
mkDerivation = args: super.mkDerivation (args // {
enableLibraryProfiling = true;
});
};
};
};
}
Then, replace instances of haskellPackages in the cabal2nix-generated default.nix or shell.nix files with profiledHaskellPackages.
Nixpkgs provides the latest version of ghc-events, which is 0.4.4.0 at the time of this writing. This is fine for users of GHC 7.10.x, but GHC 7.8.4 cannot compile that binary. Now, one way to solve that problem is to register an older version of ghc-events in the 7.8.x-specific package set. The first step is to generate Nix build instructions with cabal2nix:
cabal2nix cabal://ghc-events-0.4.3.0 > ~/.nixpkgs/ghc-events-0.4.3.0.nix
Then add the override in ~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix:
{
packageOverrides = super: let self = super.pkgs; in
{
haskell = super.haskell // {
packages = super.haskell.packages // {
ghc784 = super.haskell.packages.ghc784.override {
overrides = self: super: {
ghc-events = self.callPackage ./ghc-events-0.4.3.0.nix {};
};
};
};
};
};
}
This code is a little crazy, no doubt, but it’s necessary because the intuitive version
{ # ...
haskell.packages.ghc784 = super.haskell.packages.ghc784.override {
overrides = self: super: {
ghc-events = self.callPackage ./ghc-events-0.4.3.0.nix {};
};
};
}
doesn’t do what we want it to: that code replaces the haskell package set in Nixpkgs with one that contains only one entry,packages, which contains only one entry ghc784. This override loses the haskell.compiler set, and it loses the haskell.packages.ghcXYZ sets for all compilers but GHC 7.8.4. To avoid that problem, we have to perform the convoluted little dance from above, iterating over each step in hierarchy.
Once it’s accomplished, however, we can install a variant of ghc-events that’s compiled with GHC 7.8.4:
nix-env -f "<nixpkgs>" -iA haskell.packages.ghc784.ghc-events
Unfortunately, it turns out that this build fails again while executing the test suite! Apparently, the release archive on Hackage is missing some data files that the test suite requires, so we cannot run it. We accomplish that by re-generating the Nix expression with the --no-check flag:
cabal2nix --no-check cabal://ghc-events-0.4.3.0 > ~/.nixpkgs/ghc-events-0.4.3.0.nix
Now the builds succeeds.
Of course, in the concrete example of ghc-events this whole exercise is not an ideal solution, because ghc-events can analyze the output emitted by any version of GHC later than 6.12 regardless of the compiler version that was used to build the ghc-events executable, so strictly speaking there’s no reason to prefer one built with GHC 7.8.x in the first place. However, for users who cannot use GHC 7.10.x at all for some reason, the approach of downgrading to an older version might be useful.
In the previous section we learned how to override a package in a single compiler-specific package set. You may have some overrides defined that you want to use across multiple package sets. To accomplish this you could use the technique that we learned in the previous section by repeating the overrides for all the compiler-specific package sets. For example:
{
packageOverrides = super: let self = super.pkgs; in
{
haskell = super.haskell // {
packages = super.haskell.packages // {
ghc784 = super.haskell.packages.ghc784.override {
overrides = self: super: {
my-package = ...;
my-other-package = ...;
};
};
ghc822 = super.haskell.packages.ghc784.override {
overrides = self: super: {
my-package = ...;
my-other-package = ...;
};
};
...
};
};
};
}
However there’s a more convenient way to override all compiler-specific package sets at once:
{
packageOverrides = super: let self = super.pkgs; in
{
haskell = super.haskell // {
packageOverrides = self: super: {
my-package = ...;
my-other-package = ...;
};
};
};
}
When starting a Haskell project you can use developPackage to define a derivation for your package at the root path as well as source override versions for Hackage packages, like so:
# default.nix
{ compilerVersion ? "ghc842" }:
let
# pinning nixpkgs using new Nix 2.0 builtin `fetchGit`
pkgs = import (fetchGit (import ./version.nix)) { };
compiler = pkgs.haskell.packages."${compilerVersion}";
pkg = compiler.developPackage {
root = ./.;
source-overrides = {
# Let's say the GHC 8.4.2 haskellPackages uses 1.6.0.0 and your test suite is incompatible with >= 1.6.0.0
HUnit = "1.5.0.0";
};
};
in pkg
This could be used in place of a simplified stack.yaml defining a Nix derivation for your Haskell package.
As you can see this allows you to specify only the source version found on Hackage and nixpkgs will take care of the rest.
You can also specify buildInputs for your Haskell derivation for packages that directly depend on external libraries like so:
# default.nix
{ compilerVersion ? "ghc842" }:
let
# pinning nixpkgs using new Nix 2.0 builtin `fetchGit`
pkgs = import (fetchGit (import ./version.nix)) { };
compiler = pkgs.haskell.packages."${compilerVersion}";
pkg = compiler.developPackage {
root = ./.;
source-overrides = {
HUnit = "1.5.0.0"; # Let's say the GHC 8.4.2 haskellPackages uses 1.6.0.0 and your test suite is incompatible with >= 1.6.0.0
};
};
# in case your package source depends on any libraries directly, not just transitively.
buildInputs = [ zlib ];
in pkg.overrideAttrs(attrs: {
buildInputs = attrs.buildInputs ++ buildInputs;
})
Notice that you will need to override (via overrideAttrs or similar) the derivation returned by the developPackage Nix lambda as there is no buildInputs named argument you can pass directly into the developPackage lambda.
GHC and distributed build farms don’t get along well:
https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/4012
When you see an error like this one
package foo-0.7.1.0 is broken due to missing package text-1.2.0.4-98506efb1b9ada233bb5c2b2db516d91
then you have to download and re-install foo and all its dependents from scratch:
nix-store -q --referrers /nix/store/*-haskell-text-1.2.0.4 \ | xargs -L 1 nix-store --repair-path
If you’re using additional Hydra servers other than hydra.nixos.org, then it might be necessary to purge the local caches that store data from those machines to disable these binary channels for the duration of the previous command, i.e. by running:
rm ~/.cache/nix/binary-cache*.sqlite
Users of GHC on Darwin have occasionally reported that builds fail, because the compiler complains about a missing include file:
fatal error: 'math.h' file not found
The issue has been discussed at length in ticket 6390, and so far no good solution has been proposed. As a work-around, users who run into this problem can configure the environment variables
export NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE="-idirafter /usr/include" export NIX_CFLAGS_LINK="-L/usr/lib"
in their ~/.bashrc file to avoid the compiler error.
-- While building package zlib-0.5.4.2 using: runhaskell -package=Cabal-1.22.4.0 -clear-package-db [... lots of flags ...] Process exited with code: ExitFailure 1 Logs have been written to: /home/foo/src/stack-ide/.stack-work/logs/zlib-0.5.4.2.log Configuring zlib-0.5.4.2... Setup.hs: Missing dependency on a foreign library: * Missing (or bad) header file: zlib.h This problem can usually be solved by installing the system package that provides this library (you may need the "-dev" version). If the library is already installed but in a non-standard location then you can use the flags --extra-include-dirs= and --extra-lib-dirs= to specify where it is. If the header file does exist, it may contain errors that are caught by the C compiler at the preprocessing stage. In this case you can re-run configure with the verbosity flag -v3 to see the error messages.
When you run the build inside of the nix-shell environment, the system is configured to find libz.so without any special flags – the compiler and linker “just know” how to find it. Consequently, Cabal won’t record any search paths for libz.so in the package description, which means that the package works fine inside of nix-shell, but once you leave the shell the shared object can no longer be found. That issue is by no means specific to Stack: you’ll have that problem with any other Haskell package that’s built inside of nix-shell but run outside of that environment.
You can remedy this issue in several ways. The easiest is to add a nix section to the stack.yaml like the following:
nix: enable: true packages: [ zlib ]
Stack’s Nix support knows to add ${zlib.out}/lib and ${zlib.dev}/include as an --extra-lib-dirs and extra-include-dirs, respectively. Alternatively, you can achieve the same effect by hand. First of all, run
$ nix-build --no-out-link "<nixpkgs>" -A zlib /nix/store/alsvwzkiw4b7ip38l4nlfjijdvg3fvzn-zlib-1.2.8
to find out the store path of the system’s zlib library. Now, you can
add that path (plus a “/lib” suffix) to your $LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable to make sure your system linker finds libz.so automatically. It’s no pretty solution, but it will work.
As a variant of (1), you can also install any number of system libraries into your user’s profile (or some other profile) and point $LD_LIBRARY_PATH to that profile instead, so that you don’t have to list dozens of those store paths all over the place.
The solution I prefer is to call stack with an appropriate –extra-lib-dirs flag like so: shell stack --extra-lib-dirs=/nix/store/alsvwzkiw4b7ip38l4nlfjijdvg3fvzn-zlib-1.2.8/lib build
Typically, you’ll need --extra-include-dirs as well. It’s possible to add those flag to the project’s stack.yaml or your user’s global ~/.stack/global/stack.yaml file so that you don’t have to specify them manually every time. But again, you’re likely better off using Stack’s Nix support instead.
The same thing applies to cabal configure, of course, if you’re building with cabal-install instead of Stack.
There are two levels of static linking. The first option is to configure the build with the Cabal flag --disable-executable-dynamic. In Nix expressions, this can be achieved by setting the attribute:
enableSharedExecutables = false;
That gives you a binary with statically linked Haskell libraries and dynamically linked system libraries.
To link both Haskell libraries and system libraries statically, the additional flags --ghc-option=-optl=-static --ghc-option=-optl=-pthread need to be used. In Nix, this is accomplished with:
configureFlags = [ "--ghc-option=-optl=-static" "--ghc-option=-optl=-pthread" ];
It’s important to realize, however, that most system libraries in Nix are built as shared libraries only, i.e. there is just no static library available that Cabal could link!
By default GHC implements the Integer type using the GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic (GMP) library. The implementation can be found in the integer-gmp package.
A potential problem with this is that GMP is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), a kind of “copyleft” license. According to the terms of the LGPL, paragraph 5, you may distribute a program that is designed to be compiled and dynamically linked with the library under the terms of your choice (i.e., commercially) but if your program incorporates portions of the library, if it is linked statically, then your program is a “derivative”–a “work based on the library”–and according to paragraph 2, section c, you “must cause the whole of the work to be licensed” under the terms of the LGPL (including for free).
The LGPL licensing for GMP is a problem for the overall licensing of binary programs compiled with GHC because most distributions (and builds) of GHC use static libraries. (Dynamic libraries are currently distributed only for macOS.) The LGPL licensing situation may be worse: even though The Glasgow Haskell Compiler License is essentially a “free software” license (BSD3), according to paragraph 2 of the LGPL, GHC must be distributed under the terms of the LGPL!
To work around these problems GHC can be build with a slower but LGPL-free alternative implementation for Integer called integer-simple.
To get a GHC compiler build with integer-simple instead of integer-gmp use the attribute: haskell.compiler.integer-simple."${ghcVersion}". For example:
$ nix-build -E '(import <nixpkgs> {}).haskell.compiler.integer-simple.ghc802'
...
$ result/bin/ghc-pkg list | grep integer
integer-simple-0.1.1.1
The following command displays the complete list of GHC compilers build with integer-simple:
$ nix-env -f "<nixpkgs>" -qaP -A haskell.compiler.integer-simple haskell.compiler.integer-simple.ghc7102 ghc-7.10.2 haskell.compiler.integer-simple.ghc7103 ghc-7.10.3 haskell.compiler.integer-simple.ghc722 ghc-7.2.2 haskell.compiler.integer-simple.ghc742 ghc-7.4.2 haskell.compiler.integer-simple.ghc783 ghc-7.8.3 haskell.compiler.integer-simple.ghc784 ghc-7.8.4 haskell.compiler.integer-simple.ghc801 ghc-8.0.1 haskell.compiler.integer-simple.ghc802 ghc-8.0.2 haskell.compiler.integer-simple.ghcHEAD ghc-8.1.20170106
To get a package set supporting integer-simple use the attribute: haskell.packages.integer-simple."${ghcVersion}". For example use the following to get the scientific package build with integer-simple:
nix-build -A haskell.packages.integer-simple.ghc802.scientific
The haskell.lib library includes a number of functions for checking for various imperfections in Haskell packages. It’s useful to apply these functions to your own Haskell packages and integrate that in a Continuous Integration server like hydra to assure your packages maintain a minimum level of quality. This section discusses some of these functions.
Applying haskell.lib.failOnAllWarnings to a Haskell package enables the -Wall and -Werror GHC options to turn all warnings into build failures.
Applying haskell.lib.buildStrictly to a Haskell package calls failOnAllWarnings on the given package to turn all warnings into build failures. Additionally the source of your package is gotten from first invoking cabal sdist to ensure all needed files are listed in the Cabal file.
Applying haskell.lib.checkUnusedPackages to a Haskell package invokes the packunused tool on the package. packunused complains when it finds packages listed as build-depends in the Cabal file which are redundant. For example:
$ nix-build -E 'let pkgs = import <nixpkgs> {}; in pkgs.haskell.lib.checkUnusedPackages {} pkgs.haskellPackages.scientific'
these derivations will be built:
/nix/store/3lc51cxj2j57y3zfpq5i69qbzjpvyci1-scientific-0.3.5.1.drv
...
detected package components
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- library
- testsuite(s): test-scientific
- benchmark(s): bench-scientific*
(component names suffixed with '*' are not configured to be built)
library
~~~~~~~
The following package dependencies seem redundant:
- ghc-prim-0.5.0.0
testsuite(test-scientific)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
no redundant packages dependencies found
builder for ‘/nix/store/3lc51cxj2j57y3zfpq5i69qbzjpvyci1-scientific-0.3.5.1.drv’ failed with exit code 1
error: build of ‘/nix/store/3lc51cxj2j57y3zfpq5i69qbzjpvyci1-scientific-0.3.5.1.drv’ failed
As you can see, packunused finds out that although the testsuite component has no redundant dependencies the library component of scientific-0.3.5.1 depends on ghc-prim which is unused in the library.
Hackage package derivations are found in the hackage-packages.nix file within nixpkgs and are used as the initial package set for haskellPackages. The hackage-packages.nix file is not meant to be edited by hand, but rather autogenerated by hackage2nix, which by default uses the configuration-hackage2nix.yaml file to generate all the derivations.
To modify the contents configuration-hackage2nix.yaml, follow the instructions on hackage2nix.
The Youtube video Nix Loves Haskell provides an introduction into Haskell NG aimed at beginners. The slides are available at http://cryp.to/nixos-meetup-3-slides.pdf and also – in a form ready for cut & paste – at https://github.com/NixOS/cabal2nix/blob/master/doc/nixos-meetup-3-slides.md.
Another Youtube video is Escaping Cabal Hell with Nix, which discusses the subject of Haskell development with Nix but also provides a basic introduction to Nix as well, i.e. it’s suitable for viewers with almost no prior Nix experience.
Oliver Charles wrote a very nice Tutorial how to develop Haskell packages with Nix.
The Journey into the Haskell NG infrastructure series of postings describe the new Haskell infrastructure in great detail:
Part 1 explains the differences between the old and the new code and gives instructions how to migrate to the new setup.
Part 2 looks in-depth at how to tweak and configure your setup by means of overrides.
Part 3 describes the infrastructure that keeps the Haskell package set in Nixpkgs up-to-date.
The easiest way to get a working idris version is to install the idris attribute:
$ # On NixOS $ nix-env -i nixos.idris $ # On non-NixOS $ nix-env -i nixpkgs.idris
This however only provides the prelude and base libraries. To install idris with additional libraries, you can use the idrisPackages.with-packages function, e.g. in an overlay in ~/.config/nixpkgs/overlays/my-idris.nix:
self: super: {
myIdris = with self.idrisPackages; with-packages [ contrib pruviloj ];
}
And then:
$ # On NixOS $ nix-env -iA nixos.myIdris $ # On non-NixOS $ nix-env -iA nixpkgs.myIdris
To see all available Idris packages:
$ # On NixOS $ nix-env -qaPA nixos.idrisPackages $ # On non-NixOS $ nix-env -qaPA nixpkgs.idrisPackages
Similarly, entering a nix-shell:
$ nix-shell -p 'idrisPackages.with-packages (with idrisPackages; [ contrib pruviloj ])'
To have access to these libraries in idris, call it with an argument -p <library name> for each library:
$ nix-shell -p 'idrisPackages.with-packages (with idrisPackages; [ contrib pruviloj ])' [nix-shell:~]$ idris -p contrib -p pruviloj
A listing of all available packages the Idris binary has access to is available via --listlibs:
$ idris --listlibs 00prelude-idx.ibc pruviloj base contrib prelude 00pruviloj-idx.ibc 00base-idx.ibc 00contrib-idx.ibc
As an example of how a Nix expression for an Idris package can be created, here is the one for idrisPackages.yaml:
{ build-idris-package
, fetchFromGitHub
, contrib
, lightyear
, lib
}:
build-idris-package {
name = "yaml";
version = "2018-01-25";
# This is the .ipkg file that should be built, defaults to the package name
# In this case it should build `Yaml.ipkg` instead of `yaml.ipkg`
# This is only necessary because the yaml packages ipkg file is
# different from its package name here.
ipkgName = "Yaml";
# Idris dependencies to provide for the build
idrisDeps = [ contrib lightyear ];
src = fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "Heather";
repo = "Idris.Yaml";
rev = "5afa51ffc839844862b8316faba3bafa15656db4";
sha256 = "1g4pi0swmg214kndj85hj50ccmckni7piprsxfdzdfhg87s0avw7";
};
meta = {
description = "Idris YAML lib";
homepage = https://github.com/Heather/Idris.Yaml;
license = lib.licenses.mit;
maintainers = [ lib.maintainers.brainrape ];
};
}
Assuming this file is saved as yaml.nix, it’s buildable using
$ nix-build -E '(import <nixpkgs> {}).idrisPackages.callPackage ./yaml.nix {}'
Or it’s possible to use
with import <nixpkgs> {};
{
yaml = idrisPackages.callPackage ./yaml.nix {};
}
in another file (say default.nix) to be able to build it with
$ nix-build -A yaml
idris commands
The build-idris-package function provides also optional input values to set additional options for the used idris commands.
Specifically, you can set idrisBuildOptions, idrisTestOptions, idrisInstallOptions and idrisDocOptions to provide additional options to the idris command respectively when building, testing, installing and generating docs for your package.
For example you could set
build-idris-package {
idrisBuildOptions = [ "--log" "1" "--verbose" ]
...
}
to require verbose output during idris build phase.
This component is basically a wrapper/workaround that makes it possible to expose an Xcode installation as a Nix package by means of symlinking to the relevant executables on the host system.
Since Xcode can’t be packaged with Nix, nor we can publish it as a Nix package (because of its license) this is basically the only integration strategy making it possible to do iOS application builds that integrate with other components of the Nix ecosystem
The primary objective of this project is to use the Nix expression language to specify how iOS apps can be built from source code, and to automatically spawn iOS simulator instances for testing.
This component also makes it possible to use Hydra, the Nix-based continuous integration server to regularly build iOS apps and to do wireless ad-hoc installations of enterprise IPAs on iOS devices through Hydra.
The Xcode build environment implements a number of features.
The first use case is deploying a Nix package that provides symlinks to the Xcode installation on the host system. This package can be used as a build input to any build function implemented in the Nix expression language that requires Xcode.
let
pkgs = import <nixpkgs> {};
xcodeenv = import ./xcodeenv {
inherit (pkgs) stdenv;
};
in
xcodeenv.composeXcodeWrapper {
version = "9.2";
xcodeBaseDir = "/Applications/Xcode.app";
}
By deploying the above expression with nix-build and inspecting its content you will notice that several Xcode-related executables are exposed as a Nix package:
$ ls result/bin lrwxr-xr-x 1 sander staff 94 1 jan 1970 Simulator -> /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications/Simulator.app/Contents/MacOS/Simulator lrwxr-xr-x 1 sander staff 17 1 jan 1970 codesign -> /usr/bin/codesign lrwxr-xr-x 1 sander staff 17 1 jan 1970 security -> /usr/bin/security lrwxr-xr-x 1 sander staff 21 1 jan 1970 xcode-select -> /usr/bin/xcode-select lrwxr-xr-x 1 sander staff 61 1 jan 1970 xcodebuild -> /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/xcodebuild lrwxr-xr-x 1 sander staff 14 1 jan 1970 xcrun -> /usr/bin/xcrun
We can build an iOS app executable for the simulator, or an IPA/xcarchive file for release purposes, e.g. ad-hoc, enterprise or store installations, by executing the xcodeenv.buildApp {} function:
let
pkgs = import <nixpkgs> {};
xcodeenv = import ./xcodeenv {
inherit (pkgs) stdenv;
};
in
xcodeenv.buildApp {
name = "MyApp";
src = ./myappsources;
sdkVersion = "11.2";
target = null; # Corresponds to the name of the app by default
configuration = null; # Release for release builds, Debug for debug builds
scheme = null; # -scheme will correspond to the app name by default
sdk = null; # null will set it to 'iphonesimulator` for simulator builds or `iphoneos` to real builds
xcodeFlags = "";
release = true;
certificateFile = ./mycertificate.p12;
certificatePassword = "secret";
provisioningProfile = ./myprovisioning.profile;
signMethod = "ad-hoc"; # 'enterprise' or 'store'
generateIPA = true;
generateXCArchive = false;
enableWirelessDistribution = true;
installURL = "/installipa.php";
bundleId = "mycompany.myapp";
appVersion = "1.0";
# Supports all xcodewrapper parameters as well
xcodeBaseDir = "/Applications/Xcode.app";
}
The above function takes a variety of parameters: * The name and src parameters are mandatory and specify the name of the app and the location where the source code resides * sdkVersion specifies which version of the iOS SDK to use.
It also possile to adjust the xcodebuild parameters. This is only needed in rare circumstances. In most cases the default values should suffice:
Specifies which xcodebuild target to build. By default it takes the target that has the same name as the app.
The configuration parameter can be overridden if desired. By default, it will do a debug build for the simulator and a release build for real devices.
The scheme parameter specifies which -scheme parameter to propagate to xcodebuild. By default, it corresponds to the app name.
The sdk parameter specifies which SDK to use. By default, it picks iphonesimulator for simulator builds and iphoneos for release builds.
The xcodeFlags parameter specifies arbitrary command line parameters that should be propagated to xcodebuild.
By default, builds are carried out for the iOS simulator. To do release builds (builds for real iOS devices), you must set the release parameter to true. In addition, you need to set the following parameters:
certificateFile refers to a P12 certificate file.
certificatePassword specifies the password of the P12 certificate.
provisioningProfile refers to the provision profile needed to sign the app
signMethod should refer to ad-hoc for signing the app with an ad-hoc certificate, enterprise for enterprise certificates and app-store for App store certificates.
generateIPA specifies that we want to produce an IPA file (this is probably what you want)
generateXCArchive specifies thet we want to produce an xcarchive file.
When building IPA files on Hydra and when it is desired to allow iOS devices to install IPAs by browsing to the Hydra build products page, you can enable the enableWirelessDistribution parameter.
When enabled, you need to configure the following options:
The installURL parameter refers to the URL of a PHP script that composes the itms-services:// URL allowing iOS devices to install the IPA file.
bundleId refers to the bundle ID value of the app
appVersion refers to the app’s version number
To use wireless adhoc distributions, you must also install the corresponding PHP script on a web server (see section: “Installing the PHP script for wireless ad hoc installations from Hydra” for more information).
In addition to the build parameters, you can also specify any parameters that the xcodeenv.composeXcodeWrapper {} function takes. For example, the xcodeBaseDir parameter can be overridden to refer to a different Xcode version.
In addition to building iOS apps, we can also automatically spawn simulator instances:
let
pkgs = import <nixpkgs> {};
xcodeenv = import ./xcodeenv {
inherit (pkgs) stdenv;
};
in
xcode.simulateApp {
name = "simulate";
# Supports all xcodewrapper parameters as well
xcodeBaseDir = "/Applications/Xcode.app";
}
The above expression produces a script that starts the simulator from the provided Xcode installation. The script can be started as follows:
./result/bin/run-test-simulator
By default, the script will show an overview of UDID for all available simulator instances and asks you to pick one. You can also provide a UDID as a command-line parameter to launch an instance automatically:
./result/bin/run-test-simulator 5C93129D-CF39-4B1A-955F-15180C3BD4B8
You can also extend the simulator script to automatically deploy and launch an app in the requested simulator instance:
let
pkgs = import <nixpkgs> {};
xcodeenv = import ./xcodeenv {
inherit (pkgs) stdenv;
};
in
xcode.simulateApp {
name = "simulate";
bundleId = "mycompany.myapp";
app = xcode.buildApp {
# ...
};
# Supports all xcodewrapper parameters as well
xcodeBaseDir = "/Applications/Xcode.app";
}
By providing the result of an xcode.buildApp {} function and configuring the app bundle id, the app gets deployed automatically and started.
In some rare cases, it may happen that after a failure, changes are not picked up. Most likely, this is caused by a derived data cache that Xcode maintains. To wipe it you can run:
$ rm -rf ~/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData
Ant-based Java packages are typically built from source as follows:
stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "...";
src = fetchurl { ... };
nativeBuildInputs = [ jdk ant ];
buildPhase = "ant";
}
Note that jdk is an alias for the OpenJDK (self-built where available, or pre-built via Zulu). Platforms with OpenJDK not (yet) in Nixpkgs (Aarch32, Aarch64) point to the (unfree) oraclejdk.
JAR files that are intended to be used by other packages should be installed in $out/share/java. JDKs have a stdenv setup hook that add any JARs in the share/java directories of the build inputs to the CLASSPATH environment variable. For instance, if the package libfoo installs a JAR named foo.jar in its share/java directory, and another package declares the attribute
buildInputs = [ libfoo ]; nativeBuildInputs = [ jdk ];
then CLASSPATH will be set to /nix/store/...-libfoo/share/java/foo.jar.
Private JARs should be installed in a location like $out/share/.
package-name
If your Java package provides a program, you need to generate a wrapper script to run it using the OpenJRE. You can use makeWrapper for this:
nativeBuildInputs = [ makeWrapper ];
installPhase =
''
mkdir -p $out/bin
makeWrapper ${jre}/bin/java $out/bin/foo \
--add-flags "-cp $out/share/java/foo.jar org.foo.Main"
'';
Note the use of jre, which is the part of the OpenJDK package that contains the Java Runtime Environment. By using ${jre}/bin/java instead of ${jdk}/bin/java, you prevent your package from depending on the JDK at runtime.
Note all JDKs passthru home, so if your application requires environment variables like JAVA_HOME being set, that can be done in a generic fashion with the --set argument of makeWrapper:
--set JAVA_HOME ${jdk.home}
It is possible to use a different Java compiler than javac from the OpenJDK. For instance, to use the GNU Java Compiler:
nativeBuildInputs = [ gcj ant ];
Here, Ant will automatically use gij (the GNU Java Runtime) instead of the OpenJRE.
Lua packages are built by the buildLuaPackage function. This function is implemented in pkgs/development/lua-modules/generic/default.nix and works similarly to buildPerlPackage. (See Section 15.16, “Perl” for details.)
Lua packages are defined in pkgs/top-level/lua-packages.nix. Most of them are simple. For example:
fileSystem = buildLuaPackage {
name = "filesystem-1.6.2";
src = fetchurl {
url = "https://github.com/keplerproject/luafilesystem/archive/v1_6_2.tar.gz";
sha256 = "1n8qdwa20ypbrny99vhkmx8q04zd2jjycdb5196xdhgvqzk10abz";
};
meta = {
homepage = "https://github.com/keplerproject/luafilesystem";
hydraPlatforms = stdenv.lib.platforms.linux;
maintainers = with maintainers; [ flosse ];
};
};
Though, more complicated package should be placed in a seperate file in pkgs/development/lua-modules.
Lua packages accept additional parameter disabled, which defines the condition of disabling package from luaPackages. For example, if package has disabled assigned to lua.luaversion != "5.1", it will not be included in any luaPackages except lua51Packages, making it only be built for lua 5.1.
The pkgs/development/node-packages folder contains a generated collection of NPM packages that can be installed with the Nix package manager.
As a rule of thumb, the package set should only provide end user software packages, such as command-line utilities. Libraries should only be added to the package set if there is a non-NPM package that requires it.
When it is desired to use NPM libraries in a development project, use the node2nix generator directly on the package.json configuration file of the project.
The package set also provides support for multiple Node.js versions. The policy is that a new package should be added to the collection for the latest stable LTS release (which is currently 10.x), unless there is an explicit reason to support a different release.
If your package uses native addons, you need to examine what kind of native build system it uses. Here are some examples:
node-gyp
node-gyp-builder
node-pre-gyp
After you have identified the correct system, you need to override your package expression while adding in build system as a build input. For example, dat requires node-gyp-build, so we override its expression in default-v10.nix:
dat = nodePackages.dat.override (oldAttrs: {
buildInputs = oldAttrs.buildInputs ++ [ nodePackages.node-gyp-build ];
});
To add a package from NPM to nixpkgs:
Modify pkgs/development/node-packages/node-packages-v10.json to add, update or remove package entries. (Or pkgs/development/node-packages/node-packages-v8.json for packages depending on Node.js 8.x)
Run the script: (cd pkgs/development/node-packages && ./generate.sh).
Build your new package to test your changes: cd /path/to/nixpkgs && nix-build -A nodePackages.<new-or-updated-package>. To build against a specific Node.js version (e.g. 10.x): nix-build -A nodePackages_10_x.<new-or-updated-package>
Add and commit all modified and generated files.
For more information about the generation process, consult the README.md file of the node2nix tool.
OCaml libraries should be installed in $(out)/lib/ocaml/${ocaml.version}/site-lib/. Such directories are automatically added to the $OCAMLPATH environment variable when building another package that depends on them or when opening a nix-shell.
Given that most of the OCaml ecosystem is now built with dune, nixpkgs includes a convenience build support function called buildDunePackage that will build an OCaml package using dune, OCaml and findlib and any additional dependencies provided as buildInputs or propagatedBuildInputs.
Here is a simple package example. It defines an (optional) attribute minimumOCamlVersion that will be used to throw a descriptive evaluation error if building with an older OCaml is attempted. It uses the fetchFromGitHub fetcher to get its source. It sets the doCheck (optional) attribute to true which means that tests will be run with dune runtest -p angstrom after the build (dune build -p angstrom) is complete. It uses alcotest as a build input (because it is needed to run the tests) and bigstringaf and result as propagated build inputs (thus they will also be available to libraries depending on this library). The library will be installed using the angstrom.install file that dune generates.
{ stdenv, fetchFromGitHub, buildDunePackage, alcotest, result, bigstringaf }:
buildDunePackage rec {
pname = "angstrom";
version = "0.10.0";
minimumOCamlVersion = "4.03";
src = fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "inhabitedtype";
repo = pname;
rev = version;
sha256 = "0lh6024yf9ds0nh9i93r9m6p5psi8nvrqxl5x7jwl13zb0r9xfpw";
};
buildInputs = [ alcotest ];
propagatedBuildInputs = [ bigstringaf result ];
doCheck = true;
meta = {
homepage = https://github.com/inhabitedtype/angstrom;
description = "OCaml parser combinators built for speed and memory efficiency";
license = stdenv.lib.licenses.bsd3;
maintainers = with stdenv.lib.maintainers; [ sternenseemann ];
};
}
Here is a second example, this time using a source archive generated with dune-release. It is a good idea to use this archive when it is available as it will usually contain substituted variables such as a %%VERSION%% field. This library does not depend on any other OCaml library and no tests are run after building it.
{ stdenv, fetchurl, buildDunePackage }:
buildDunePackage rec {
pname = "wtf8";
version = "1.0.1";
minimumOCamlVersion = "4.01";
src = fetchurl {
url = "https://github.com/flowtype/ocaml-${pname}/releases/download/v${version}/${pname}-${version}.tbz";
sha256 = "1msg3vycd3k8qqj61sc23qks541cxpb97vrnrvrhjnqxsqnh6ygq";
};
meta = with stdenv.lib; {
homepage = https://github.com/flowtype/ocaml-wtf8;
description = "WTF-8 is a superset of UTF-8 that allows unpaired surrogates.";
license = licenses.mit;
maintainers = [ maintainers.eqyiel ];
};
}
Nixpkgs provides a function buildPerlPackage, a generic package builder function for any Perl package that has a standard Makefile.PL. It’s implemented in pkgs/development/perl-modules/generic.
Perl packages from CPAN are defined in pkgs/top-level/perl-packages.nix, rather than pkgs/all-packages.nix. Most Perl packages are so straight-forward to build that they are defined here directly, rather than having a separate function for each package called from perl-packages.nix. However, more complicated packages should be put in a separate file, typically in pkgs/development/perl-modules. Here is an example of the former:
ClassC3 = buildPerlPackage rec {
name = "Class-C3-0.21";
src = fetchurl {
url = "mirror://cpan/authors/id/F/FL/FLORA/${name}.tar.gz";
sha256 = "1bl8z095y4js66pwxnm7s853pi9czala4sqc743fdlnk27kq94gz";
};
};
Note the use of mirror://cpan/, and the ${name} in the URL definition to ensure that the name attribute is consistent with the source that we’re actually downloading. Perl packages are made available in all-packages.nix through the variable perlPackages. For instance, if you have a package that needs ClassC3, you would typically write
foo = import ../path/to/foo.nix {
inherit stdenv fetchurl ...;
inherit (perlPackages) ClassC3;
};
in all-packages.nix. You can test building a Perl package as follows:
$ nix-build -A perlPackages.ClassC3
buildPerlPackage adds perl- to the start of the name attribute, so the package above is actually called perl-Class-C3-0.21. So to install it, you can say:
$ nix-env -i perl-Class-C3
(Of course you can also install using the attribute name: nix-env -i -A perlPackages.ClassC3.)
So what does buildPerlPackage do? It does the following:
In the configure phase, it calls perl Makefile.PL to generate a Makefile. You can set the variable makeMakerFlags to pass flags to Makefile.PL
It adds the contents of the PERL5LIB environment variable to #! .../bin/perl line of Perl scripts as -I flags. This ensures that a script can find its dependencies. (This can cause this shebang line to become too long for Darwin to handle; see the note below.)
dir
In the fixup phase, it writes the propagated build inputs (propagatedBuildInputs) to the file $out/nix-support/propagated-user-env-packages. nix-env recursively installs all packages listed in this file when you install a package that has it. This ensures that a Perl package can find its dependencies.
buildPerlPackage is built on top of stdenv, so everything can be customised in the usual way. For instance, the BerkeleyDB module has a preConfigure hook to generate a configuration file used by Makefile.PL:
{ buildPerlPackage, fetchurl, db }:
buildPerlPackage rec {
name = "BerkeleyDB-0.36";
src = fetchurl {
url = "mirror://cpan/authors/id/P/PM/PMQS/${name}.tar.gz";
sha256 = "07xf50riarb60l1h6m2dqmql8q5dij619712fsgw7ach04d8g3z1";
};
preConfigure = ''
echo "LIB = ${db.out}/lib" > config.in
echo "INCLUDE = ${db.dev}/include" >> config.in
'';
}
Dependencies on other Perl packages can be specified in the buildInputs and propagatedBuildInputs attributes. If something is exclusively a build-time dependency, use buildInputs; if it’s (also) a runtime dependency, use propagatedBuildInputs. For instance, this builds a Perl module that has runtime dependencies on a bunch of other modules:
ClassC3Componentised = buildPerlPackage rec {
name = "Class-C3-Componentised-1.0004";
src = fetchurl {
url = "mirror://cpan/authors/id/A/AS/ASH/${name}.tar.gz";
sha256 = "0xql73jkcdbq4q9m0b0rnca6nrlvf5hyzy8is0crdk65bynvs8q1";
};
propagatedBuildInputs = [
ClassC3 ClassInspector TestException MROCompat
];
};
On Darwin, if a script has too many -I flags in its first line (its “shebang line”), it will not run. This can be worked around by calling the dirshortenPerlShebang function from the postInstall phase:
{ stdenv, buildPerlPackage, fetchurl, shortenPerlShebang }:
ImageExifTool = buildPerlPackage {
pname = "Image-ExifTool";
version = "11.50";
src = fetchurl {
url = "https://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/Image-ExifTool-11.50.tar.gz";
sha256 = "0d8v48y94z8maxkmw1rv7v9m0jg2dc8xbp581njb6yhr7abwqdv3";
};
buildInputs = stdenv.lib.optional stdenv.isDarwin shortenPerlShebang;
postInstall = stdenv.lib.optional stdenv.isDarwin ''
shortenPerlShebang $out/bin/exiftool
'';
};
This will remove the -I flags from the shebang line, rewrite them in the use lib form, and put them on the next line instead. This function can be given any number of Perl scripts as arguments; it will modify them in-place.
Nix expressions for Perl packages can be generated (almost) automatically from CPAN. This is done by the program nix-generate-from-cpan, which can be installed as follows:
$ nix-env -i nix-generate-from-cpan
This program takes a Perl module name, looks it up on CPAN, fetches and unpacks the corresponding package, and prints a Nix expression on standard output. For example:
$ nix-generate-from-cpan XML::Simple
XMLSimple = buildPerlPackage rec {
name = "XML-Simple-2.22";
src = fetchurl {
url = "mirror://cpan/authors/id/G/GR/GRANTM/${name}.tar.gz";
sha256 = "b9450ef22ea9644ae5d6ada086dc4300fa105be050a2030ebd4efd28c198eb49";
};
propagatedBuildInputs = [ XMLNamespaceSupport XMLSAX XMLSAXExpat ];
meta = {
description = "An API for simple XML files";
license = with stdenv.lib.licenses; [ artistic1 gpl1Plus ];
};
};
The output can be pasted into pkgs/top-level/perl-packages.nix or wherever else you need it.
Nixpkgs has experimental support for cross-compiling Perl modules. In many cases, it will just work out of the box, even for modules with native extensions. Sometimes, however, the Makefile.PL for a module may (indirectly) import a native module. In that case, you will need to make a stub for that module that will satisfy the Makefile.PL and install it into lib/perl5/site_perl/cross_perl/${perl.version}. See the postInstall for DBI for an example.
Several versions of the Python interpreter are available on Nix, as well as a high amount of packages. The attribute python refers to the default interpreter, which is currently CPython 2.7. It is also possible to refer to specific versions, e.g. python35 refers to CPython 3.5, and pypy refers to the default PyPy interpreter.
Python is used a lot, and in different ways. This affects also how it is packaged. In the case of Python on Nix, an important distinction is made between whether the package is considered primarily an application, or whether it should be used as a library, i.e., of primary interest are the modules in site-packages that should be importable.
In the Nixpkgs tree Python applications can be found throughout, depending on what they do, and are called from the main package set. Python libraries, however, are in separate sets, with one set per interpreter version.
The interpreters have several common attributes. One of these attributes is pkgs, which is a package set of Python libraries for this specific interpreter. E.g., the toolz package corresponding to the default interpreter is python.pkgs.toolz, and the CPython 3.5 version is python35.pkgs.toolz. The main package set contains aliases to these package sets, e.g. pythonPackages refers to python.pkgs and python35Packages to python35.pkgs.
The Nix and NixOS manuals explain how packages are generally installed. In the case of Python and Nix, it is important to make a distinction between whether the package is considered an application or a library.
Applications on Nix are typically installed into your user profile imperatively using nix-env -i, and on NixOS declaratively by adding the package name to environment.systemPackages in /etc/nixos/configuration.nix. Dependencies such as libraries are automatically installed and should not be installed explicitly.
The same goes for Python applications and libraries. Python applications can be installed in your profile. But Python libraries you would like to use for development cannot be installed, at least not individually, because they won’t be able to find each other resulting in import errors. Instead, it is possible to create an environment with python.buildEnv or python.withPackages where the interpreter and other executables are able to find each other and all of the modules.
In the following examples we create an environment with Python 3.5, numpy and toolz. As you may imagine, there is one limitation here, and that’s that you can install only one environment at a time. You will notice the complaints about collisions when you try to install a second environment.
Create a file, e.g. build.nix, with the following expression
with import <nixpkgs> {};
python35.withPackages (ps: with ps; [ numpy toolz ])
and install it in your profile with
nix-env -if build.nix
Now you can use the Python interpreter, as well as the extra packages (numpy, toolz) that you added to the environment.
If you prefer to, you could also add the environment as a package override to the Nixpkgs set, e.g. using config.nix,
{ # ...
packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; {
myEnv = python35.withPackages (ps: with ps; [ numpy toolz ]);
};
}
and install it in your profile with
nix-env -iA nixpkgs.myEnv
The environment is is installed by referring to the attribute, and considering the nixpkgs channel was used.
For the sake of completeness, here’s another example how to install the environment system-wide.
{ # ...
environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
(python35.withPackages(ps: with ps; [ numpy toolz ]))
];
}
The examples in the previous section showed how to install a Python environment into a profile. For development you may need to use multiple environments. nix-shell gives the possibility to temporarily load another environment, akin to virtualenv.
There are two methods for loading a shell with Python packages. The first and recommended method is to create an environment with python.buildEnv or python.withPackages and load that. E.g.
$ nix-shell -p 'python35.withPackages(ps: with ps; [ numpy toolz ])'
opens a shell from which you can launch the interpreter
[nix-shell:~] python3
The other method, which is not recommended, does not create an environment and requires you to list the packages directly,
$ nix-shell -p python35.pkgs.numpy python35.pkgs.toolz
Again, it is possible to launch the interpreter from the shell. The Python interpreter has the attribute pkgs which contains all Python libraries for that specific interpreter.
As explained in the Nix manual, nix-shell can also load an expression from a .nix file. Say we want to have Python 3.5, numpy and toolz, like before, in an environment. Consider a shell.nix file with
with import <nixpkgs> {};
(python35.withPackages (ps: [ps.numpy ps.toolz])).env
Executing nix-shell gives you again a Nix shell from which you can run Python.
What’s happening here?
We begin with importing the Nix Packages collections. import <nixpkgs> imports the <nixpkgs> function, {} calls it and the with statement brings all attributes of nixpkgs in the local scope. These attributes form the main package set.
Then we create a Python 3.5 environment with the withPackages function.
The withPackages function expects us to provide a function as an argument that takes the set of all python packages and returns a list of packages to include in the environment. Here, we select the packages numpy and toolz from the package set.
To combine this with mkShell you can:
with import <nixpkgs> {};
let
pythonEnv = python35.withPackages (ps: [
ps.numpy
ps.toolz
]);
in mkShell {
buildInputs = [
pythonEnv
hello
];
}
A convenient option with nix-shell is the --run option, with which you can execute a command in the nix-shell. We can e.g. directly open a Python shell
$ nix-shell -p python35Packages.numpy python35Packages.toolz --run "python3"
or run a script
$ nix-shell -p python35Packages.numpy python35Packages.toolz --run "python3 myscript.py"
In fact, for the second use case, there is a more convenient method. You can add a shebang to your script specifying which dependencies nix-shell needs. With the following shebang, you can just execute ./myscript.py, and it will make available all dependencies and run the script in the python3 shell.
#! /usr/bin/env nix-shell #! nix-shell -i python3 -p "python3.withPackages(ps: [ps.numpy])" import numpy print(numpy.__version__)
Now that you know how to get a working Python environment with Nix, it is time to go forward and start actually developing with Python. We will first have a look at how Python packages are packaged on Nix. Then, we will look at how you can use development mode with your code.
With Nix all packages are built by functions. The main function in Nix for building Python libraries is buildPythonPackage. Let’s see how we can build the toolz package.
{ lib, buildPythonPackage, fetchPypi }:
buildPythonPackage rec {
pname = "toolz";
version = "0.7.4";
src = fetchPypi {
inherit pname version;
sha256 = "43c2c9e5e7a16b6c88ba3088a9bfc82f7db8e13378be7c78d6c14a5f8ed05afd";
};
doCheck = false;
meta = with lib; {
homepage = https://github.com/pytoolz/toolz;
description = "List processing tools and functional utilities";
license = licenses.bsd3;
maintainers = with maintainers; [ fridh ];
};
}
What happens here? The function buildPythonPackage is called and as argument it accepts a set. In this case the set is a recursive set, rec. One of the arguments is the name of the package, which consists of a basename (generally following the name on PyPi) and a version. Another argument, src specifies the source, which in this case is fetched from PyPI using the helper function fetchPypi. The argument doCheck is used to set whether tests should be run when building the package. Furthermore, we specify some (optional) meta information. The output of the function is a derivation.
An expression for toolz can be found in the Nixpkgs repository. As explained in the introduction of this Python section, a derivation of toolz is available for each interpreter version, e.g. python35.pkgs.toolz refers to the toolz derivation corresponding to the CPython 3.5 interpreter. The above example works when you’re directly working on pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix in the Nixpkgs repository. Often though, you will want to test a Nix expression outside of the Nixpkgs tree.
The following expression creates a derivation for the toolz package, and adds it along with a numpy package to a Python environment.
with import <nixpkgs> {};
( let
my_toolz = python35.pkgs.buildPythonPackage rec {
pname = "toolz";
version = "0.7.4";
src = python35.pkgs.fetchPypi {
inherit pname version;
sha256 = "43c2c9e5e7a16b6c88ba3088a9bfc82f7db8e13378be7c78d6c14a5f8ed05afd";
};
doCheck = false;
meta = {
homepage = "https://github.com/pytoolz/toolz/";
description = "List processing tools and functional utilities";
};
};
in python35.withPackages (ps: [ps.numpy my_toolz])
).env
Executing nix-shell will result in an environment in which you can use Python 3.5 and the toolz package. As you can see we had to explicitly mention for which Python version we want to build a package.
So, what did we do here? Well, we took the Nix expression that we used earlier to build a Python environment, and said that we wanted to include our own version of toolz, named my_toolz. To introduce our own package in the scope of withPackages we used a let expression. You can see that we used ps.numpy to select numpy from the nixpkgs package set (ps). We did not take toolz from the Nixpkgs package set this time, but instead took our own version that we introduced with the let expression.
Our example, toolz, does not have any dependencies on other Python packages or system libraries. According to the manual, buildPythonPackage uses the arguments buildInputs and propagatedBuildInputs to specify dependencies. If something is exclusively a build-time dependency, then the dependency should be included as a buildInput, but if it is (also) a runtime dependency, then it should be added to propagatedBuildInputs. Test dependencies are considered build-time dependencies and passed to checkInputs.
The following example shows which arguments are given to buildPythonPackage in order to build datashape.
{ lib, buildPythonPackage, fetchPypi, numpy, multipledispatch, dateutil, pytest }:
buildPythonPackage rec {
pname = "datashape";
version = "0.4.7";
src = fetchPypi {
inherit pname version;
sha256 = "14b2ef766d4c9652ab813182e866f493475e65e558bed0822e38bf07bba1a278";
};
checkInputs = [ pytest ];
propagatedBuildInputs = [ numpy multipledispatch dateutil ];
meta = with lib; {
homepage = https://github.com/ContinuumIO/datashape;
description = "A data description language";
license = licenses.bsd2;
maintainers = with maintainers; [ fridh ];
};
}
We can see several runtime dependencies, numpy, multipledispatch, and dateutil. Furthermore, we have one checkInputs, i.e. pytest. pytest is a test runner and is only used during the checkPhase and is therefore not added to propagatedBuildInputs.
In the previous case we had only dependencies on other Python packages to consider. Occasionally you have also system libraries to consider. E.g., lxml provides Python bindings to libxml2 and libxslt. These libraries are only required when building the bindings and are therefore added as buildInputs.
{ lib, pkgs, buildPythonPackage, fetchPypi }:
buildPythonPackage rec {
pname = "lxml";
version = "3.4.4";
src = fetchPypi {
inherit pname version;
sha256 = "16a0fa97hym9ysdk3rmqz32xdjqmy4w34ld3rm3jf5viqjx65lxk";
};
buildInputs = [ pkgs.libxml2 pkgs.libxslt ];
meta = with lib; {
description = "Pythonic binding for the libxml2 and libxslt libraries";
homepage = https://lxml.de;
license = licenses.bsd3;
maintainers = with maintainers; [ sjourdois ];
};
}
In this example lxml and Nix are able to work out exactly where the relevant files of the dependencies are. This is not always the case.
The example below shows bindings to The Fastest Fourier Transform in the West, commonly known as FFTW. On Nix we have separate packages of FFTW for the different types of floats ("single", "double", "long-double"). The bindings need all three types, and therefore we add all three as buildInputs. The bindings don’t expect to find each of them in a different folder, and therefore we have to set LDFLAGS and CFLAGS.
{ lib, pkgs, buildPythonPackage, fetchPypi, numpy, scipy }:
buildPythonPackage rec {
pname = "pyFFTW";
version = "0.9.2";
src = fetchPypi {
inherit pname version;
sha256 = "f6bbb6afa93085409ab24885a1a3cdb8909f095a142f4d49e346f2bd1b789074";
};
buildInputs = [ pkgs.fftw pkgs.fftwFloat pkgs.fftwLongDouble];
propagatedBuildInputs = [ numpy scipy ];
# Tests cannot import pyfftw. pyfftw works fine though.
doCheck = false;
preConfigure = ''
export LDFLAGS="-L${pkgs.fftw.dev}/lib -L${pkgs.fftwFloat.out}/lib -L${pkgs.fftwLongDouble.out}/lib"
export CFLAGS="-I${pkgs.fftw.dev}/include -I${pkgs.fftwFloat.dev}/include -I${pkgs.fftwLongDouble.dev}/include"
'';
meta = with lib; {
description = "A pythonic wrapper around FFTW, the FFT library, presenting a unified interface for all the supported transforms";
homepage = http://hgomersall.github.com/pyFFTW;
license = with licenses; [ bsd2 bsd3 ];
maintainers = with maintainers; [ fridh ];
};
}
Note also the line doCheck = false;, we explicitly disabled running the test-suite.
As a Python developer you’re likely aware of development mode (python setup.py develop); instead of installing the package this command creates a special link to the project code. That way, you can run updated code without having to reinstall after each and every change you make. Development mode is also available. Let’s see how you can use it.
In the previous Nix expression the source was fetched from an url. We can also refer to a local source instead using src = ./path/to/source/tree;
If we create a shell.nix file which calls buildPythonPackage, and if src is a local source, and if the local source has a setup.py, then development mode is activated.
In the following example we create a simple environment that has a Python 3.5 version of our package in it, as well as its dependencies and other packages we like to have in the environment, all specified with propagatedBuildInputs. Indeed, we can just add any package we like to have in our environment to propagatedBuildInputs.
with import <nixpkgs> {};
with python35Packages;
buildPythonPackage rec {
name = "mypackage";
src = ./path/to/package/source;
propagatedBuildInputs = [ pytest numpy pkgs.libsndfile ];
}
It is important to note that due to how development mode is implemented on Nix it is not possible to have multiple packages simultaneously in development mode.
So far we discussed how you can use Python on Nix, and how you can develop with it. We’ve looked at how you write expressions to package Python packages, and we looked at how you can create environments in which specified packages are available.
At some point you’ll likely have multiple packages which you would like to be able to use in different projects. In order to minimise unnecessary duplication we now look at how you can maintain a repository with your own packages. The important functions here are import and callPackage.
Earlier we created a Python environment using withPackages, and included the toolz package via a let expression. Let’s split the package definition from the environment definition.
We first create a function that builds toolz in ~/path/to/toolz/release.nix
{ lib, buildPythonPackage }:
buildPythonPackage rec {
pname = "toolz";
version = "0.7.4";
src = fetchPypi {
inherit pname version;
sha256 = "43c2c9e5e7a16b6c88ba3088a9bfc82f7db8e13378be7c78d6c14a5f8ed05afd";
};
meta = with lib; {
homepage = "https://github.com/pytoolz/toolz/";
description = "List processing tools and functional utilities";
license = licenses.bsd3;
maintainers = with maintainers; [ fridh ];
};
}
It takes an argument buildPythonPackage. We now call this function using callPackage in the definition of our environment
with import <nixpkgs> {};
( let
toolz = callPackage /path/to/toolz/release.nix {
buildPythonPackage = python35Packages.buildPythonPackage;
};
in python35.withPackages (ps: [ ps.numpy toolz ])
).env
Important to remember is that the Python version for which the package is made depends on the python derivation that is passed to buildPythonPackage. Nix tries to automatically pass arguments when possible, which is why generally you don’t explicitly define which python derivation should be used. In the above example we use buildPythonPackage that is part of the set python35Packages, and in this case the python35 interpreter is automatically used.
Versions 2.7, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7 and 3.8 of the CPython interpreter are available as respectively python27, python35, python36, python37 and python38. The aliases python2 and python3 correspond to respectively python27 and python37. The default interpreter, python, maps to python2. The PyPy interpreters compatible with Python 2.7 and 3 are available as pypy27 and pypy3, with aliases pypy2 mapping to pypy27 and pypy mapping to pypy2. The Nix expressions for the interpreters can be found in pkgs/development/interpreters/python.
All packages depending on any Python interpreter get appended out/{python.sitePackages} to $PYTHONPATH if such directory exists.
To reduce closure size the Tkinter/tkinter is available as a separate package, pythonPackages.tkinter.
Each interpreter has the following attributes:
libPrefix. Name of the folder in ${python}/lib/ for corresponding interpreter.
interpreter. Alias for ${python}/bin/${executable}.
buildEnv. Function to build python interpreter environments with extra packages bundled together. See section python.buildEnv function for usage and documentation.
withPackages. Simpler interface to buildEnv. See section python.withPackages function for usage and documentation.
sitePackages. Alias for lib/${libPrefix}/site-packages.
executable. Name of the interpreter executable, e.g. python3.7.
pkgs. Set of Python packages for that specific interpreter. The package set can be modified by overriding the interpreter and passing packageOverrides.
Python libraries and applications that use setuptools or distutils are typically built with respectively the buildPythonPackage and buildPythonApplication functions. These two functions also support installing a wheel.
All Python packages reside in pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix and all applications elsewhere. In case a package is used as both a library and an application, then the package should be in pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix since only those packages are made available for all interpreter versions. The preferred location for library expressions is in pkgs/development/python-modules. It is important that these packages are called from pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix and not elsewhere, to guarantee the right version of the package is built.
Based on the packages defined in pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix an attribute set is created for each available Python interpreter. The available sets are
pkgs.python27Packages
pkgs.python35Packages
pkgs.python36Packages
pkgs.python37Packages
pkgs.pypyPackages
and the aliases
pkgs.python2Packages pointing to pkgs.python27Packages
pkgs.python3Packages pointing to pkgs.python37Packages
pkgs.pythonPackages pointing to pkgs.python2Packages
The buildPythonPackage function is implemented in pkgs/development/interpreters/python/mk-python-derivation using setup hooks.
The following is an example:
{ lib, buildPythonPackage, fetchPypi, hypothesis, setuptools_scm, attrs, py, setuptools, six, pluggy }:
buildPythonPackage rec {
pname = "pytest";
version = "3.3.1";
src = fetchPypi {
inherit pname version;
sha256 = "cf8436dc59d8695346fcd3ab296de46425ecab00d64096cebe79fb51ecb2eb93";
};
postPatch = ''
# don't test bash builtins
rm testing/test_argcomplete.py
'';
checkInputs = [ hypothesis ];
nativeBuildInputs = [ setuptools_scm ];
propagatedBuildInputs = [ attrs py setuptools six pluggy ];
meta = with lib; {
maintainers = with maintainers; [ domenkozar lovek323 madjar lsix ];
description = "Framework for writing tests";
};
}
The buildPythonPackage mainly does four things:
In the buildPhase, it calls ${python.interpreter} setup.py bdist_wheel to build a wheel binary zipfile.
In the installPhase, it installs the wheel file using pip install *.whl.
In the postFixup phase, the wrapPythonPrograms bash function is called to wrap all programs in the $out/bin/* directory to include $PATH environment variable and add dependent libraries to script’s sys.path.
In the installCheck phase, ${python.interpreter} setup.py test is ran.
By default tests are run because doCheck = true. Test dependencies, like e.g. the test runner, should be added to checkInputs.
By default meta.platforms is set to the same value as the interpreter unless overridden otherwise.
All parameters from stdenv.mkDerivation function are still supported. The following are specific to buildPythonPackage:
catchConflicts ? true: If true, abort package build if a package name appears more than once in dependency tree. Default is true.
disabled ? false: If true, package is not built for the particular Python interpreter version.
dontWrapPythonPrograms ? false: Skip wrapping of python programs.
permitUserSite ? false: Skip setting the PYTHONNOUSERSITE environment variable in wrapped programs.
installFlags ? []: A list of strings. Arguments to be passed to pip install. To pass options to python setup.py install, use --install-option. E.g., installFlags=["--install-option='--cpp_implementation'"].
format ? "setuptools": Format of the source. Valid options are "setuptools", "pyproject", "flit", "wheel", and "other". "setuptools" is for when the source has a setup.py and setuptools is used to build a wheel, flit, in case flit should be used to build a wheel, and wheel in case a wheel is provided. Use other when a custom buildPhase and/or installPhase is needed.
makeWrapperArgs ? []: A list of strings. Arguments to be passed to makeWrapper, which wraps generated binaries. By default, the arguments to makeWrapper set PATH and PYTHONPATH environment variables before calling the binary. Additional arguments here can allow a developer to set environment variables which will be available when the binary is run. For example, makeWrapperArgs = ["--set FOO BAR" "--set BAZ QUX"].
namePrefix: Prepends text to ${name} parameter. In case of libraries, this defaults to "python3.5-" for Python 3.5, etc., and in case of applications to "".
pythonPath ? []: List of packages to be added into $PYTHONPATH. Packages in pythonPath are not propagated (contrary to propagatedBuildInputs).
preShellHook: Hook to execute commands before shellHook.
postShellHook: Hook to execute commands after shellHook.
removeBinByteCode ? true: Remove bytecode from /bin. Bytecode is only created when the filenames end with .py.
setupPyGlobalFlags ? []: List of flags passed to setup.py command.
setupPyBuildFlags ? []: List of flags passed to setup.py build_ext command.
The stdenv.mkDerivation function accepts various parameters for describing build inputs (see “Specifying dependencies”). The following are of special interest for Python packages, either because these are primarily used, or because their behaviour is different:
nativeBuildInputs ? []: Build-time only dependencies. Typically executables as well as the items listed in setup_requires.
buildInputs ? []: Build and/or run-time dependencies that need to be be compiled for the host machine. Typically non-Python libraries which are being linked.
checkInputs ? []: Dependencies needed for running the checkPhase. These are added to nativeBuildInputs when doCheck = true. Items listed in tests_require go here.
propagatedBuildInputs ? []: Aside from propagating dependencies, buildPythonPackage also injects code into and wraps executables with the paths included in this list. Items listed in install_requires go here.
The buildPythonPackage function has a overridePythonAttrs method that can be used to override the package. In the following example we create an environment where we have the blaze package using an older version of pandas. We override first the Python interpreter and pass packageOverrides which contains the overrides for packages in the package set.
with import <nixpkgs> {};
(let
python = let
packageOverrides = self: super: {
pandas = super.pandas.overridePythonAttrs(old: rec {
version = "0.19.1";
src = super.fetchPypi {
pname = "pandas";
inherit version;
sha256 = "08blshqj9zj1wyjhhw3kl2vas75vhhicvv72flvf1z3jvapgw295";
};
});
};
in pkgs.python3.override {inherit packageOverrides; self = python;};
in python.withPackages(ps: [ps.blaze])).env
The buildPythonApplication function is practically the same as buildPythonPackage. The main purpose of this function is to build a Python package where one is interested only in the executables, and not importable modules. For that reason, when adding this package to a python.buildEnv, the modules won’t be made available.
Another difference is that buildPythonPackage by default prefixes the names of the packages with the version of the interpreter. Because this is irrelevant for applications, the prefix is omitted.
When packaging a python application with buildPythonApplication, it should be called with callPackage and passed python or pythonPackages (possibly specifying an interpreter version), like this:
{ lib, python3Packages }:
python3Packages.buildPythonApplication rec {
pname = "luigi";
version = "2.7.9";
src = python3Packages.fetchPypi {
inherit pname version;
sha256 = "035w8gqql36zlan0xjrzz9j4lh9hs0qrsgnbyw07qs7lnkvbdv9x";
};
propagatedBuildInputs = with python3Packages; [ tornado_4 python-daemon ];
meta = with lib; {
...
};
}
This is then added to all-packages.nix just as any other application would be.
luigi = callPackage ../applications/networking/cluster/luigi { };
Since the package is an application, a consumer doesn’t need to care about python versions or modules, which is why they don’t go in pythonPackages.
A distinction is made between applications and libraries, however, sometimes a package is used as both. In this case the package is added as a library to python-packages.nix and as an application to all-packages.nix. To reduce duplication the toPythonApplication can be used to convert a library to an application.
The Nix expression shall use buildPythonPackage and be called from python-packages.nix. A reference shall be created from all-packages.nix to the attribute in python-packages.nix, and the toPythonApplication shall be applied to the reference:
youtube-dl = with pythonPackages; toPythonApplication youtube-dl;
In some cases, such as bindings, a package is created using stdenv.mkDerivation and added as attribute in all-packages.nix. The Python bindings should be made available from python-packages.nix. The toPythonModule function takes a derivation and makes certain Python-specific modifications.
opencv = toPythonModule (pkgs.opencv.override {
enablePython = true;
pythonPackages = self;
});
Do pay attention to passing in the right Python version!
Python environments can be created using the low-level pkgs.buildEnv function. This example shows how to create an environment that has the Pyramid Web Framework. Saving the following as default.nix
with import <nixpkgs> {};
python.buildEnv.override {
extraLibs = [ pythonPackages.pyramid ];
ignoreCollisions = true;
}
and running nix-build will create
/nix/store/cf1xhjwzmdki7fasgr4kz6di72ykicl5-python-2.7.8-env
with wrapped binaries in bin/.
You can also use the env attribute to create local environments with needed packages installed. This is somewhat comparable to virtualenv. For example, running nix-shell with the following shell.nix
with import <nixpkgs> {};
(python3.buildEnv.override {
extraLibs = with python3Packages; [ numpy requests ];
}).env
will drop you into a shell where Python will have the specified packages in its path.
extraLibs: List of packages installed inside the environment.
postBuild: Shell command executed after the build of environment.
ignoreCollisions: Ignore file collisions inside the environment (default is false).
permitUserSite: Skip setting the PYTHONNOUSERSITE environment variable in wrapped binaries in the environment.
The python.withPackages function provides a simpler interface to the python.buildEnv functionality. It takes a function as an argument that is passed the set of python packages and returns the list of the packages to be included in the environment. Using the withPackages function, the previous example for the Pyramid Web Framework environment can be written like this:
with import <nixpkgs> {};
python.withPackages (ps: [ps.pyramid])
withPackages passes the correct package set for the specific interpreter version as an argument to the function. In the above example, ps equals pythonPackages. But you can also easily switch to using python3:
with import <nixpkgs> {};
python3.withPackages (ps: [ps.pyramid])
Now, ps is set to python3Packages, matching the version of the interpreter.
As python.withPackages simply uses python.buildEnv under the hood, it also supports the env attribute. The shell.nix file from the previous section can thus be also written like this:
with import <nixpkgs> {};
(python36.withPackages (ps: [ps.numpy ps.requests])).env
In contrast to python.buildEnv, python.withPackages does not support the more advanced options such as ignoreCollisions = true or postBuild. If you need them, you have to use python.buildEnv.
Python 2 namespace packages may provide __init__.py that collide. In that case python.buildEnv should be used with ignoreCollisions = true.
The following are setup hooks specifically for Python packages. Most of these are used in buildPythonPackage.
eggUnpackhook to move an egg to the correct folder so it can be installed with the eggInstallHook
eggBuildHook to skip building for eggs.
eggInstallHook to install eggs.
flitBuildHook to build a wheel using flit.
pipBuildHook to build a wheel using pip and PEP 517. Note a build system (e.g. setuptools or flit) should still be added as nativeBuildInput.
pipInstallHook to install wheels.
pytestCheckHook to run tests with pytest.
pythonCatchConflictsHook to check whether a Python package is not already existing.
pythonImportsCheckHook to check whether importing the listed modules works.
pythonRemoveBinBytecode to remove bytecode from the /bin folder.
setuptoolsBuildHook to build a wheel using setuptools.
setuptoolsCheckHook to run tests with python setup.py test.
venvShellHook to source a Python 3 venv at the venvDir location. A venv is created if it does not yet exist.
wheelUnpackHook to move a wheel to the correct folder so it can be installed with the pipInstallHook.
Development or editable mode is supported. To develop Python packages buildPythonPackage has additional logic inside shellPhase to run pip install -e . --prefix $TMPDIR/for the package.
Warning: shellPhase is executed only if setup.py exists.
Given a default.nix:
with import <nixpkgs> {};
pythonPackages.buildPythonPackage {
name = "myproject";
buildInputs = with pythonPackages; [ pyramid ];
src = ./.;
}
Running nix-shell with no arguments should give you the environment in which the package would be built with nix-build.
Shortcut to setup environments with C headers/libraries and python packages:
nix-shell -p pythonPackages.pyramid zlib libjpeg git
Note: There is a boolean value lib.inNixShell set to true if nix-shell is invoked.
Packages inside nixpkgs are written by hand. However many tools exist in community to help save time. No tool is preferred at the moment.
pypi2nix: Generate Nix expressions for your Python project. Note that sharing derivations from pypi2nix with nixpkgs is possible but not encouraged.
python2nix by Vladimir Kirillov.
The Python interpreters are now built deterministically. Minor modifications had to be made to the interpreters in order to generate deterministic bytecode. This has security implications and is relevant for those using Python in a nix-shell.
When the environment variable DETERMINISTIC_BUILD is set, all bytecode will have timestamp 1. The buildPythonPackage function sets DETERMINISTIC_BUILD=1 and PYTHONHASHSEED=0. Both are also exported in nix-shell.
It is recommended to test packages as part of the build process. Source distributions (sdist) often include test files, but not always.
By default the command python setup.py test is run as part of the checkPhase, but often it is necessary to pass a custom checkPhase. An example of such a situation is when py.test is used.
Non-working tests can often be deselected. By default buildPythonPackage runs python setup.py test. Most python modules follows the standard test protocol where the pytest runner can be used instead. py.test supports a -k parameter to ignore test methods or classes:
buildPythonPackage {
# ...
# assumes the tests are located in tests
checkInputs = [ pytest ];
checkPhase = ''
py.test -k 'not function_name and not other_function' tests
'';
}
Tests that attempt to access $HOME can be fixed by using the following work-around before running tests (e.g. preCheck): export HOME=$(mktemp -d)
Consider the packages A and B that depend on each other. When packaging B, a solution is to override package A not to depend on B as an input. The same should also be done when packaging A.
We can override the interpreter and pass packageOverrides. In the following example we rename the pandas package and build it.
with import <nixpkgs> {};
(let
python = let
packageOverrides = self: super: {
pandas = super.pandas.overridePythonAttrs(old: {name="foo";});
};
in pkgs.python35.override {inherit packageOverrides;};
in python.withPackages(ps: [ps.pandas])).env
Using nix-build on this expression will build an environment that contains the package pandas but with the new name foo.
All packages in the package set will use the renamed package. A typical use case is to switch to another version of a certain package. For example, in the Nixpkgs repository we have multiple versions of django and scipy. In the following example we use a different version of scipy and create an environment that uses it. All packages in the Python package set will now use the updated scipy version.
with import <nixpkgs> {};
( let
packageOverrides = self: super: {
scipy = super.scipy_0_17;
};
in (pkgs.python35.override {inherit packageOverrides;}).withPackages (ps: [ps.blaze])
).env
The requested package blaze depends on pandas which itself depends on scipy.
If you want the whole of Nixpkgs to use your modifications, then you can use overlays as explained in this manual. In the following example we build a inkscape using a different version of numpy.
let
pkgs = import <nixpkgs> {};
newpkgs = import pkgs.path { overlays = [ (pkgsself: pkgssuper: {
python27 = let
packageOverrides = self: super: {
numpy = super.numpy_1_10;
};
in pkgssuper.python27.override {inherit packageOverrides;};
} ) ]; };
in newpkgs.inkscape
Executing python setup.py bdist_wheel in a nix-shellfails with
ValueError: ZIP does not support timestamps before 1980
This is because files from the Nix store (which have a timestamp of the UNIX epoch of January 1, 1970) are included in the .ZIP, but .ZIP archives follow the DOS convention of counting timestamps from 1980.
The command bdist_wheel reads the SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH environment variable, which nix-shell sets to 1. Unsetting this variable or giving it a value corresponding to 1980 or later enables building wheels.
Use 1980 as timestamp:
nix-shell --run "SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH=315532800 python3 setup.py bdist_wheel"
or the current time:
nix-shell --run "SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH=$(date +%s) python3 setup.py bdist_wheel"
or unset SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH:
nix-shell --run "unset SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH; python3 setup.py bdist_wheel"
If you get the following error:
could not create '/nix/store/6l1bvljpy8gazlsw2aw9skwwp4pmvyxw-python-2.7.8/etc': Permission denied
This is a known bug in setuptools. Setuptools install_data does not respect --prefix. An example of such package using the feature is pkgs/tools/X11/xpra/default.nix. As workaround install it as an extra preInstall step:
${python.interpreter} setup.py install_data --install-dir=$out --root=$out
sed -i '/ = data\_files/d' setup.py
On most operating systems a global site-packages is maintained. This however becomes problematic if you want to run multiple Python versions or have multiple versions of certain libraries for your projects. Generally, you would solve such issues by creating virtual environments using virtualenv.
On Nix each package has an isolated dependency tree which, in the case of Python, guarantees the right versions of the interpreter and libraries or packages are available. There is therefore no need to maintain a global site-packages.
If you want to create a Python environment for development, then the recommended method is to use nix-shell, either with or without the python.buildEnv function.
While this approach is not very idiomatic from Nix perspective, it can still be useful when dealing with pre-existing projects or in situations where it’s not feasible or desired to write derivations for all required dependencies.
This is an example of a default.nix for a nix-shell, which allows to consume a virtual environment created by venv, and install python modules through pip the traditional way.
Create this default.nix file, together with a requirements.txt and simply execute nix-shell.
with import <nixpkgs> { };
let
pythonPackages = python3Packages;
in pkgs.mkShell rec {
name = "impurePythonEnv";
venvDir = "./.venv";
buildInputs = [
# A python interpreter including the 'venv' module is required to bootstrap
# the environment.
pythonPackages.python
# This execute some shell code to initialize a venv in $venvDir before
# dropping into the shell
pythonPackages.venvShellHook
# Those are dependencies that we would like to use from nixpkgs, which will
# add them to PYTHONPATH and thus make them accessible from within the venv.
pythonPackages.numpy
pythonPackages.requests
# In this particular example, in order to compile any binary extensions they may
# require, the python modules listed in the hypothetical requirements.txt need
# the following packages to be installed locally:
taglib
openssl
git
libxml2
libxslt
libzip
zlib
];
# Now we can execute any commands within the virtual environment.
# This is optional and can be left out to run pip manually.
postShellHook = ''
pip install -r requirements.txt
'';
}
In case the supplied venvShellHook is insufficient, or when python 2 support is needed, you can define your own shell hook and adapt to your needs like in the following example:
with import <nixpkgs> { };
let
venvDir = "./.venv";
pythonPackages = python3Packages;
in pkgs.mkShell rec {
name = "impurePythonEnv";
buildInputs = [
pythonPackages.python
# Needed when using python 2.7
# pythonPackages.virtualenv
# ...
];
# This is very close to how venvShellHook is implemented, but
# adapted to use 'virtualenv'
shellHook = ''
SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH=$(date +%s)
if [ -d "${venvDir}" ]; then
echo "Skipping venv creation, '${venvDir}' already exists"
else
echo "Creating new venv environment in path: '${venvDir}'"
# Note that the module venv was only introduced in python 3, so for 2.7
# this needs to be replaced with a call to virtualenv
${pythonPackages.python.interpreter} -m venv "${venvDir}"
fi
# Under some circumstances it might be necessary to add your virtual
# environment to PYTHONPATH, which you can do here too;
# PYTHONPATH=$PWD/${venvDir}/${pythonPackages.python.sitePackages}/:$PYTHONPATH
source "${venvDir}/bin/activate"
# As in the previous example, this is optional.
pip install -r requirements.txt
'';
}
Note that the pip install is an imperative action. So every time nix-shell is executed it will attempt to download the python modules listed in requirements.txt. However these will be cached locally within the virtualenv folder and not downloaded again.
If you need to change a package’s attribute(s) from configuration.nix you could do:
nixpkgs.config.packageOverrides = super: {
python = super.python.override {
packageOverrides = python-self: python-super: {
zerobin = python-super.zerobin.overrideAttrs (oldAttrs: {
src = super.fetchgit {
url = "https://github.com/sametmax/0bin";
rev = "a344dbb18fe7a855d0742b9a1cede7ce423b34ec";
sha256 = "16d769kmnrpbdr0ph0whyf4yff5df6zi4kmwx7sz1d3r6c8p6xji";
};
});
};
};
};
pythonPackages.zerobin is now globally overridden. All packages and also the zerobin NixOS service use the new definition. Note that python-super refers to the old package set and python-self to the new, overridden version.
To modify only a Python package set instead of a whole Python derivation, use this snippet:
myPythonPackages = pythonPackages.override {
overrides = self: super: {
zerobin = ...;
};
}
Use the following overlay template:
self: super: {
python = super.python.override {
packageOverrides = python-self: python-super: {
zerobin = python-super.zerobin.overrideAttrs (oldAttrs: {
src = super.fetchgit {
url = "https://github.com/sametmax/0bin";
rev = "a344dbb18fe7a855d0742b9a1cede7ce423b34ec";
sha256 = "16d769kmnrpbdr0ph0whyf4yff5df6zi4kmwx7sz1d3r6c8p6xji";
};
});
};
};
}
A site.cfg is created that configures BLAS based on the blas parameter of the numpy derivation. By passing in mkl, numpy and packages depending on numpy will be built with mkl.
The following is an overlay that configures numpy to use mkl:
self: super: {
python37 = super.python37.override {
packageOverrides = python-self: python-super: {
numpy = python-super.numpy.override {
blas = super.pkgs.mkl;
};
};
};
}
mkl requires an openmp implementation when running with multiple processors. By default, mkl will use Intel’s iomp implementation if no other is specified, but this is a runtime-only dependency and binary compatible with the LLVM implementation. To use that one instead, Intel recommends users set it with LD_PRELOAD.
Note that mkl is only available on x86_64-{linux,darwin} platforms; moreover, Hydra is not building and distributing pre-compiled binaries using it.
In a setup.py or setup.cfg it is common to declare dependencies:
setup_requires corresponds to nativeBuildInputs
install_requires corresponds to propagatedBuildInputs
tests_require corresponds to checkInputs
Following rules are desired to be respected:
Python libraries are called from python-packages.nix and packaged with buildPythonPackage. The expression of a library should be in pkgs/development/python-modules/<name>/default.nix. Libraries in pkgs/top-level/python-packages.nix are sorted quasi-alphabetically to avoid merge conflicts.
Python applications live outside of python-packages.nix and are packaged with buildPythonApplication.
Make sure libraries build for all Python interpreters.
By default we enable tests. Make sure the tests are found and, in the case of libraries, are passing for all interpreters. If certain tests fail they can be disabled individually. Try to avoid disabling the tests altogether. In any case, when you disable tests, leave a comment explaining why.
Commit names of Python libraries should reflect that they are Python libraries, so write for example pythonPackages.numpy: 1.11 -> 1.12.
Attribute names in python-packages.nix should be normalized according to PEP 0503. This means that characters should be converted to lowercase and . and _ should be replaced by a single - (foo-bar-baz instead of Foo__Bar.baz )
This section describes the differences between Nix expressions for Qt libraries and applications and Nix expressions for other C++ software. Some knowledge of the latter is assumed. There are primarily two problems which the Qt infrastructure is designed to address: ensuring consistent versioning of all dependencies and finding dependencies at runtime.
|
Import |
|
Use
To use another deriver instead of
mkDerivationWith myDeriver {
# ...
}
If you cannot use |
|
|
Locating runtime dependencies.
Qt applications need to be wrapped to find runtime dependencies. If you cannot use mkDerivation or mkDerivationWith above, include wrapQtAppsHook in nativeBuildInputs:
stdenv.mkDerivation {
# ...
nativeBuildInputs = [ wrapQtAppsHook ];
}
Entries added to qtWrapperArgs are used to modify the wrappers created by wrapQtAppsHook. The entries are passed as arguments to
wrapProgram executable makeWrapperArgs
.
mkDerivation {
# ...
qtWrapperArgs = [ ''--prefix PATH : /path/to/bin'' ];
}
Set dontWrapQtApps to stop applications from being wrapped automatically. It is required to wrap applications manually with wrapQtApp, using the syntax of
wrapProgram executable makeWrapperArgs
:
mkDerivation {
# ...
dontWrapQtApps = true;
preFixup = ''
wrapQtApp "$out/bin/myapp" --prefix PATH : /path/to/bin
'';
}
wrapQtAppsHook ignores files that are non-ELF executables. This means that scripts won't be automatically wrapped so you'll need to manually wrap them as previously mentioned. An example of when you'd always need to do this is with Python applications that use PyQT.
Libraries are built with every available version of Qt. Use the meta.broken attribute to disable the package for unsupported Qt versions:
mkDerivation {
# ...
# Disable this library with Qt < 5.9.0
meta.broken = builtins.compareVersions qtbase.version "5.9.0" < 0;
}
Adding a library to Nixpkgs.
Add a Qt library to all-packages.nix by adding it to the collection inside mkLibsForQt5. This ensures that the library is built with every available version of Qt as needed.
Example 15.9. Adding a Qt library to all-packages.nix
{
# ...
mkLibsForQt5 = self: with self; {
# ...
mylib = callPackage ../path/to/mylib {};
};
# ...
}
Adding an application to Nixpkgs.
Add a Qt application to all-packages.nix using libsForQt5.callPackage instead of the usual callPackage. The former ensures that all dependencies are built with the same version of Qt.
Example 15.10. Adding a Qt application to all-packages.nix
{
# ...
myapp = libsForQt5.callPackage ../path/to/myapp/ {};
# ...
}
Define an environment for R that contains all the libraries that you’d like to use by adding the following snippet to your $HOME/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix file:
{
packageOverrides = super: let self = super.pkgs; in
{
rEnv = super.rWrapper.override {
packages = with self.rPackages; [
devtools
ggplot2
reshape2
yaml
optparse
];
};
};
}
Then you can use nix-env -f "<nixpkgs>" -iA rEnv to install it into your user profile. The set of available libraries can be discovered by running the command nix-env -f "<nixpkgs>" -qaP -A rPackages. The first column from that output is the name that has to be passed to rWrapper in the code snipped above.
However, if you’d like to add a file to your project source to make the environment available for other contributors, you can create a default.nix file like so:
let
pkgs = import <nixpkgs> {};
stdenv = pkgs.stdenv;
in with pkgs; {
myProject = stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "myProject";
version = "1";
src = if pkgs.lib.inNixShell then null else nix;
buildInputs = with rPackages; [
R
ggplot2
knitr
];
};
}
and then run nix-shell . to be dropped into a shell with those packages available.
RStudio uses a standard set of packages and ignores any custom R environments or installed packages you may have. To create a custom environment, see rstudioWrapper, which functions similarly to rWrapper:
{
packageOverrides = super: let self = super.pkgs; in
{
rstudioEnv = super.rstudioWrapper.override {
packages = with self.rPackages; [
dplyr
ggplot2
reshape2
];
};
};
}
Then like above, nix-env -f "<nixpkgs>" -iA rstudioEnv will install this into your user profile.
Alternatively, you can create a self-contained shell.nix without the need to modify any configuration files:
{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {}
}:
pkgs.rstudioWrapper.override {
packages = with pkgs.rPackages; [ dplyr ggplot2 reshape2 ];
}
Executing nix-shell will then drop you into an environment equivalent to the one above. If you need additional packages just add them to the list and re-enter the shell.
nix-shell generate-shell.nix Rscript generate-r-packages.R cran > cran-packages.nix.new mv cran-packages.nix.new cran-packages.nix Rscript generate-r-packages.R bioc > bioc-packages.nix.new mv bioc-packages.nix.new bioc-packages.nix
generate-r-packages.R <repo> reads <repo>-packages.nix, therefor the renaming.
nix-build test-evaluation.nix --dry-run
If this exits fine, the expression is ok. If not, you have to edit default.nix
There currently is support to bundle applications that are packaged as Ruby gems. The utility "bundix" allows you to write a Gemfile, let bundler create a Gemfile.lock, and then convert this into a nix expression that contains all Gem dependencies automatically.
For example, to package sensu, we did:
$ cd pkgs/servers/monitoring
$ mkdir sensu
$ cd sensu
$ cat > Gemfile
source 'https://rubygems.org'
gem 'sensu'
$ $(nix-build '<nixpkgs>' -A bundix --no-out-link)/bin/bundix --magic
$ cat > default.nix
{ lib, bundlerEnv, ruby }:
bundlerEnv rec {
name = "sensu-${version}";
version = (import gemset).sensu.version;
inherit ruby;
# expects Gemfile, Gemfile.lock and gemset.nix in the same directory
gemdir = ./.;
meta = with lib; {
description = "A monitoring framework that aims to be simple, malleable, and scalable";
homepage = http://sensuapp.org/;
license = with licenses; mit;
maintainers = with maintainers; [ theuni ];
platforms = platforms.unix;
};
}
Please check in the Gemfile, Gemfile.lock and the gemset.nix so future updates can be run easily.
Updating Ruby packages can then be done like this:
$ cd pkgs/servers/monitoring/sensu $ nix-shell -p bundler --run 'bundle lock --update' $ nix-shell -p bundix --run 'bundix'
For tools written in Ruby - i.e. where the desire is to install a package and then execute e.g. rake at the command line, there is an alternative builder called bundlerApp. Set up the gemset.nix the same way, and then, for example:
{ lib, bundlerApp }:
bundlerApp {
pname = "corundum";
gemdir = ./.;
exes = [ "corundum-skel" ];
meta = with lib; {
description = "Tool and libraries for maintaining Ruby gems.";
homepage = https://github.com/nyarly/corundum;
license = licenses.mit;
maintainers = [ maintainers.nyarly ];
platforms = platforms.unix;
};
}
The chief advantage of bundlerApp over bundlerEnv is the executables introduced in the environment are precisely those selected in the exes list, as opposed to bundlerEnv which adds all the executables made available by gems in the gemset, which can mean e.g. rspec or rake in unpredictable versions available from various packages.
Resulting derivations for both builders also have two helpful attributes, env and wrappedRuby. The first one allows one to quickly drop into nix-shell with the specified environment present. E.g. nix-shell -A sensu.env would give you an environment with Ruby preset so it has all the libraries necessary for sensu in its paths. The second one can be used to make derivations from custom Ruby scripts which have Gemfiles with their dependencies specified. It is a derivation with ruby wrapped so it can find all the needed dependencies. For example, to make a derivation my-script for a my-script.rb (which should be placed in bin) you should run bundix as specified above and then use bundlerEnv like this:
let env = bundlerEnv {
name = "my-script-env";
inherit ruby;
gemfile = ./Gemfile;
lockfile = ./Gemfile.lock;
gemset = ./gemset.nix;
};
in stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "my-script";
buildInputs = [ env.wrappedRuby ];
script = ./my-script.rb;
buildCommand = ''
install -D -m755 $script $out/bin/my-script
patchShebangs $out/bin/my-script
'';
}
To install the rust compiler and cargo put
rustc cargo
into the environment.systemPackages or bring them into scope with nix-shell -p rustc cargo.
For daily builds (beta and nightly) use either rustup from nixpkgs or use the Rust nightlies overlay.
Rust applications are packaged by using the buildRustPackage helper from rustPlatform:
rustPlatform.buildRustPackage rec {
pname = "ripgrep";
version = "11.0.2";
src = fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "BurntSushi";
repo = pname;
rev = version;
sha256 = "1iga3320mgi7m853la55xip514a3chqsdi1a1rwv25lr9b1p7vd3";
};
cargoSha256 = "17ldqr3asrdcsh4l29m3b5r37r5d0b3npq1lrgjmxb6vlx6a36qh";
verifyCargoDeps = true;
meta = with stdenv.lib; {
description = "A fast line-oriented regex search tool, similar to ag and ack";
homepage = https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep;
license = licenses.unlicense;
maintainers = [ maintainers.tailhook ];
platforms = platforms.all;
};
}
buildRustPackage requires a cargoSha256 attribute which is computed over all crate sources of this package. Currently it is obtained by inserting a fake checksum into the expression and building the package once. The correct checksum can be then take from the failed build.
When the Cargo.lock, provided by upstream, is not in sync with the Cargo.toml, it is possible to use cargoPatches to update it. All patches added in cargoPatches will also be prepended to the patches in patches at build-time.
When verifyCargoDeps is set to true, the build will also verify that the cargoSha256 is not out of date by comparing the Cargo.lock file in both the cargoDeps and src. Note that this option changes the value of cargoSha256 since it also copies the Cargo.lock in it. To avoid breaking backward-compatibility this option is not enabled by default but hopefully will be in the future.
To build your crate with a different cargo --target simply specify the target attribute:
pkgs.rustPlatform.buildRustPackage {
(...)
target = "x86_64-fortanix-unknown-sgx";
}
When run, cargo build produces a file called Cargo.lock, containing pinned versions of all dependencies. Nixpkgs contains a tool called carnix (nix-env -iA nixos.carnix), which can be used to turn a Cargo.lock into a Nix expression.
That Nix expression calls rustc directly (hence bypassing Cargo), and can be used to compile a crate and all its dependencies. Here is an example for a minimal hello crate:
$ cargo new hello $ cd hello $ cargo build Compiling hello v0.1.0 (file:///tmp/hello) Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.20 secs $ carnix -o hello.nix --src ./. Cargo.lock --standalone $ nix-build hello.nix -A hello_0_1_0
Now, the file produced by the call to carnix, called hello.nix, looks like:
# Generated by carnix 0.6.5: carnix -o hello.nix --src ./. Cargo.lock --standalone
{ lib, stdenv, buildRustCrate, fetchgit }:
let kernel = stdenv.buildPlatform.parsed.kernel.name;
# ... (content skipped)
in
rec {
hello = f: hello_0_1_0 { features = hello_0_1_0_features { hello_0_1_0 = f; }; };
hello_0_1_0_ = { dependencies?[], buildDependencies?[], features?[] }: buildRustCrate {
crateName = "hello";
version = "0.1.0";
authors = [ "pe@pijul.org <pe@pijul.org>" ];
src = ./.;
inherit dependencies buildDependencies features;
};
hello_0_1_0 = { features?(hello_0_1_0_features {}) }: hello_0_1_0_ {};
hello_0_1_0_features = f: updateFeatures f (rec {
hello_0_1_0.default = (f.hello_0_1_0.default or true);
}) [ ];
}
In particular, note that the argument given as --src is copied verbatim to the source. If we look at a more complicated dependencies, for instance by adding a single line libc="*" to our Cargo.toml, we first need to run cargo build to update the Cargo.lock. Then, carnix needs to be run again, and produces the following nix file:
# Generated by carnix 0.6.5: carnix -o hello.nix --src ./. Cargo.lock --standalone
{ lib, stdenv, buildRustCrate, fetchgit }:
let kernel = stdenv.buildPlatform.parsed.kernel.name;
# ... (content skipped)
in
rec {
hello = f: hello_0_1_0 { features = hello_0_1_0_features { hello_0_1_0 = f; }; };
hello_0_1_0_ = { dependencies?[], buildDependencies?[], features?[] }: buildRustCrate {
crateName = "hello";
version = "0.1.0";
authors = [ "pe@pijul.org <pe@pijul.org>" ];
src = ./.;
inherit dependencies buildDependencies features;
};
libc_0_2_36_ = { dependencies?[], buildDependencies?[], features?[] }: buildRustCrate {
crateName = "libc";
version = "0.2.36";
authors = [ "The Rust Project Developers" ];
sha256 = "01633h4yfqm0s302fm0dlba469bx8y6cs4nqc8bqrmjqxfxn515l";
inherit dependencies buildDependencies features;
};
hello_0_1_0 = { features?(hello_0_1_0_features {}) }: hello_0_1_0_ {
dependencies = mapFeatures features ([ libc_0_2_36 ]);
};
hello_0_1_0_features = f: updateFeatures f (rec {
hello_0_1_0.default = (f.hello_0_1_0.default or true);
libc_0_2_36.default = true;
}) [ libc_0_2_36_features ];
libc_0_2_36 = { features?(libc_0_2_36_features {}) }: libc_0_2_36_ {
features = mkFeatures (features.libc_0_2_36 or {});
};
libc_0_2_36_features = f: updateFeatures f (rec {
libc_0_2_36.default = (f.libc_0_2_36.default or true);
libc_0_2_36.use_std =
(f.libc_0_2_36.use_std or false) ||
(f.libc_0_2_36.default or false) ||
(libc_0_2_36.default or false);
}) [];
}
Here, the libc crate has no src attribute, so buildRustCrate will fetch it from crates.io. A sha256 attribute is still needed for Nix purity.
Some crates require external libraries. For crates from crates.io, such libraries can be specified in defaultCrateOverrides package in nixpkgs itself.
Starting from that file, one can add more overrides, to add features or build inputs by overriding the hello crate in a seperate file.
with import <nixpkgs> {};
((import ./hello.nix).hello {}).override {
crateOverrides = defaultCrateOverrides // {
hello = attrs: { buildInputs = [ openssl ]; };
};
}
Here, crateOverrides is expected to be a attribute set, where the key is the crate name without version number and the value a function. The function gets all attributes passed to buildRustCrate as first argument and returns a set that contains all attribute that should be overwritten.
For more complicated cases, such as when parts of the crate’s derivation depend on the crate’s version, the attrs argument of the override above can be read, as in the following example, which patches the derivation:
with import <nixpkgs> {};
((import ./hello.nix).hello {}).override {
crateOverrides = defaultCrateOverrides // {
hello = attrs: lib.optionalAttrs (lib.versionAtLeast attrs.version "1.0") {
postPatch = ''
substituteInPlace lib/zoneinfo.rs \
--replace "/usr/share/zoneinfo" "${tzdata}/share/zoneinfo"
'';
};
};
}
Another situation is when we want to override a nested dependency. This actually works in the exact same way, since the crateOverrides parameter is forwarded to the crate’s dependencies. For instance, to override the build inputs for crate libc in the example above, where libc is a dependency of the main crate, we could do:
with import <nixpkgs> {};
((import hello.nix).hello {}).override {
crateOverrides = defaultCrateOverrides // {
libc = attrs: { buildInputs = []; };
};
}
Actually, the overrides introduced in the previous section are more general. A number of other parameters can be overridden:
The version of rustc used to compile the crate:
(hello {}).override { rust = pkgs.rust; };
Whether to build in release mode or debug mode (release mode by default):
(hello {}).override { release = false; };
Whether to print the commands sent to rustc when building (equivalent to --verbose in cargo:
(hello {}).override { verbose = false; };
Extra arguments to be passed to rustc:
(hello {}).override { extraRustcOpts = "-Z debuginfo=2"; };
Phases, just like in any other derivation, can be specified using the following attributes: preUnpack, postUnpack, prePatch, patches, postPatch, preConfigure (in the case of a Rust crate, this is run before calling the “build” script), postConfigure (after the “build” script),preBuild, postBuild, preInstall and postInstall. As an example, here is how to create a new module before running the build script:
(hello {}).override {
preConfigure = ''
echo "pub const PATH=\"${hi.out}\";" >> src/path.rs"
'';
};
One can also supply features switches. For example, if we want to compile diesel_cli only with the postgres feature, and no default features, we would write:
(callPackage ./diesel.nix {}).diesel {
default = false;
postgres = true;
}
Where diesel.nix is the file generated by Carnix, as explained above.
nix-shell
Oftentimes you want to develop code from within nix-shell. Unfortunately buildRustCrate does not support common nix-shell operations directly (see this issue) so we will use stdenv.mkDerivation instead.
Using the example hello project above, we want to do the following: - Have access to cargo and rustc - Have the openssl library available to a crate through it’s normal compilation mechanism (pkg-config).
A typical shell.nix might look like:
with import <nixpkgs> {};
stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "rust-env";
nativeBuildInputs = [
rustc cargo
# Example Build-time Additional Dependencies
pkgconfig
];
buildInputs = [
# Example Run-time Additional Dependencies
openssl
];
# Set Environment Variables
RUST_BACKTRACE = 1;
}
You should now be able to run the following:
$ nix-shell --pure $ cargo build $ cargo test
To control your rust version (i.e. use nightly) from within shell.nix (or other nix expressions) you can use the following shell.nix
# Latest Nightly
with import <nixpkgs> {};
let src = fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "mozilla";
repo = "nixpkgs-mozilla";
# commit from: 2019-05-15
rev = "9f35c4b09fd44a77227e79ff0c1b4b6a69dff533";
sha256 = "18h0nvh55b5an4gmlgfbvwbyqj91bklf1zymis6lbdh75571qaz0";
};
in
with import "${src.out}/rust-overlay.nix" pkgs pkgs;
stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "rust-env";
buildInputs = [
# Note: to use use stable, just replace `nightly` with `stable`
latest.rustChannels.nightly.rust
# Add some extra dependencies from `pkgs`
pkgconfig openssl
];
# Set Environment Variables
RUST_BACKTRACE = 1;
}
Now run:
$ rustc --version rustc 1.26.0-nightly (188e693b3 2018-03-26)
To see that you are using nightly.
Mozilla provides an overlay for nixpkgs to bring a nightly version of Rust into scope. This overlay can also be used to install recent unstable or stable versions of Rust, if desired.
To use this overlay, clone nixpkgs-mozilla, and create a symbolic link to the file rust-overlay.nix in the ~/.config/nixpkgs/overlays directory.
$ git clone https://github.com/mozilla/nixpkgs-mozilla.git $ mkdir -p ~/.config/nixpkgs/overlays $ ln -s $(pwd)/nixpkgs-mozilla/rust-overlay.nix ~/.config/nixpkgs/overlays/rust-overlay.nix
The latest version can be installed with the following command:
$ nix-env -Ai nixos.latest.rustChannels.stable.rust
Or using the attribute with nix-shell:
$ nix-shell -p nixos.latest.rustChannels.stable.rust
To install the beta or nightly channel, “stable” should be substituted by “nightly” or “beta”, or use the function provided by this overlay to pull a version based on a build date.
The overlay automatically updates itself as it uses the same source as rustup.
Since release 15.09 there is a new TeX Live packaging that lives entirely under attribute texlive.
For basic usage just pull texlive.combined.scheme-basic for an environment with basic LaTeX support.
It typically won't work to use separately installed packages together. Instead, you can build a custom set of packages like this:
texlive.combine {
inherit (texlive) scheme-small collection-langkorean algorithms cm-super;
}
There are all the schemes, collections and a few thousand packages, as defined upstream (perhaps with tiny differences).
By default you only get executables and files needed during runtime, and a little documentation for the core packages. To change that, you need to add pkgFilter function to combine.
texlive.combine {
# inherit (texlive) whatever-you-want;
pkgFilter = pkg:
pkg.tlType == "run" || pkg.tlType == "bin" || pkg.pname == "cm-super";
# elem tlType [ "run" "bin" "doc" "source" ]
# there are also other attributes: version, name
}
You can list packages e.g. by nix repl.
$ nix repl nix-repl> :l <nixpkgs> nix-repl> texlive.collection-<TAB>
Note that the wrapper assumes that the result has a chance to be useful. For example, the core executables should be present, as well as some core data files. The supported way of ensuring this is by including some scheme, for example scheme-basic, into the combination.
You may find that you need to use an external TeX package. A derivation for such package has to provide contents of the "texmf" directory in its output and provide the tlType attribute. Here is a (very verbose) example:
with import <nixpkgs> {};
let
foiltex_run = stdenvNoCC.mkDerivation {
pname = "latex-foiltex";
version = "2.1.4b";
passthru.tlType = "run";
srcs = [
(fetchurl {
url = "http://mirrors.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/foiltex/foiltex.dtx";
sha256 = "07frz0krpz7kkcwlayrwrj2a2pixmv0icbngyw92srp9fp23cqpz";
})
(fetchurl {
url = "http://mirrors.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/foiltex/foiltex.ins";
sha256 = "09wkyidxk3n3zvqxfs61wlypmbhi1pxmjdi1kns9n2ky8ykbff99";
})
];
unpackPhase = ''
runHook preUnpack
for _src in $srcs; do
cp "$_src" $(stripHash "$_src")
done
runHook postUnpack
'';
nativeBuildInputs = [ texlive.combined.scheme-small ];
dontConfigure = true;
buildPhase = ''
runHook preBuild
# Generate the style files
latex foiltex.ins
runHook postBuild
'';
installPhase = ''
runHook preInstall
path="$out/tex/latex/foiltex"
mkdir -p "$path"
cp *.{cls,def,clo} "$path/"
runHook postInstall
'';
meta = with lib; {
description = "A LaTeX2e class for overhead transparencies";
license = licenses.unfreeRedistributable;
maintainers = with maintainers; [ veprbl ];
platforms = platforms.all;
};
};
foiltex = { pkgs = [ foiltex_run ]; };
latex_with_foiltex = texlive.combine {
inherit (texlive) scheme-small;
inherit foiltex;
};
in
runCommand "test.pdf" {
nativeBuildInputs = [ latex_with_foiltex ];
} ''
cat >test.tex <<EOF
\documentclass{foils}
\title{Presentation title}
\date{}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\end{document}
EOF
pdflatex test.tex
cp test.pdf $out
''
Some tools are still missing, e.g. luajittex;
some apps aren't packaged/tested yet (asymptote, biber, etc.);
feature/bug: when a package is rejected by pkgFilter, its dependencies are still propagated;
in case of any bugs or feature requests, file a github issue or better a pull request and /cc @vcunat.
The Nixpkgs repository contains facilities to deploy a variety of versions of the Titanium SDK versions, a cross-platform mobile app development framework using JavaScript as an implementation language, and includes a function abstraction making it possible to build Titanium applications for Android and iOS devices from source code.
Not all Titanium features supported – currently, it can only be used to build Android and iOS apps.
We can build a Titanium app from source for Android or iOS and for debugging or release purposes by invoking the titaniumenv.buildApp {} function:
titaniumenv.buildApp {
name = "myapp";
src = ./myappsource;
preBuild = "";
target = "android"; # or 'iphone'
tiVersion = "7.1.0.GA";
release = true;
androidsdkArgs = {
platformVersions = [ "25" "26" ];
};
androidKeyStore = ./keystore;
androidKeyAlias = "myfirstapp";
androidKeyStorePassword = "secret";
xcodeBaseDir = "/Applications/Xcode.app";
xcodewrapperArgs = {
version = "9.3";
};
iosMobileProvisioningProfile = ./myprovisioning.profile;
iosCertificateName = "My Company";
iosCertificate = ./mycertificate.p12;
iosCertificatePassword = "secret";
iosVersion = "11.3";
iosBuildStore = false;
enableWirelessDistribution = true;
installURL = "/installipa.php";
}
The titaniumenv.buildApp {} function takes the following parameters:
The name parameter refers to the name in the Nix store.
The src parameter refers to the source code location of the app that needs to be built.
preRebuild contains optional build instructions that are carried out before the build starts.
target indicates for which device the app must be built. Currently only “android” and “iphone” (for iOS) are supported.
tiVersion can be used to optionally override the requested Titanium version in tiapp.xml. If not specified, it will use the version in tiapp.xml.
release should be set to true when building an app for submission to the Google Playstore or Apple Appstore. Otherwise, it should be false.
When the target has been set to android, we can configure the following parameters:
The androidSdkArgs parameter refers to an attribute set that propagates all parameters to the androidenv.composeAndroidPackages {} function. This can be used to install all relevant Android plugins that may be needed to perform the Android build. If no parameters are given, it will deploy the platform SDKs for API-levels 25 and 26 by default.
When the release parameter has been set to true, you need to provide parameters to sign the app:
androidKeyStore is the path to the keystore file
androidKeyAlias is the key alias
androidKeyStorePassword refers to the password to open the keystore file.
When the target has been set to iphone, we can configure the following parameters:
The xcodeBaseDir parameter refers to the location where Xcode has been installed. When none value is given, the above value is the default.
The xcodewrapperArgs parameter passes arbitrary parameters to the xcodeenv.composeXcodeWrapper {} function. This can, for example, be used to adjust the default version of Xcode.
When release has been set to true, you also need to provide the following parameters:
iosMobileProvisioningProfile refers to a mobile provisioning profile needed for signing.
iosCertificateName refers to the company name in the P12 certificate.
iosCertificate refers to the path to the P12 file.
iosCertificatePassword contains the password to open the P12 file.
iosVersion refers to the iOS SDK version to use. It defaults to the latest version.
iosBuildStore should be set to true when building for the Apple Appstore submission. For enterprise or ad-hoc builds it should be set to false.
When enableWirelessDistribution has been enabled, you must also provide the path of the PHP script (installURL) (that is included with the iOS build environment) to enable wireless ad-hoc installations.
It is also possible to simulate the correspond iOS simulator build by using xcodeenv.simulateApp {} and emulate an Android APK by using androidenv.emulateApp {}.
Both Neovim and Vim can be configured to include your favorite plugins and additional libraries.
Loading can be deferred; see examples.
At the moment we support three different methods for managing plugins:
Vim packages (recommend)
VAM (=vim-addon-manager)
Pathogen
vim-plug
Adding custom .vimrc lines can be done using the following code:
vim_configurable.customize {
# `name` specifies the name of the executable and package
name = "vim-with-plugins";
vimrcConfig.customRC = ''
set hidden
'';
}
This configuration is used when Vim is invoked with the command specified as name, in this case vim-with-plugins.
For Neovim the configure argument can be overridden to achieve the same:
neovim.override {
configure = {
customRC = ''
# here your custom configuration goes!
'';
};
}
If you want to use neovim-qt as a graphical editor, you can configure it by overriding Neovim in an overlay or passing it an overridden Neovimn:
neovim-qt.override {
neovim = neovim.override {
configure = {
customRC = ''
# your custom configuration
'';
};
};
}
To store you plugins in Vim packages (the native Vim plugin manager, see :help packages) the following example can be used:
vim_configurable.customize {
vimrcConfig.packages.myVimPackage = with pkgs.vimPlugins; {
# loaded on launch
start = [ youcompleteme fugitive ];
# manually loadable by calling `:packadd $plugin-name`
# however, if a Vim plugin has a dependency that is not explicitly listed in
# opt that dependency will always be added to start to avoid confusion.
opt = [ phpCompletion elm-vim ];
# To automatically load a plugin when opening a filetype, add vimrc lines like:
# autocmd FileType php :packadd phpCompletion
};
}
myVimPackage is an arbitrary name for the generated package. You can choose any name you like. For Neovim the syntax is:
neovim.override {
configure = {
customRC = ''
# here your custom configuration goes!
'';
packages.myVimPackage = with pkgs.vimPlugins; {
# see examples below how to use custom packages
start = [ ];
# If a Vim plugin has a dependency that is not explicitly listed in
# opt that dependency will always be added to start to avoid confusion.
opt = [ ];
};
};
}
The resulting package can be added to packageOverrides in ~/.nixpkgs/config.nix to make it installable:
{
packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; {
myVim = vim_configurable.customize {
# `name` specifies the name of the executable and package
name = "vim-with-plugins";
# add here code from the example section
};
myNeovim = neovim.override {
configure = {
# add here code from the example section
};
};
};
}
After that you can install your special grafted myVim or myNeovim packages.
To use vim-plug to manage your Vim plugins the following example can be used:
vim_configurable.customize {
vimrcConfig.packages.myVimPackage = with pkgs.vimPlugins; {
# loaded on launch
plug.plugins = [ youcompleteme fugitive phpCompletion elm-vim ];
};
}
For Neovim the syntax is:
neovim.override {
configure = {
customRC = ''
# here your custom configuration goes!
'';
plug.plugins = with pkgs.vimPlugins; [
vim-go
];
};
}
VAM introduced .json files supporting dependencies without versioning assuming that “using latest version” is ok most of the time.
First create a vim-scripts file having one plugin name per line. Example:
"tlib"
{'name': 'vim-addon-sql'}
{'filetype_regex': '\%(vim)$', 'names': ['reload', 'vim-dev-plugin']}
Such vim-scripts file can be read by VAM as well like this:
call vam#Scripts(expand('~/.vim-scripts'), {})
Create a default.nix file:
{ nixpkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {}, compiler ? "ghc7102" }:
nixpkgs.vim_configurable.customize { name = "vim"; vimrcConfig.vam.pluginDictionaries = [ "vim-addon-vim2nix" ]; }
Create a generate.vim file:
ActivateAddons vim-addon-vim2nix
let vim_scripts = "vim-scripts"
call nix#ExportPluginsForNix({
\ 'path_to_nixpkgs': eval('{"'.substitute(substitute(substitute($NIX_PATH, ':', ',', 'g'), '=',':', 'g'), '\([:,]\)', '"\1"',"g").'"}')["nixpkgs"],
\ 'cache_file': '/tmp/vim2nix-cache',
\ 'try_catch': 0,
\ 'plugin_dictionaries': ["vim-addon-manager"]+map(readfile(vim_scripts), 'eval(v:val)')
\ })
Then run
nix-shell -p vimUtils.vim_with_vim2nix --command "vim -c 'source generate.vim'"
You should get a Vim buffer with the nix derivations (output1) and vam.pluginDictionaries (output2). You can add your Vim to your system’s configuration file like this and start it by “vim-my”:
my-vim =
let plugins = let inherit (vimUtils) buildVimPluginFrom2Nix; in {
copy paste output1 here
}; in vim_configurable.customize {
name = "vim-my";
vimrcConfig.vam.knownPlugins = plugins; # optional
vimrcConfig.vam.pluginDictionaries = [
copy paste output2 here
];
# Pathogen would be
# vimrcConfig.pathogen.knownPlugins = plugins; # plugins
# vimrcConfig.pathogen.pluginNames = ["tlib"];
};
Sample output1:
"reload" = buildVimPluginFrom2Nix { # created by nix#NixDerivation
name = "reload";
src = fetchgit {
url = "git://github.com/xolox/vim-reload";
rev = "0a601a668727f5b675cb1ddc19f6861f3f7ab9e1";
sha256 = "0vb832l9yxj919f5hfg6qj6bn9ni57gnjd3bj7zpq7d4iv2s4wdh";
};
dependencies = ["nim-misc"];
};
[...]
Sample output2:
[
''vim-addon-manager''
''tlib''
{ "name" = ''vim-addon-sql''; }
{ "filetype_regex" = ''\%(vim)$$''; "names" = [ ''reload'' ''vim-dev-plugin'' ]; }
]
Nix expressions for Vim plugins are stored in pkgs/misc/vim-plugins. For the vast majority of plugins, Nix expressions are automatically generated by running ./update.py. This creates a generated.nix file based on the plugins listed in vim-plugin-names. Plugins are listed in alphabetical order in vim-plugin-names using the format [github username]/[repository]. For example https://github.com/scrooloose/nerdtree becomes scrooloose/nerdtree.
Some plugins require overrides in order to function properly. Overrides are placed in overrides.nix. Overrides are most often required when a plugin requires some dependencies, or extra steps are required during the build process. For example deoplete-fish requires both deoplete-nvim and vim-fish, and so the following override was added:
deoplete-fish = super.deoplete-fish.overrideAttrs(old: {
dependencies = with super; [ deoplete-nvim vim-fish ];
});
Sometimes plugins require an override that must be changed when the plugin is updated. This can cause issues when Vim plugins are auto-updated but the associated override isn’t updated. For these plugins, the override should be written so that it specifies all information required to install the plugin, and running ./update.py doesn’t change the derivation for the plugin. Manually updating the override is required to update these types of plugins. An example of such a plugin is LanguageClient-neovim.
To add a new plugin:
run ./update.py and create a commit named “vimPlugins: Update”,
add the new plugin to vim-plugin-names and add overrides if required to overrides.nix,
run ./update.py again and create a commit named “vimPlugins.[name]: init at [version]” (where name and version can be found in generated.nix), and
create a pull request.
Table of Contents
This chapter contains information about how to use and maintain the Nix expressions for a number of specific packages, such as the Linux kernel or X.org.
citrix_receiver package has been deprecated since its development was discontinued by upstream and has been replaced by the citrix workspace app.
Citrix Receiver and Citrix Workspace App are a remote desktop viewers which provide access to XenDesktop installations.
The tarball archive needs to be downloaded manually as the license agreements of the vendor for Citrix Receiver or Citrix Workspace need to be accepted first. Then run nix-prefetch-url file://$PWD/linuxx64-$version.tar.gz. With the archive available in the store the package can be built and installed with Nix.
Citrix Receiver and/or Citrix Workspace using nix-env -i or globally to ensure that the .desktop files are installed properly into $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS. Otherwise it won't be possible to open .ica files automatically from the browser to start a Citrix connection.
The Citrix Workspace App in nixpkgs trust several certificates from the Mozilla database by default. However several companies using Citrix might require their own corporate certificate. On distros with imperative packaging these certs can be stored easily in $ICAROOT, however this directory is a store path in nixpkgs. In order to work around this issue the package provides a simple mechanism to add custom certificates without rebuilding the entire package using symlinkJoin:
with import <nixpkgs> { config.allowUnfree = true; };
let extraCerts = [ ./custom-cert-1.pem ./custom-cert-2.pem /* ... */ ]; in
citrix_workspace.override {
inherit extraCerts;
}
DLib is a modern, C++-based toolkit which provides several machine learning algorithms.
Especially older CPUs don't support AVX (Advanced Vector Extensions) instructions that are used by DLib to optimize their algorithms.
On the affected hardware errors like Illegal instruction will occur. In those cases AVX support needs to be disabled:
self: super: {
dlib = super.dlib.override { avxSupport = false; };
}
The Nix expressions related to the Eclipse platform and IDE are in pkgs/applications/editors/eclipse.
Nixpkgs provides a number of packages that will install Eclipse in its various forms. These range from the bare-bones Eclipse Platform to the more fully featured Eclipse SDK or Scala-IDE packages and multiple version are often available. It is possible to list available Eclipse packages by issuing the command:
$ nix-env -f '<nixpkgs>' -qaP -A eclipses --description
Once an Eclipse variant is installed it can be run using the eclipse command, as expected. From within Eclipse it is then possible to install plugins in the usual manner by either manually specifying an Eclipse update site or by installing the Marketplace Client plugin and using it to discover and install other plugins. This installation method provides an Eclipse installation that closely resemble a manually installed Eclipse.
If you prefer to install plugins in a more declarative manner then Nixpkgs also offer a number of Eclipse plugins that can be installed in an Eclipse environment. This type of environment is created using the function eclipseWithPlugins found inside the nixpkgs.eclipses attribute set. This function takes as argument { eclipse, plugins ? [], jvmArgs ? [] } where eclipse is a one of the Eclipse packages described above, plugins is a list of plugin derivations, and jvmArgs is a list of arguments given to the JVM running the Eclipse. For example, say you wish to install the latest Eclipse Platform with the popular Eclipse Color Theme plugin and also allow Eclipse to use more RAM. You could then add
packageOverrides = pkgs: {
myEclipse = with pkgs.eclipses; eclipseWithPlugins {
eclipse = eclipse-platform;
jvmArgs = [ "-Xmx2048m" ];
plugins = [ plugins.color-theme ];
};
}
to your Nixpkgs configuration (~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix) and install it by running nix-env -f '<nixpkgs>' -iA myEclipse and afterward run Eclipse as usual. It is possible to find out which plugins are available for installation using eclipseWithPlugins by running
$ nix-env -f '<nixpkgs>' -qaP -A eclipses.plugins --description
If there is a need to install plugins that are not available in Nixpkgs then it may be possible to define these plugins outside Nixpkgs using the buildEclipseUpdateSite and buildEclipsePlugin functions found in the nixpkgs.eclipses.plugins attribute set. Use the buildEclipseUpdateSite function to install a plugin distributed as an Eclipse update site. This function takes { name, src } as argument where src indicates the Eclipse update site archive. All Eclipse features and plugins within the downloaded update site will be installed. When an update site archive is not available then the buildEclipsePlugin function can be used to install a plugin that consists of a pair of feature and plugin JARs. This function takes an argument { name, srcFeature, srcPlugin } where srcFeature and srcPlugin are the feature and plugin JARs, respectively.
Expanding the previous example with two plugins using the above functions we have
packageOverrides = pkgs: {
myEclipse = with pkgs.eclipses; eclipseWithPlugins {
eclipse = eclipse-platform;
jvmArgs = [ "-Xmx2048m" ];
plugins = [
plugins.color-theme
(plugins.buildEclipsePlugin {
name = "myplugin1-1.0";
srcFeature = fetchurl {
url = "http://…/features/myplugin1.jar";
sha256 = "123…";
};
srcPlugin = fetchurl {
url = "http://…/plugins/myplugin1.jar";
sha256 = "123…";
};
});
(plugins.buildEclipseUpdateSite {
name = "myplugin2-1.0";
src = fetchurl {
stripRoot = false;
url = "http://…/myplugin2.zip";
sha256 = "123…";
};
});
];
};
}
To start a development environment do nix-shell -p elmPackages.elm elmPackages.elm-format
To update Elm compiler, see nixpkgs/pkgs/development/compilers/elm/README.md.
To package Elm applications, read about elm2nix.
The Emacs package comes with some extra helpers to make it easier to configure. emacsWithPackages allows you to manage packages from ELPA. This means that you will not have to install that packages from within Emacs. For instance, if you wanted to use company, counsel, flycheck, ivy, magit, projectile, and use-package you could use this as a ~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix override:
{
packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; {
myEmacs = emacsWithPackages (epkgs: (with epkgs.melpaStablePackages; [
company
counsel
flycheck
ivy
magit
projectile
use-package
]));
}
}
You can install it like any other packages via nix-env -iA myEmacs. However, this will only install those packages. It will not configure them for us. To do this, we need to provide a configuration file. Luckily, it is possible to do this from within Nix! By modifying the above example, we can make Emacs load a custom config file. The key is to create a package that provide a default.el file in /share/emacs/site-start/. Emacs knows to load this file automatically when it starts.
{
packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; rec {
myEmacsConfig = writeText "default.el" ''
;; initialize package
(require 'package)
(package-initialize 'noactivate)
(eval-when-compile
(require 'use-package))
;; load some packages
(use-package company
:bind ("<C-tab>" . company-complete)
:diminish company-mode
:commands (company-mode global-company-mode)
:defer 1
:config
(global-company-mode))
(use-package counsel
:commands (counsel-descbinds)
:bind (([remap execute-extended-command] . counsel-M-x)
("C-x C-f" . counsel-find-file)
("C-c g" . counsel-git)
("C-c j" . counsel-git-grep)
("C-c k" . counsel-ag)
("C-x l" . counsel-locate)
("M-y" . counsel-yank-pop)))
(use-package flycheck
:defer 2
:config (global-flycheck-mode))
(use-package ivy
:defer 1
:bind (("C-c C-r" . ivy-resume)
("C-x C-b" . ivy-switch-buffer)
:map ivy-minibuffer-map
("C-j" . ivy-call))
:diminish ivy-mode
:commands ivy-mode
:config
(ivy-mode 1))
(use-package magit
:defer
:if (executable-find "git")
:bind (("C-x g" . magit-status)
("C-x G" . magit-dispatch-popup))
:init
(setq magit-completing-read-function 'ivy-completing-read))
(use-package projectile
:commands projectile-mode
:bind-keymap ("C-c p" . projectile-command-map)
:defer 5
:config
(projectile-global-mode))
'';
myEmacs = emacsWithPackages (epkgs: (with epkgs.melpaStablePackages; [
(runCommand "default.el" {} ''
mkdir -p $out/share/emacs/site-lisp
cp ${myEmacsConfig} $out/share/emacs/site-lisp/default.el
'')
company
counsel
flycheck
ivy
magit
projectile
use-package
]));
};
}
This provides a fairly full Emacs start file. It will load in addition to the user's presonal config. You can always disable it by passing -q to the Emacs command.
Sometimes emacsWithPackages is not enough, as this package set has some priorities imposed on packages (with the lowest priority assigned to Melpa Unstable, and the highest for packages manually defined in pkgs/top-level/emacs-packages.nix). But you can't control this priorities when some package is installed as a dependency. You can override it on per-package-basis, providing all the required dependencies manually - but it's tedious and there is always a possibility that an unwanted dependency will sneak in through some other package. To completely override such a package you can use overrideScope'.
overrides = self: super: rec {
haskell-mode = self.melpaPackages.haskell-mode;
...
};
((emacsPackagesGen emacs).overrideScope' overrides).emacsWithPackages (p: with p; [
# here both these package will use haskell-mode of our own choice
ghc-mod
dante
])
This package is an ibus-based completion method to speed up typing.
IBus needs to be configured accordingly to activate typing-booster. The configuration depends on the desktop manager in use. For detailed instructions, please refer to the upstream docs.
On NixOS you need to explicitly enable ibus with given engines before customizing your desktop to use typing-booster. This can be achieved using the ibus module:
{ pkgs, ... }: {
i18n.inputMethod = {
enabled = "ibus";
ibus.engines = with pkgs.ibus-engines; [ typing-booster ];
};
}
The IBus engine is based on hunspell to support completion in many languages. By default the dictionaries de-de, en-us, fr-moderne es-es, it-it, sv-se and sv-fi are in use. To add another dictionary, the package can be overridden like this:
ibus-engines.typing-booster.override {
langs = [ "de-at" "en-gb" ];
}
Note: each language passed to langs must be an attribute name in pkgs.hunspellDicts.
The ibus-engines.typing-booster package contains a program named emoji-picker. To display all emojis correctly, a special font such as noto-fonts-emoji is needed:
On NixOS it can be installed using the following expression:
{ pkgs, ... }: {
fonts.fonts = with pkgs; [ noto-fonts-emoji ];
}
Kakoune can be built to autoload plugins:
(kakoune.override {
configure = {
plugins = with pkgs.kakounePlugins; [ parinfer-rust ];
};
})
The Nix expressions to build the Linux kernel are in pkgs/os-specific/linux/kernel.
The function that builds the kernel has an argument kernelPatches which should be a list of {name, patch, extraConfig} attribute sets, where name is the name of the patch (which is included in the kernel’s meta.description attribute), patch is the patch itself (possibly compressed), and extraConfig (optional) is a string specifying extra options to be concatenated to the kernel configuration file (.config).
The kernel derivation exports an attribute features specifying whether optional functionality is or isn’t enabled. This is used in NixOS to implement kernel-specific behaviour. For instance, if the kernel has the iwlwifi feature (i.e. has built-in support for Intel wireless chipsets), then NixOS doesn’t have to build the external iwlwifi package:
modulesTree = [kernel] ++ pkgs.lib.optional (!kernel.features ? iwlwifi) kernelPackages.iwlwifi ++ ...;
How to add a new (major) version of the Linux kernel to Nixpkgs:
Copy the old Nix expression (e.g. linux-2.6.21.nix) to the new one (e.g. linux-2.6.22.nix) and update it.
Add the new kernel to all-packages.nix (e.g., create an attribute kernel_2_6_22).
Now we’re going to update the kernel configuration. First unpack the kernel. Then for each supported platform (i686, x86_64, uml) do the following:
Make an copy from the old config (e.g. config-2.6.21-i686-smp) to the new one (e.g. config-2.6.22-i686-smp).
Copy the config file for this platform (e.g. config-2.6.22-i686-smp) to .config in the kernel source tree.
Run make oldconfig ARCH= and answer all questions. (For the uml configuration, also add {i386,x86_64,um}SHELL=bash.) Make sure to keep the configuration consistent between platforms (i.e. don’t enable some feature on i686 and disable it on x86_64).
If needed you can also run make menuconfig:
$nix-env -i ncurses$export NIX_CFLAGS_LINK=-lncurses$make menuconfig ARCH=arch
Copy .config over the new config file (e.g. config-2.6.22-i686-smp).
Test building the kernel: nix-build -A kernel_2_6_22. If it compiles, ship it! For extra credit, try booting NixOS with it.
It may be that the new kernel requires updating the external kernel modules and kernel-dependent packages listed in the linuxPackagesFor function in all-packages.nix (such as the NVIDIA drivers, AUFS, etc.). If the updated packages aren’t backwards compatible with older kernels, you may need to keep the older versions around.
To allow simultaneous use of packages linked against different versions of glibc with different locale archive formats Nixpkgs patches glibc to rely on LOCALE_ARCHIVE environment variable.
On non-NixOS distributions this variable is obviously not set. This can cause regressions in language support or even crashes in some Nixpkgs-provided programs. The simplest way to mitigate this problem is exporting the LOCALE_ARCHIVE variable pointing to ${glibcLocales}/lib/locale/locale-archive. The drawback (and the reason this is not the default) is the relatively large (a hundred MiB) size of the full set of locales. It is possible to build a custom set of locales by overriding parameters allLocales and locales of the package.
Nginx is a reverse proxy and lightweight webserver.
HTTP has a couple different mechanisms for caching to prevent clients from having to download the same content repeatedly if a resource has not changed since the last time it was requested. When nginx is used as a server for static files, it implements the caching mechanism based on the Last-Modified response header automatically; unfortunately, it works by using filesystem timestamps to determine the value of the Last-Modified header. This doesn't give the desired behavior when the file is in the Nix store, because all file timestamps are set to 0 (for reasons related to build reproducibility).
Fortunately, HTTP supports an alternative (and more effective) caching mechanism: the ETag response header. The value of the ETag header specifies some identifier for the particular content that the server is sending (e.g. a hash). When a client makes a second request for the same resource, it sends that value back in an If-None-Match header. If the ETag value is unchanged, then the server does not need to resend the content.
As of NixOS 19.09, the nginx package in Nixpkgs is patched such that when nginx serves a file out of /nix/store, the hash in the store path is used as the ETag header in the HTTP response, thus providing proper caching functionality. This happens automatically; you do not need to do modify any configuration to get this behavior.
Packages that use OpenGL have NixOS desktop as their primary target. The current solution for loading the GPU-specific drivers is based on libglvnd and looks for the driver implementation in LD_LIBRARY_PATH. If you are using a non-NixOS GNU/Linux/X11 desktop with free software video drivers, consider launching OpenGL-dependent programs from Nixpkgs with Nixpkgs versions of libglvnd and mesa_drivers in LD_LIBRARY_PATH. For proprietary video drivers you might have luck with also adding the corresponding video driver package.
Some packages provide the shell integration to be more useful. But unlike other systems, nix doesn't have a standard share directory location. This is why a bunch PACKAGE-share scripts are shipped that print the location of the corresponding shared folder. Current list of such packages is as following:
autojump: autojump-share
fzf: fzf-share
E.g. autojump can then used in the .bashrc like this:
source "$(autojump-share)/autojump.bash"
Steam is distributed as a .deb file, for now only as an i686 package (the amd64 package only has documentation). When unpacked, it has a script called steam that in Ubuntu (their target distro) would go to /usr/bin . When run for the first time, this script copies some files to the user's home, which include another script that is the ultimate responsible for launching the steam binary, which is also in $HOME.
Nix problems and constraints:
We don't have /bin/bash and many scripts point there. Similarly for /usr/bin/python .
We don't have the dynamic loader in /lib .
The steam.sh script in $HOME can not be patched, as it is checked and rewritten by steam.
The steam binary cannot be patched, it's also checked.
The current approach to deploy Steam in NixOS is composing a FHS-compatible chroot environment, as documented here. This allows us to have binaries in the expected paths without disrupting the system, and to avoid patching them to work in a non FHS environment.
For 64-bit systems it's important to have
hardware.opengl.driSupport32Bit = true;
in your /etc/nixos/configuration.nix. You'll also need
hardware.pulseaudio.support32Bit = true;
if you are using PulseAudio - this will enable 32bit ALSA apps integration. To use the Steam controller or other Steam supported controllers such as the DualShock 4 or Nintendo Switch Pro, you need to add
hardware.steam-hardware.enable = true;
to your configuration.
Try to run
strace steam
to see what is causing steam to fail.
The newStdcpp parameter was removed since NixOS 17.09 and should not be needed anymore.
Steam ships statically linked with a version of libcrypto that conflics with the one dynamically loaded by radeonsi_dri.so. If you get the error
steam.sh: line 713: 7842 Segmentation fault (core dumped)
have a look at this pull request.
There is no java in steam chrootenv by default. If you get a message like
/home/foo/.local/share/Steam/SteamApps/common/towns/towns.sh: line 1: java: command not found
You need to add
steam.override { withJava = true; };to your configuration.
The FHS-compatible chroot used for steam can also be used to run other linux games that expect a FHS environment. To do it, add
pkgs.(steam.override {
nativeOnly = true;
newStdcpp = true;
}).runto your configuration, rebuild, and run the game with
steam-run ./foo
Urxvt, also known as rxvt-unicode, is a highly customizable terminal emulator.
In nixpkgs, urxvt is provided by the package rxvt-unicode. It can be configured to include your choice of plugins, reducing its closure size from the default configuration which includes all available plugins. To make use of this functionality, use an overlay or directly install an expression that overrides its configuration, such as
rxvt-unicode.override { configure = { availablePlugins, ... }: {
plugins = with availablePlugins; [ perls resize-font vtwheel ];
}
}
If the configure function returns an attrset without the plugins attribute, availablePlugins will be used automatically.
In order to add plugins but also keep all default plugins installed, it is possible to use the following method:
rxvt-unicode.override { configure = { availablePlugins, ... }: {
plugins = (builtins.attrValues availablePlugins) ++ [ custom-plugin ];
};
}
To get a list of all the plugins available, open the Nix REPL and run
$ nix repl :l <nixpkgs> map (p: p.name) pkgs.rxvt-unicode.plugins
Alternatively, if your shell is bash or zsh and have completion enabled, simply type nixpkgs.rxvt-unicode.plugins.<tab>.
In addition to plugins the options extraDeps and perlDeps can be used to install extra packages. extraDeps can be used, for example, to provide xsel (a clipboard manager) to the clipboard plugin, without installing it globally:
rxvt-unicode.override { configure = { availablePlugins, ... }: {
pluginsDeps = [ xsel ];
}
}
perlDeps is a handy way to provide Perl packages to your custom plugins (in $HOME/.urxvt/ext). For example, if you need AnyEvent you can do:
rxvt-unicode.override { configure = { availablePlugins, ... }: {
perlDeps = with perlPackages; [ AnyEvent ];
}
}
Urxvt plugins resides in pkgs/applications/misc/rxvt-unicode-plugins. To add a new plugin create an expression in a subdirectory and add the package to the set in pkgs/applications/misc/rxvt-unicode-plugins/default.nix.
A plugin can be any kind of derivation, the only requirement is that it should always install perl scripts in $out/lib/urxvt/perl. Look for existing plugins for examples.
If the plugin is itself a perl package that needs to be imported from other plugins or scripts, add the following passthrough:
passthru.perlPackages = [ "self" ];
This will make the urxvt wrapper pick up the dependency and set up the perl path accordingly.
Weechat can be configured to include your choice of plugins, reducing its closure size from the default configuration which includes all available plugins. To make use of this functionality, install an expression that overrides its configuration such as
weechat.override {configure = {availablePlugins, ...}: {
plugins = with availablePlugins; [ python perl ];
}
}
If the configure function returns an attrset without the plugins attribute, availablePlugins will be used automatically.
The plugins currently available are python, perl, ruby, guile, tcl and lua.
The python and perl plugins allows the addition of extra libraries. For instance, the inotify.py script in weechat-scripts requires D-Bus or libnotify, and the fish.py script requires pycrypto. To use these scripts, use the plugin's withPackages attribute:
weechat.override { configure = {availablePlugins, ...}: {
plugins = with availablePlugins; [
(python.withPackages (ps: with ps; [ pycrypto python-dbus ]))
];
};
}
In order to also keep all default plugins installed, it is possible to use the following method:
weechat.override { configure = { availablePlugins, ... }: {
plugins = builtins.attrValues (availablePlugins // {
python = availablePlugins.python.withPackages (ps: with ps; [ pycrypto python-dbus ]);
});
}; }
WeeChat allows to set defaults on startup using the --run-command. The configure method can be used to pass commands to the program:
weechat.override {
configure = { availablePlugins, ... }: {
init = ''
/set foo bar
/server add freenode chat.freenode.org
'';
};
}
Further values can be added to the list of commands when running weechat --run-command "your-commands".
Additionally it's possible to specify scripts to be loaded when starting weechat. These will be loaded before the commands from init:
weechat.override {
configure = { availablePlugins, ... }: {
scripts = with pkgs.weechatScripts; [
weechat-xmpp weechat-matrix-bridge wee-slack
];
init = ''
/set plugins.var.python.jabber.key "val"
'':
};
}
In nixpkgs there's a subpackage which contains derivations for WeeChat scripts. Such derivations expect a passthru.scripts attribute which contains a list of all scripts inside the store path. Furthermore all scripts have to live in $out/share. An exemplary derivation looks like this:
{ stdenv, fetchurl }:
stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "exemplary-weechat-script";
src = fetchurl {
url = "https://scripts.tld/your-scripts.tar.gz";
sha256 = "...";
};
passthru.scripts = [ "foo.py" "bar.lua" ];
installPhase = ''
mkdir $out/share
cp foo.py $out/share
cp bar.lua $out/share
'';
}
The Nix expressions for the X.org packages reside in pkgs/servers/x11/xorg/default.nix. This file is automatically generated from lists of tarballs in an X.org release. As such it should not be modified directly; rather, you should modify the lists, the generator script or the file pkgs/servers/x11/xorg/overrides.nix, in which you can override or add to the derivations produced by the generator.
The generator is invoked as follows:
$cd pkgs/servers/x11/xorg$cat tarballs-7.5.list extra.list old.list \ | perl ./generate-expr-from-tarballs.pl
For each of the tarballs in the .list files, the script downloads it, unpacks it, and searches its configure.ac and *.pc.in files for dependencies. This information is used to generate default.nix. The generator caches downloaded tarballs between runs. Pay close attention to the NOT FOUND: messages at the end of the run, since they may indicate missing dependencies. (Some might be optional dependencies, however.)
name
A file like tarballs-7.5.list contains all tarballs in a X.org release. It can be generated like this:
$export i="mirror://xorg/X11R7.4/src/everything/"$cat $(PRINT_PATH=1 nix-prefetch-url $i | tail -n 1) \ | perl -e 'while (<>) { if (/(href|HREF)="([^"]*.bz2)"/) { print "$ENV{'i'}$2\n"; }; }' \ | sort > tarballs-7.4.list
extra.list contains libraries that aren’t part of X.org proper, but are closely related to it, such as libxcb. old.list contains some packages that were removed from X.org, but are still needed by some people or by other packages (such as imake).
If the expression for a package requires derivation attributes that the generator cannot figure out automatically (say, patches or a postInstall hook), you should modify pkgs/servers/x11/xorg/overrides.nix.
Table of Contents
To add a package to Nixpkgs:
Checkout the Nixpkgs source tree:
$git clone https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs$cd nixpkgs
Find a good place in the Nixpkgs tree to add the Nix expression for your package. For instance, a library package typically goes into pkgs/development/libraries/, while a web browser goes into pkgnamepkgs/applications/networking/browsers/. See Section 18.3, “File naming and organisation” for some hints on the tree organisation. Create a directory for your package, e.g.
pkgname
$ mkdir pkgs/development/libraries/libfoo
In the package directory, create a Nix expression — a piece of code that describes how to build the package. In this case, it should be a function that is called with the package dependencies as arguments, and returns a build of the package in the Nix store. The expression should usually be called default.nix.
$emacs pkgs/development/libraries/libfoo/default.nix$git add pkgs/development/libraries/libfoo/default.nix
You can have a look at the existing Nix expressions under pkgs/ to see how it’s done. Here are some good ones:
GNU Hello: pkgs/applications/misc/hello/default.nix. Trivial package, which specifies some meta attributes which is good practice.
GNU cpio: pkgs/tools/archivers/cpio/default.nix. Also a simple package. The generic builder in stdenv does everything for you. It has no dependencies beyond stdenv.
GNU Multiple Precision arithmetic library (GMP): pkgs/development/libraries/gmp/5.1.x.nix. Also done by the generic builder, but has a dependency on m4.
Pan, a GTK-based newsreader: pkgs/applications/networking/newsreaders/pan/default.nix. Has an optional dependency on gtkspell, which is only built if spellCheck is true.
Apache HTTPD: pkgs/servers/http/apache-httpd/2.4.nix. A bunch of optional features, variable substitutions in the configure flags, a post-install hook, and miscellaneous hackery.
Thunderbird: pkgs/applications/networking/mailreaders/thunderbird/default.nix. Lots of dependencies.
JDiskReport, a Java utility: pkgs/tools/misc/jdiskreport/default.nix (and the builder). Nixpkgs doesn’t have a decent stdenv for Java yet so this is pretty ad-hoc.
XML::Simple, a Perl module: pkgs/top-level/perl-packages.nix (search for the XMLSimple attribute). Most Perl modules are so simple to build that they are defined directly in perl-packages.nix; no need to make a separate file for them.
Adobe Reader: pkgs/applications/misc/adobe-reader/default.nix. Shows how binary-only packages can be supported. In particular the builder uses patchelf to set the RUNPATH and ELF interpreter of the executables so that the right libraries are found at runtime.
Some notes:
All meta attributes are optional, but it’s still a good idea to provide at least the description, homepage and license.
You can use nix-prefetch-url url to get the SHA-256 hash of source distributions. There are similar commands as nix-prefetch-git and nix-prefetch-hg available in nix-prefetch-scripts package.
A list of schemes for mirror:// URLs can be found in pkgs/build-support/fetchurl/mirrors.nix.
The exact syntax and semantics of the Nix expression language, including the built-in function, are described in the Nix manual in the chapter on writing Nix expressions.
Add a call to the function defined in the previous step to pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix with some descriptive name for the variable, e.g. libfoo.
$ emacs pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
The attributes in that file are sorted by category (like “Development / Libraries”) that more-or-less correspond to the directory structure of Nixpkgs, and then by attribute name.
To test whether the package builds, run the following command from the root of the nixpkgs source tree:
$ nix-build -A libfoo
where libfoo should be the variable name defined in the previous step. You may want to add the flag -K to keep the temporary build directory in case something fails. If the build succeeds, a symlink ./result to the package in the Nix store is created.
If you want to install the package into your profile (optional), do
$ nix-env -f . -iA libfoo
Optionally commit the new package and open a pull request to nixpkgs, or use the Patches category on Discourse for sending a patch without a GitHub account.
Table of Contents
Use 2 spaces of indentation per indentation level in Nix expressions, 4 spaces in shell scripts.
Do not use tab characters, i.e. configure your editor to use soft tabs. For instance, use (setq-default indent-tabs-mode nil) in Emacs. Everybody has different tab settings so it’s asking for trouble.
Use lowerCamelCase for variable names, not UpperCamelCase. Note, this rule does not apply to package attribute names, which instead follow the rules in Section 18.2, “Package naming”.
Function calls with attribute set arguments are written as
foo {
arg = ...;
}
not
foo
{
arg = ...;
}
Also fine is
foo { arg = ...; }
if it's a short call.
In attribute sets or lists that span multiple lines, the attribute names or list elements should be aligned:
# A long list.
list = [
elem1
elem2
elem3
];
# A long attribute set.
attrs = {
attr1 = short_expr;
attr2 =
if true then big_expr else big_expr;
};
# Combined
listOfAttrs = [
{
attr1 = 3;
attr2 = "fff";
}
{
attr1 = 5;
attr2 = "ggg";
}
];
Short lists or attribute sets can be written on one line:
# A short list.
list = [ elem1 elem2 elem3 ];
# A short set.
attrs = { x = 1280; y = 1024; };
Breaking in the middle of a function argument can give hard-to-read code, like
someFunction { x = 1280;
y = 1024; } otherArg
yetAnotherArg
(especially if the argument is very large, spanning multiple lines).
Better:
someFunction
{ x = 1280; y = 1024; }
otherArg
yetAnotherArg
or
let res = { x = 1280; y = 1024; };
in someFunction res otherArg yetAnotherArg
The bodies of functions, asserts, and withs are not indented to prevent a lot of superfluous indentation levels, i.e.
{ arg1, arg2 }:
assert system == "i686-linux";
stdenv.mkDerivation { ...
not
{ arg1, arg2 }:
assert system == "i686-linux";
stdenv.mkDerivation { ...
Function formal arguments are written as:
{ arg1, arg2, arg3 }:
but if they don't fit on one line they're written as:
{ arg1, arg2, arg3
, arg4, ...
, # Some comment...
argN
}:
Functions should list their expected arguments as precisely as possible. That is, write
{ stdenv, fetchurl, perl }: ...
instead of
args: with args; ...
or
{ stdenv, fetchurl, perl, ... }: ...
For functions that are truly generic in the number of arguments (such as wrappers around mkDerivation) that have some required arguments, you should write them using an @-pattern:
{ stdenv, doCoverageAnalysis ? false, ... } @ args:
stdenv.mkDerivation (args // {
... if doCoverageAnalysis then "bla" else "" ...
})
instead of
args:
args.stdenv.mkDerivation (args // {
... if args ? doCoverageAnalysis && args.doCoverageAnalysis then "bla" else "" ...
})
The key words must, must not, required, shall, shall not, should, should not, recommended, may, and optional in this section are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119. Only emphasized words are to be interpreted in this way.
In Nixpkgs, there are generally three different names associated with a package:
The name attribute of the derivation (excluding the version part). This is what most users see, in particular when using nix-env.
The variable name used for the instantiated package in all-packages.nix, and when passing it as a dependency to other functions. Typically this is called the package attribute name. This is what Nix expression authors see. It can also be used when installing using nix-env -iA.
The filename for (the directory containing) the Nix expression.
Most of the time, these are the same. For instance, the package e2fsprogs has a name attribute "e2fsprogs-, is bound to the variable name version"e2fsprogs in all-packages.nix, and the Nix expression is in pkgs/os-specific/linux/e2fsprogs/default.nix.
There are a few naming guidelines:
The name attribute should be identical to the upstream package name.
The name attribute must not contain uppercase letters — e.g., "mplayer-1.0rc2" instead of "MPlayer-1.0rc2".
The version part of the name attribute must start with a digit (following a dash) — e.g., "hello-0.3.1rc2".
If a package is not a release but a commit from a repository, then the version part of the name must be the date of that (fetched) commit. The date must be in "YYYY-MM-DD" format. Also append "unstable" to the name - e.g., "pkgname-unstable-2014-09-23".
Dashes in the package name should be preserved in new variable names, rather than converted to underscores or camel cased — e.g., http-parser instead of http_parser or httpParser. The hyphenated style is preferred in all three package names.
If there are multiple versions of a package, this should be reflected in the variable names in all-packages.nix, e.g. json-c-0-9 and json-c-0-11. If there is an obvious “default” version, make an attribute like json-c = json-c-0-9;. See also Section 18.3.2, “Versioning”
Names of files and directories should be in lowercase, with dashes between words — not in camel case. For instance, it should be all-packages.nix, not allPackages.nix or AllPackages.nix.
Each package should be stored in its own directory somewhere in the pkgs/ tree, i.e. in pkgs/. Below are some rules for picking the right category for a package. Many packages fall under several categories; what matters is the primary purpose of a package. For example, the category/subcategory/.../pkgnamelibxml2 package builds both a library and some tools; but it’s a library foremost, so it goes under pkgs/development/libraries.
When in doubt, consider refactoring the pkgs/ tree, e.g. creating new categories or splitting up an existing category.
development/libraries (e.g. libxml2)
development/compilers (e.g. gcc)
development/interpreters (e.g. guile)
development/tools/parsing (e.g. bison, flex)
development/tools/build-managers (e.g. gnumake)
development/tools/misc (e.g. binutils)
development/misc
(A tool is a relatively small program, especially one intended to be used non-interactively.)
tools/networking (e.g. wget)
tools/text (e.g. diffutils)
tools/system (e.g. cron)
tools/archivers (e.g. zip, tar)
tools/compression (e.g. gzip, bzip2)
tools/security (e.g. nmap, gnupg)
tools/misc
shells (e.g. bash)
servers/http (e.g. apache-httpd)
servers/x11 (e.g. xorg — this includes the client libraries and programs)
servers/misc
desktops (e.g. kde, gnome, enlightenment)
applications/window-managers (e.g. awesome, stumpwm)
A (typically large) program with a distinct user interface, primarily used interactively.
applications/version-management (e.g. subversion)
applications/video (e.g. vlc)
applications/graphics (e.g. gimp)
applications/networking/mailreaders (e.g. thunderbird)
applications/networking/newsreaders (e.g. pan)
applications/networking/browsers (e.g. firefox)
applications/networking/misc
applications/misc
data/fonts
data/icons
data/sgml+xml/schemas/xml-dtd (e.g. docbook)
(Okay, these are executable...)
data/sgml+xml/stylesheets/xslt (e.g. docbook-xsl)
data/themes
games
misc
Because every version of a package in Nixpkgs creates a potential maintenance burden, old versions of a package should not be kept unless there is a good reason to do so. For instance, Nixpkgs contains several versions of GCC because other packages don’t build with the latest version of GCC. Other examples are having both the latest stable and latest pre-release version of a package, or to keep several major releases of an application that differ significantly in functionality.
If there is only one version of a package, its Nix expression should be named e2fsprogs/default.nix. If there are multiple versions, this should be reflected in the filename, e.g. e2fsprogs/1.41.8.nix and e2fsprogs/1.41.9.nix. The version in the filename should leave out unnecessary detail. For instance, if we keep the latest Firefox 2.0.x and 3.5.x versions in Nixpkgs, they should be named firefox/2.0.nix and firefox/3.5.nix, respectively (which, at a given point, might contain versions 2.0.0.20 and 3.5.4). If a version requires many auxiliary files, you can use a subdirectory for each version, e.g. firefox/2.0/default.nix and firefox/3.5/default.nix.
All versions of a package must be included in all-packages.nix to make sure that they evaluate correctly.
There are multiple ways to fetch a package source in nixpkgs. The general guideline is that you should package reproducible sources with a high degree of availability. Right now there is only one fetcher which has mirroring support and that is fetchurl. Note that you should also prefer protocols which have a corresponding proxy environment variable.
You can find many source fetch helpers in pkgs/build-support/fetch*.
In the file pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix you can find fetch helpers, these have names on the form fetchFrom*. The intention of these are to provide snapshot fetches but using the same api as some of the version controlled fetchers from pkgs/build-support/. As an example going from bad to good:
Bad: Uses git:// which won't be proxied.
src = fetchgit {
url = "git://github.com/NixOS/nix.git";
rev = "1f795f9f44607cc5bec70d1300150bfefcef2aae";
sha256 = "1cw5fszffl5pkpa6s6wjnkiv6lm5k618s32sp60kvmvpy7a2v9kg";
}
Better: This is ok, but an archive fetch will still be faster.
src = fetchgit {
url = "https://github.com/NixOS/nix.git";
rev = "1f795f9f44607cc5bec70d1300150bfefcef2aae";
sha256 = "1cw5fszffl5pkpa6s6wjnkiv6lm5k618s32sp60kvmvpy7a2v9kg";
}
Best: Fetches a snapshot archive and you get the rev you want.
src = fetchFromGitHub {
owner = "NixOS";
repo = "nix";
rev = "1f795f9f44607cc5bec70d1300150bfefcef2aae";
sha256 = "1i2yxndxb6yc9l6c99pypbd92lfq5aac4klq7y2v93c9qvx2cgpc";
}
Find the value to put as sha256 by running nix run -f '<nixpkgs>' nix-prefetch-github -c nix-prefetch-github --rev 1f795f9f44607cc5bec70d1300150bfefcef2aae NixOS nix or nix-prefetch-url --unpack https://github.com/NixOS/nix/archive/1f795f9f44607cc5bec70d1300150bfefcef2aae.tar.gz.
Preferred source hash type is sha256. There are several ways to get it.
Prefetch URL (with nix-prefetch-, where XXX URLXXX is one of url, git, hg, cvs, bzr, svn). Hash is printed to stdout.
Prefetch by package source (with nix-prefetch-url '<nixpkgs>' -A , where PACKAGE.srcPACKAGE is package attribute name). Hash is printed to stdout.
This works well when you've upgraded existing package version and want to find out new hash, but is useless if package can't be accessed by attribute or package has multiple sources (.srcs, architecture-dependent sources, etc).
Upstream provided hash: use it when upstream provides sha256 or sha512 (when upstream provides md5, don't use it, compute sha256 instead).
A little nuance is that nix-prefetch-* tools produce hash encoded with base32, but upstream usually provides hexadecimal (base16) encoding. Fetchers understand both formats. Nixpkgs does not standardize on any one format.
You can convert between formats with nix-hash, for example:
$nix-hash --type sha256 --to-base32HASH
Extracting hash from local source tarball can be done with sha256sum. Use nix-prefetch-url file:///path/to/tarball if you want base32 hash.
Fake hash: set fake hash in package expression, perform build and extract correct hash from error Nix prints.
For package updates it is enough to change one symbol to make hash fake. For new packages, you can use lib.fakeSha256, lib.fakeSha512 or any other fake hash.
This is last resort method when reconstructing source URL is non-trivial and nix-prefetch-url -A isn't applicable (for example, one of kodi dependencies). The easiest way then would be replace hash with a fake one and rebuild. Nix build will fail and error message will contain desired hash.
Let's say Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) sits close to your network. Then instead of fetching source you can fetch malware, and instead of source hash you get hash of malware. Here are security considerations for this scenario:
http:// URLs are not secure to prefetch hash from;
hashes from upstream (in method 3) should be obtained via secure protocol;
https:// URLs are secure in methods 1, 2, 3;
https:// URLs are not secure in method 5. When obtaining hashes with fake hash method, TLS checks are disabled. So refetch source hash from several different networks to exclude MITM scenario. Alternatively, use fake hash method to make Nix error, but instead of extracting hash from error, extract https:// URL and prefetch it with method 1.
Patches available online should be retrieved using fetchpatch.
patches = [
(fetchpatch {
name = "fix-check-for-using-shared-freetype-lib.patch";
url = "http://git.ghostscript.com/?p=ghostpdl.git;a=patch;h=8f5d285";
sha256 = "1f0k043rng7f0rfl9hhb89qzvvksqmkrikmm38p61yfx51l325xr";
})
];
Otherwise, you can add a .patch file to the nixpkgs repository. In the interest of keeping our maintenance burden to a minimum, only patches that are unique to nixpkgs should be added in this way.
patches = [ ./0001-changes.patch ];
If you do need to do create this sort of patch file, one way to do so is with git:
Move to the root directory of the source code you're patching.
$ cd the/program/source
If a git repository is not already present, create one and stage all of the source files.
$git init$git add .
Edit some files to make whatever changes need to be included in the patch.
Use git to create a diff, and pipe the output to a patch file:
$ git diff > nixpkgs/pkgs/the/package/0001-changes.patch
Table of Contents
Fork the Nixpkgs repository on GitHub.
Create a branch for your future fix.
You can make branch from a commit of your local nixos-version. That will help you to avoid additional local compilations. Because you will receive packages from binary cache. For example
$nixos-version --hash 0998212$git checkout 0998212$git checkout -b 'fix/pkg-name-update'
Please avoid working directly on the master branch.
Make commits of logical units.
If you removed pkgs or made some major NixOS changes, write about it in the release notes for the next stable release. For example nixos/doc/manual/release-notes/rl-2003.xml.
Check for unnecessary whitespace with git diff --check before committing.
Format the commit in a following way:
(pkg-name | nixos/<module>): (from -> to | init at version | refactor | etc) Additional information.
Examples:
nginx: init at 2.0.1
firefox: 54.0.1 -> 55.0
nixos/hydra: add bazBaz option
nixos/nginx: refactor config generation
Test your changes. If you work with
nixpkgs:
update pkg ->
nix-env -i pkg-name -f <path to your local nixpkgs folder>
add pkg ->
Make sure it's in pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix
nix-env -i pkg-name -f <path to your local nixpkgs folder>
If you don't want to install pkg in you profile.
nix-build -A pkg-attribute-name <path to your local nixpkgs folder>/default.nix and check results in the folder result. It will appear in the same directory where you did nix-build.
If you did nix-env -i pkg-name you can do nix-env -e pkg-name to uninstall it from your system.
NixOS and its modules:
You can add new module to your NixOS configuration file (usually it's /etc/nixos/configuration.nix). And do sudo nixos-rebuild test -I nixpkgs=<path to your local nixpkgs folder> --fast.
If you have commits pkg-name: oh, forgot to insert whitespace: squash commits in this case. Use git rebase -i.
Rebase your branch against current master.
Push your changes to your fork of nixpkgs.
Create the pull request
Follow the contribution guidelines.
Security fixes are submitted in the same way as other changes and thus the same guidelines apply.
If the security fix comes in the form of a patch and a CVE is available, then the name of the patch should be the CVE identifier, so e.g. CVE-2019-13636.patch in the case of a patch that is included in the Nixpkgs tree. If a patch is fetched the name needs to be set as well, e.g.:
(fetchpatch {
name = "CVE-2019-11068.patch";
url = "https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/libxslt/commit/e03553605b45c88f0b4b2980adfbbb8f6fca2fd6.patch";
sha256 = "0pkpb4837km15zgg6h57bncp66d5lwrlvkr73h0lanywq7zrwhj8";
})
If a security fix applies to both master and a stable release then, similar to regular changes, they are preferably delivered via master first and cherry-picked to the release branch.
Critical security fixes may by-pass the staging branches and be delivered directly to release branches such as master and release-*.
The pull request template helps determine what steps have been made for a contribution so far, and will help guide maintainers on the status of a change. The motivation section of the PR should include any extra details the title does not address and link any existing issues related to the pull request.
When a PR is created, it will be pre-populated with some checkboxes detailed below:
When sandbox builds are enabled, Nix will setup an isolated environment for each build process. It is used to remove further hidden dependencies set by the build environment to improve reproducibility. This includes access to the network during the build outside of fetch* functions and files outside the Nix store. Depending on the operating system access to other resources are blocked as well (ex. inter process communication is isolated on Linux); see sandbox in Nix manual for details.
Sandboxing is not enabled by default in Nix due to a small performance hit on each build. In pull requests for nixpkgs people are asked to test builds with sandboxing enabled (see Tested using sandboxing in the pull request template) because inhttps://nixos.org/hydra/ sandboxing is also used.
Depending if you use NixOS or other platforms you can use one of the following methods to enable sandboxing before building the package:
Globally enable sandboxing on NixOS: add the following to configuration.nix
nix.useSandbox = true;
Globally enable sandboxing on non-NixOS platforms: add the following to: /etc/nix/nix.conf
sandbox = true
Many Nix packages are designed to run on multiple platforms. As such, it's important to let the maintainer know which platforms your changes have been tested on. It's not always practical to test a change on all platforms, and is not required for a pull request to be merged. Only check the systems you tested the build on in this section.
Packages with automated tests are much more likely to be merged in a timely fashion because it doesn't require as much manual testing by the maintainer to verify the functionality of the package. If there are existing tests for the package, they should be run to verify your changes do not break the tests. Tests only apply to packages with NixOS modules defined and can only be run on Linux. For more details on writing and running tests, see the section in the NixOS manual.
If you are updating a package's version, you can use nixpkgs-review to make sure all packages that depend on the updated package still compile correctly. The nixpkgs-review utility can look for and build all dependencies either based on uncommited changes with the wip option or specifying a github pull request number.
review changes from pull request number 12345:
nix run nixpkgs.nixpkgs-review -c nixpkgs-review pr 12345
review uncommitted changes:
nix run nixpkgs.nixpkgs-review -c nixpkgs-review wip
review changes from last commit:
nix run nixpkgs.nixpkgs-review -c nixpkgs-review rev HEAD
./result/bin/)
It's important to test any executables generated by a build when you change or create a package in nixpkgs. This can be done by looking in ./result/bin and running any files in there, or at a minimum, the main executable for the package. For example, if you make a change to texlive, you probably would only check the binaries associated with the change you made rather than testing all of them.
The last checkbox is fits CONTRIBUTING.md. The contributing document has detailed information on standards the Nix community has for commit messages, reviews, licensing of contributions you make to the project, etc... Everyone should read and understand the standards the community has for contributing before submitting a pull request.
Make the appropriate changes in you branch.
Don't create additional commits, do
git rebase -i
git push --force to your branch.
Commits must be sufficiently tested before being merged, both for the master and staging branches.
Hydra builds for master and staging should not be used as testing platform, it's a build farm for changes that have been already tested.
When changing the bootloader installation process, extra care must be taken. Grub installations cannot be rolled back, hence changes may break people's installations forever. For any non-trivial change to the bootloader please file a PR asking for review, especially from @edolstra.
The master branch is the main development branch. It should only see non-breaking commits that do not cause mass rebuilds.
The staging branch is a development branch where mass-rebuilds go. It should only see non-breaking mass-rebuild commits. That means it is not to be used for testing, and changes must have been well tested already. If the branch is already in a broken state, please refrain from adding extra new breakages.
The staging-next branch is for stabilizing mass-rebuilds submitted to the staging branch prior to merging them into master. Mass-rebuilds should go via the staging branch. It should only see non-breaking commits that are fixing issues blocking it from being merged into the master branch.
If the branch is already in a broken state, please refrain from adding extra new breakages. Stabilize it for a few days and then merge into master.
For cherry-picking a commit to a stable release branch (“backporting”), use git cherry-pick -x <original commit> so that the original commit id is included in the commit.
Add a reason for the backport by using git cherry-pick -xe <original commit> instead when it is not obvious from the original commit message. It is not needed when it’s a minor version update that includes security and bug fixes but don’t add new features or when the commit fixes an otherwise broken package.
Here is an example of a cherry-picked commit message with good reason description:
zfs: Keep trying root import until it works Works around #11003. (cherry picked from commit 98b213a11041af39b39473906b595290e2a4e2f9) Reason: several people cannot boot with ZFS on NVMe
Other examples of reasons are:
Previously the build would fail due to, e.g., getaddrinfo not being defined
The previous download links were all broken
Crash when starting on some X11 systems
Table of Contents
The Nixpkgs project receives a fairly high number of contributions via GitHub pull requests. Reviewing and approving these is an important task and a way to contribute to the project.
The high change rate of Nixpkgs makes any pull request that remains open for too long subject to conflicts that will require extra work from the submitter or the merger. Reviewing pull requests in a timely manner and being responsive to the comments is the key to avoid this issue. GitHub provides sort filters that can be used to see the most recently and the least recently updated pull requests. We highly encourage looking at this list of ready to merge, unreviewed pull requests.
When reviewing a pull request, please always be nice and polite. Controversial changes can lead to controversial opinions, but it is important to respect every community member and their work.
GitHub provides reactions as a simple and quick way to provide feedback to pull requests or any comments. The thumb-down reaction should be used with care and if possible accompanied with some explanation so the submitter has directions to improve their contribution.
pull request reviews should include a list of what has been reviewed in a comment, so other reviewers and mergers can know the state of the review.
All the review template samples provided in this section are generic and meant as examples. Their usage is optional and the reviewer is free to adapt them to their liking.
A package update is the most trivial and common type of pull request. These pull requests mainly consist of updating the version part of the package name and the source hash.
It can happen that non-trivial updates include patches or more complex changes.
Reviewing process:
Add labels to the pull request. (Requires commit rights)
8.has: package (update) and any topic label that fit the updated package.
Ensure that the package versioning fits the guidelines.
Ensure that the commit text fits the guidelines.
Ensure that the package maintainers are notified.
CODEOWNERS will make GitHub notify users based on the submitted changes, but it can happen that it misses some of the package maintainers.
Ensure that the meta field information is correct.
License can change with version updates, so it should be checked to match the upstream license.
If the package has no maintainer, a maintainer must be set. This can be the update submitter or a community member that accepts to take maintainership of the package.
Ensure that the code contains no typos.
Building the package locally.
pull requests are often targeted to the master or staging branch, and building the pull request locally when it is submitted can trigger many source builds.
It is possible to rebase the changes on nixos-unstable or nixpkgs-unstable for easier review by running the following commands from a nixpkgs clone.
$git fetch origin nixos-unstable$git fetch origin pull/PRNUMBER/head$git rebase --onto nixos-unstable BASEBRANCH FETCH_HEAD
| Fetching the nixos-unstable branch. |
|
Fetching the pull request changes, |
| Rebasing the pull request changes to the nixos-unstable branch. |
The nixpkgs-review tool can be used to review a pull request content in a single command. PRNUMBER should be replaced by the number at the end of the pull request title. You can also provide the full github pull request url.
$ nix-shell -p nixpkgs-review --run "nixpkgs-review pr PRNUMBER"
Running every binary.
Example 20.1. Sample template for a package update review
##### Reviewed points - [ ] package name fits guidelines - [ ] package version fits guidelines - [ ] package build on ARCHITECTURE - [ ] executables tested on ARCHITECTURE - [ ] all depending packages build ##### Possible improvements ##### Comments
New packages are a common type of pull requests. These pull requests consists in adding a new nix-expression for a package.
Reviewing process:
Add labels to the pull request. (Requires commit rights)
8.has: package (new) and any topic label that fit the new package.
Ensure that the package versioning is fitting the guidelines.
Ensure that the commit name is fitting the guidelines.
Ensure that the meta field contains correct information.
License must be checked to be fitting upstream license.
Platforms should be set or the package will not get binary substitutes.
A maintainer must be set. This can be the package submitter or a community member that accepts to take maintainership of the package.
Ensure that the code contains no typos.
Ensure the package source.
Mirrors urls should be used when available.
The most appropriate function should be used (e.g. packages from GitHub should use fetchFromGitHub).
Building the package locally.
Running every binary.
Example 20.2. Sample template for a new package review
##### Reviewed points - [ ] package path fits guidelines - [ ] package name fits guidelines - [ ] package version fits guidelines - [ ] package build on ARCHITECTURE - [ ] executables tested on ARCHITECTURE - [ ] `meta.description` is set and fits guidelines - [ ] `meta.license` fits upstream license - [ ] `meta.platforms` is set - [ ] `meta.maintainers` is set - [ ] build time only dependencies are declared in `nativeBuildInputs` - [ ] source is fetched using the appropriate function - [ ] phases are respected - [ ] patches that are remotely available are fetched with `fetchpatch` ##### Possible improvements ##### Comments
Module updates are submissions changing modules in some ways. These often contains changes to the options or introduce new options.
Reviewing process
Add labels to the pull request. (Requires commit rights)
8.has: module (update) and any topic label that fit the module.
Ensure that the module maintainers are notified.
CODEOWNERS will make GitHub notify users based on the submitted changes, but it can happen that it misses some of the package maintainers.
Ensure that the module tests, if any, are succeeding.
Ensure that the introduced options are correct.
Type should be appropriate (string related types differs in their merging capabilities, optionSet and string types are deprecated).
Description, default and example should be provided.
Ensure that option changes are backward compatible.
mkRenamedOptionModule and mkAliasOptionModule functions provide way to make option changes backward compatible.
Ensure that removed options are declared with mkRemovedOptionModule
Ensure that changes that are not backward compatible are mentioned in release notes.
Ensure that documentations affected by the change is updated.
Example 20.3. Sample template for a module update review
##### Reviewed points - [ ] changes are backward compatible - [ ] removed options are declared with `mkRemovedOptionModule` - [ ] changes that are not backward compatible are documented in release notes - [ ] module tests succeed on ARCHITECTURE - [ ] options types are appropriate - [ ] options description is set - [ ] options example is provided - [ ] documentation affected by the changes is updated ##### Possible improvements ##### Comments
New modules submissions introduce a new module to NixOS.
Add labels to the pull request. (Requires commit rights)
8.has: module (new) and any topic label that fit the module.
Ensure that the module tests, if any, are succeeding.
Ensure that the introduced options are correct.
Type should be appropriate (string related types differs in their merging capabilities, optionSet and string types are deprecated).
Description, default and example should be provided.
Ensure that module meta field is present
Maintainers should be declared in meta.maintainers.
Module documentation should be declared with meta.doc.
Ensure that the module respect other modules functionality.
For example, enabling a module should not open firewall ports by default.
Example 20.4. Sample template for a new module review
##### Reviewed points - [ ] module path fits the guidelines - [ ] module tests succeed on ARCHITECTURE - [ ] options have appropriate types - [ ] options have default - [ ] options have example - [ ] options have descriptions - [ ] No unneeded package is added to environment.systemPackages - [ ] meta.maintainers is set - [ ] module documentation is declared in meta.doc ##### Possible improvements ##### Comments
Other type of submissions requires different reviewing steps.
If you consider having enough knowledge and experience in a topic and would like to be a long-term reviewer for related submissions, please contact the current reviewers for that topic. They will give you information about the reviewing process. The main reviewers for a topic can be hard to find as there is no list, but checking past pull requests to see who reviewed or git-blaming the code to see who committed to that topic can give some hints.
Container system, boot system and library changes are some examples of the pull requests fitting this category.
It is possible for community members that have enough knowledge and experience on a special topic to contribute by merging pull requests.
TODO: add the procedure to request merging rights.
In a case a contributor definitively leaves the Nix community, they should create an issue or post on Discourse with references of packages and modules they maintain so the maintainership can be taken over by other contributors.
The DocBook sources of the Nixpkgs manual are in the doc subdirectory of the Nixpkgs repository.
You can quickly check your edits with make:
$cd /path/to/nixpkgs/doc$nix-shell[nix-shell]$make
If you experience problems, run make debug to help understand the docbook errors.
After making modifications to the manual, it's important to build it before committing. You can do that as follows:
$cd /path/to/nixpkgs/doc$nix-shell[nix-shell]$make clean[nix-shell]$nix-build .
If the build succeeds, the manual will be in ./result/share/doc/nixpkgs/manual.html.