diff --git a/doc/manual/rl-next/profile-regex-all.md b/doc/manual/rl-next/profile-regex-all.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..e3e6849cc --- /dev/null +++ b/doc/manual/rl-next/profile-regex-all.md @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +--- +synopsis: Introduction of `--regex` and `--all` in `nix profile remove` and `nix profile upgrade` +prs: 10166 +--- + +Previously the command-line arguments for `nix profile remove` and `nix profile upgrade` matched the package entries using regular expression. +For instance: + +``` +nix profile remove '.*vim.*' +``` + +This would remove all packages that contain `vim` in their name. + +In most cases, only singular package names were used to remove and upgrade packages. Mixing this with regular expressions sometimes lead to unintended behavior. For instance, `python3.1` could match `python311`. + +To avoid unintended behavior, the arguments are now only matching exact names. + +Matching using regular expressions is still possible by using the new `--regex` flag: + +``` +nix profile remove --regex '.*vim.*' +``` + +One of the most useful cases for using regular expressions was to upgrade all packages. This was previously accomplished by: + +``` +nix profile upgrade '.*' +``` + +With the introduction of the `--all` flag, this now becomes more straightforward: + +``` +nix profile upgrade --all +```