A small step towards https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/6507
I believe this incomplete definition is one that can be agreed on.
It would be nice to define more, but considering that the issue
also proposes changes to the design, I believe we should hold off
on those.
As for the wording, we're dealing with some very general and vague
terms, that have to be treated with exactly the right amount of
vagueness to be effective.
I start out with a fairly abstract definition of package.
1. to establish a baseline so we know what we're talking about
2. so that we can go in and clarify that we have an extra, Nix-specific
definition.
"Software" is notoriously ill-defined, so it makes a great qualifier
for package, which we don't really want to pin down either, because
that would just get us lost in discussion.
We can come back to this after we've done 6057 and a few years in a
desert cave.
Then comes the "package attribute set" definition.
I can already hear Valentin say "That's not even Nix's responsibility!"
and on some days I might even agree.
However, in our current reality, we have `nix-env`, `nix-build` and
`nix profile`, which query the `outputName` attribute - among others -
which just don't exist in the derivation.
For those who can't believe what they're reading:
$ nix-build --expr 'with import ./. {}; bind // {outputName = "lib";}' --no-out-link
this path will be fetched (1.16 MiB download, 3.72 MiB unpacked):
/nix/store/rfk6klfx3z972gavxlw6iypnj6j806ma-bind-9.18.21-lib
copying path '/nix/store/rfk6klfx3z972gavxlw6iypnj6j806ma-bind-9.18.21-lib' from 'https://cache.nixos.org'...
/nix/store/rfk6klfx3z972gavxlw6iypnj6j806ma-bind-9.18.21-lib
and let me tell you that bind is not a library.
So anyway, that's also proof of why calling this a "derivation attrset" would be wrong, despite the type attribute.
The Nix team has requested that this output format remain unchanged.
I've added a warning to the man page explaining that `nix-instantiate
--eval` output will not parse correctly in many situations.
* deduplicate installation instructions
- reorder sections to present pinned installation more prominently
- remove outdated notes on the macOS installer rework
- update instructions to handle the installer tarball
Co-authored-by: Travis A. Everett <travis.a.everett@gmail.com>
It might seem obnoxious to have yet more configure flags, but I found
controlling both the unit and functional tests with one flag was quite
confusing because they are so different:
- unit tests depending on building, functional tests don't (e.g. when
we test already-built Nix)
- unit tests can be installed, functional tests cannot
- unit tests neeed extra libraries (GTest, RapidCheck), functional
tests need extra executables (jq).
- unit tests are run by `make check`, functional tests are run by `make
installcheck`
Really on a technical level, they seem wholly independent. Only on a
human level ("they are both are tests") do they have anything in common.
I had messed up the logic in cross builds because of this. Now I
split the flag in two (and cleaned up a few other inconsistencies), and
the logic fixed itself.
Co-Authored-By: Robert Hensing <roberth@users.noreply.github.com>
* Print the value in `error: cannot coerce` messages
This extends the `error: cannot coerce a TYPE to a string` message
to print the value that could not be coerced. This helps with debugging
by making it easier to track down where the value is being produced
from, especially in errors with deep or unhelpful stack traces.
Co-authored-by: Valentin Gagarin <valentin.gagarin@tweag.io>
Today, with the tests inside a `tests` intermingled with the
corresponding library's source code, we have a few problems:
- We have to be careful that wildcards don't end up with tests being
built as part of Nix proper, or test headers being installed as part
of Nix proper.
- Tests in libraries but not executables is not right:
- It means each executable runs the previous unit tests again, because
it needs the libraries.
- It doesn't work right on Windows, which doesn't want you to load a
DLL just for the side global variable . It could be made to work
with the dlopen equivalent, but that's gross!
This reorg solves these problems.
There is a remaining problem which is that sibbling headers (like
`hash.hh` the test header vs `hash.hh` the main `libnixutil` header) end
up shadowing each other. This PR doesn't solve that. That is left as
future work for a future PR.
Co-authored-by: Valentin Gagarin <valentin.gagarin@tweag.io>
This makes for more useful manual table of contents, that displays the
information at a glance.
The `nix help-stores` command is kept as-is, even though it will show up
in the manual with the same information as these pages due to the way it
is written as a "`--help`-style" command. Deciding what to do with that
command is left for a later PR.
This change also lists all store types at the top of the respective overview page.
Co-authored-by: John Ericson <John.Ericson@Obsidian.Systems
this focuses on `nix-shell -p` and refers to search.nixos.org for
package search, which is currently the easiest and most effective way to
find program names.
- helps navigating the code as it highlights which files are generated
- makes it less error prone when working incrementally
(although this should be just fixed by building out of tree)
`installcheck` doesn't yet work, but the rest of the build can now
happen mostly inside a separate build directory.
Progress on #9342
Co-authored-by: Valentin Gagarin <valentin.gagarin@tweag.io>
