When computing a lock file, we now respect the lock files of flake
inputs. This is important for usability / reproducibility. For
example, the 'nixops' flake depends on the 'nixops-aws' and
'nixops-hetzner' repositories. So when the 'nixops' flake is used in
another flake, we want the versions of 'nixops-aws' and
'nixops-hetzner' locked by the the 'nixops' flake because those
presumably have been tested.
This can lead to a proliferation of versions of flakes like 'nixpkgs'
(since every flake's lock file could depend on a different version of
'nixpkgs'). This is not a major issue when using Nixpkgs overlays or
NixOS modules, since then the top-level flake composes those
overlays/modules into *its* version of Nixpkgs and all other versions
are ignored. Lock file computation has been made a bit more lazy so it
won't try to fetch all those versions of 'nixpkgs'.
However, in case it's necessary to minimize flake versions, there now
are two input attributes that allow this. First, you can copy an input
from another flake, as follows:
inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "dwarffs/nixpkgs";
This states that the calling flake's 'nixpkgs' input shall be the same
as the 'nixpkgs' input of the 'dwarffs' input.
Second, you can override inputs of inputs:
inputs.nixpkgs.url = github:edolstra/nixpkgs/<hash>;
inputs.nixops.inputs.nixpkgs.url = github:edolstra/nixpkgs/<hash>;
or equivalently, using 'follows':
inputs.nixpkgs.url = github:edolstra/nixpkgs/<hash>;
inputs.nixops.inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
This states that the 'nixpkgs' input of the 'nixops' input shall be
the same as the calling flake's 'nixpkgs' input.
Finally, at '-v' Nix now prints the changes to the lock file, e.g.
$ nix flake update ~/Misc/eelco-configurations/hagbard
inputs of flake 'git+file:///home/eelco/Misc/eelco-configurations?subdir=hagbard' changed:
updated 'nixpkgs': 'github:edolstra/nixpkgs/7845bf5f4b3013df1cf036e9c9c3a55a30331db9' -> 'github:edolstra/nixpkgs/03f3def66a104a221aac8b751eeb7075374848fd'
removed 'nixops'
removed 'nixops/nixops-aws'
removed 'nixops/nixops-hetzner'
removed 'nixops/nixpkgs'
The store path is not enough. For example, when we build a dirty tree,
commit, and build the clean tree, a re-evaluation is necessary because
the flake may depend on the lastModified or revCount attributes.
Fixes
error: the content hash of flake '/home/eelco/Dev/nixpkgs-flake?ref=HEAD&rev=0000000000000000000000000000000000000000' doesn't match the hash recorded in the referring lockfile
Experimental features are now opt-in. There are currently two
experimental features: "nix-command" (which enables the "nix"
command), and "flakes" (which enables support for flakes). This will
allow us to merge experimental features more quickly, without
committing to supporting them indefinitely.
Typical usage:
$ nix build --experimental-features 'nix-command flakes' nixpkgs#hello
In particular, when building a flake lock file, inputs like 'nixpkgs'
are now downloaded only once. Previously, it would fetch
https://api.github.com/repos/<owner>/<repo>/tarball/<ref> and then
later https://api.github.com/repos/<owner>/<repo>/tarball/<rev>, even
though they produce the same result.
Git and GitHub now also share a cache that maps revs to a store path
and other info.
For example, if the top-level flake depends on
"nixpkgs/release-19.03", and one of its dependencies depends on
"nixpkgs", then the latter will be mapped to "nixpkgs/release-19.03",
rather than whatever the default branch of "nixpkgs" is. Thus you get
only one "nixpkgs" dependency rather than two.
This currently only works in a breadth-first way, so the other way
around (i.e. if the top-level flake depends on "nixpkgs", and a
dependency depends on "nixpkgs/release-19.03") still results in two
"nixpkgs" dependencies.
If 'input.<name>.uri' changes, then the entry in the lockfile for
input <name> should be considered stale.
Also print some messages when lock file entries are added/updated.
So you now get
$ nix build
error: path '.' is not a flake (because it does not reference a Git repository)
rather than
$ nix build
error: unsupported argument '.'
Instead of a list, inputs are now an attrset like
inputs = {
nixpkgs.uri = github:NixOS/nixpkgs;
};
If 'uri' is omitted, than the flake is a lookup in the flake registry, e.g.
inputs = {
nixpkgs = {};
};
but in that case, you can also just omit the input altogether and
specify it as an argument to the 'outputs' function, as in
outputs = { self, nixpkgs }: ...
This also gets rid of 'nonFlakeInputs', which are now just a special
kind of input that have a 'flake = false' attribute, e.g.
inputs = {
someRepo = {
uri = github:example/repo;
flake = false;
};
};
This exploits the hermetic nature of flake evaluation to speed up
repeated evaluations of a flake output attribute.
For example (doing 'nix build' on an already present package):
$ time nix build nixpkgs:firefox
real 0m1.497s
user 0m1.160s
sys 0m0.139s
$ time nix build nixpkgs:firefox
real 0m0.052s
user 0m0.038s
sys 0m0.007s
The cache is ~/.cache/nix/eval-cache-v1.sqlite, which has entries like
INSERT INTO Attributes VALUES(
X'92a907d4efe933af2a46959b082cdff176aa5bfeb47a98fabd234809a67ab195',
'packages.firefox',
1,
'/nix/store/pbalzf8x19hckr8cwdv62rd6g0lqgc38-firefox-67.0.drv /nix/store/g6q0gx0v6xvdnizp8lrcw7c4gdkzana0-firefox-67.0 out');
where the hash 92a9... is a fingerprint over the flake store path and
the contents of the lockfile. Because flakes are evaluated in pure
mode, this uniquely identifies the evaluation result.
