`nix eval` forces values and prints derivations as attribute sets, so
commands that print derivations (e.g. `nix eval nixpkgs#bash`) will
infinitely loop and segfault.
Printing derivations as `.drv` paths makes `nix eval` complete as
expected. Further work is needed, but this is better than a segfault.
As discussed in the last Nix team meeting (2024-02-95), this method
doesn't belong because `CanonPath` is a virtual/ideal absolute path
format, not used in file systems beyond the native OS format for which a
"current working directory" is defined.
Progress towards #9205
While preparing PRs like #9753, I've had to change error messages in
dozens of code paths. It would be nice if instead of
EvalError("expected 'boolean' but found '%1%'", showType(v))
we could write
TypeError(v, "boolean")
or similar. Then, changing the error message could be a mechanical
refactor with the compiler pointing out places the constructor needs to
be changed, rather than the error-prone process of grepping through the
codebase. Structured errors would also help prevent the "same" error
from having multiple slightly different messages, and could be a first
step towards error codes / an error index.
This PR reworks the exception infrastructure in `libexpr` to
support exception types with different constructor signatures than
`BaseError`. Actually refactoring the exceptions to use structured data
will come in a future PR (this one is big enough already, as it has to
touch every exception in `libexpr`).
The core design is in `eval-error.hh`. Generally, errors like this:
state.error("'%s' is not a string", getAttrPathStr())
.debugThrow<TypeError>()
are transformed like this:
state.error<TypeError>("'%s' is not a string", getAttrPathStr())
.debugThrow()
The type annotation has moved from `ErrorBuilder::debugThrow` to
`EvalState::error`.
Motivation
`PathSet` is not correct because string contexts have other forms
(`Built` and `DrvDeep`) that are not rendered as plain store paths.
Instead of wrongly using `PathSet`, or "stringly typed" using
`StringSet`, use `std::std<StringContextElem>`.
-----
In support of this change, `NixStringContext` is now defined as
`std::std<StringContextElem>` not `std:vector<StringContextElem>`. The
old definition was just used by a `getContext` method which was only
used by the eval cache. It can be deleted altogether since the types are
now unified and the preexisting `copyContext` function already suffices.
Summarizing the previous paragraph:
Old:
- `value/context.hh`: `NixStringContext = std::vector<StringContextElem>`
- `value.hh`: `NixStringContext Value::getContext(...)`
- `value.hh`: `copyContext(...)`
New:
- `value/context.hh`: `NixStringContext = std::set<StringContextElem>`
- `value.hh`: `copyContext(...)`
----
The string representation of string context elements no longer contains
the store dir. The diff of `src/libexpr/tests/value/context.cc` should
make clear what the new representation is, so we recommend reviewing
that file first. This was done for two reasons:
Less API churn:
`Value::mkString` and friends did not take a `Store` before. But if
`NixStringContextElem::{parse, to_string}` *do* take a store (as they
did before), then we cannot have the `Value` functions use them (in
order to work with the fully-structured `NixStringContext`) without
adding that argument.
That would have been a lot of churn of threading the store, and this
diff is already large enough, so the easier and less invasive thing to
do was simply make the element `parse` and `to_string` functions not
take the `Store` reference, and the easiest way to do that was to simply
drop the store dir.
Space usage:
Dropping the `/nix/store/` (or similar) from the internal representation
will safe space in the heap of the Nix programming being interpreted. If
the heap contains many strings with non-trivial contexts, the saving
could add up to something significant.
----
The eval cache version is bumped.
The eval cache serialization uses `NixStringContextElem::{parse,
to_string}`, and since those functions are changed per the above, that
means the on-disk representation is also changed.
This is simply done by changing the name of the used for the eval cache
from `eval-cache-v4` to eval-cache-v5`.
----
To avoid some duplication `EvalCache::mkPathString` is added to abstract
over the simple case of turning a store path to a string with just that
string in the context.
Context
This PR picks up where #7543 left off. That one introduced the fully
structured `NixStringContextElem` data type, but kept `PathSet context`
as an awkward middle ground between internal `char[][]` interpreter heap
string contexts and `NixStringContext` fully parsed string contexts.
The infelicity of `PathSet context` was specifically called out during
Nix team group review, but it was agreeing that fixing it could be left
as future work. This is that future work.
A possible follow-up step would be to get rid of the `char[][]`
evaluator heap representation, too, but it is not yet clear how to do
that. To use `NixStringContextElem` there we would need to get the STL
containers to GC pointers in the GC build, and I am not sure how to do
that.
----
PR #7543 effectively is writing the inverse of a `mkPathString`,
`mkOutputString`, and one more such function for the `DrvDeep` case. I
would like that PR to have property tests ensuring it is actually the
inverse as expected.
This PR sets things up nicely so that reworking that PR to be in that
more elegant and better tested way is possible.
Co-authored-by: Théophane Hufschmitt <7226587+thufschmitt@users.noreply.github.com>
This introduces the SourcePath type from lazy-trees as an abstraction
for accessing files from inputs that may not be materialized in the
real filesystem (e.g. Git repositories). Currently, however, it's just
a wrapper around CanonPath, so it shouldn't change any behaviour. (On
lazy-trees, SourcePath is a <InputAccessor, CanonPath> tuple.)
These methods would previously fail on the other `Installable`s, so
moving them to this class is more correct as to where they actually
work.
Additionally, a `InstallableValueCommand` is created to make it easier
(or rather no worse than before) to write commands that just work on
`InstallableValue`s.
Besides being a cleanup to avoid failing default methods, this gets us
closer to https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/pull/134.
Already, we had classes like `BuiltPathsCommand` and `StorePathsCommand`
which provided alternative `run` virtual functions providing the
implementation with more arguments. This was a very nice and easy way to
make writing command; just fill in the virtual functions and it is
fairly clear what to do.
However, exception to this pattern were `Installable{,s}Command`. These
two classes instead just had a field where the installables would be
stored, and various side-effecting `prepare` and `load` machinery too
fill them in. Command would wish out those fields.
This isn't so clear to use.
What this commit does is make those command classes like the others,
with richer `run` functions.
Not only does this restore the pattern making commands easier to write,
it has a number of other benefits:
- `prepare` and `load` are gone entirely! One command just hands just
hands off to the next.
- `useDefaultInstallables` because `defaultInstallables`. This takes
over `prepare` for the one case that needs it, and provides enough
flexiblity to handle `nix repl`'s idiosyncratic migration.
- We can use `ref` instead of `std::shared_ptr`. The former must be
initialized (so it is like Rust's `Box` rather than `Option<Box>`,
This expresses the invariant that the installable are in fact
initialized much better.
This is possible because since we just have local variables not
fields, we can stop worrying about the not-yet-initialized case.
- Fewer lines of code! (Finally I have a large refactor that makes the
number go down not up...)
- `nix repl` is now implemented in a clearer way.
The last item deserves further mention. `nix repl` is not like the other
installable commands because instead working from once-loaded
installables, it needs to be able to load them again and again.
To properly support this, we make a new superclass
`RawInstallablesCommand`. This class has the argument parsing and
completion logic, but does *not* hand off parsed installables but
instead just the raw string arguments.
This is exactly what `nix repl` needs, and allows us to instead of
having the logic awkwardly split between `prepare`,
`useDefaultInstallables,` and `load`, have everything right next to each
other. I think this will enable future simplifications of that argument
defaulting logic, but I am saving those for a future PR --- best to keep
code motion and more complicated boolean expression rewriting separate
steps.
The "diagnostic ignored `-Woverloaded-virtual`" pragma helps because C++
doesn't like our many `run` methods. In our case, we don't mind the
shadowing it all --- it is *intentional* that the derived class only
provides a `run` method, and doesn't call any of the overridden `run`
methods.
Helps with https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/pull/134
It is independent of SourceExprCommand, which is about parsing
installables, except for the fact that parsing installables is one of
the many things influenced by read-only mode.
Makes `printValueAsJSON` not copy paths to the store for `nix eval
--json`, `nix-instantiate --eval --json` and `nix-env --json`.
Fixes https://github.com/NixOS/nix/issues/5612
this slightly increases the amount of memory used for any given symbol, but this
increase is more than made up for if the symbol is referenced more than once in
the EvalState that holds it. on average every symbol should be referenced at
least twice (once to introduce a binding, once to use it), so we expect no
increase in memory on average.
symbol tables are limited to 2³² entries like position tables, and similar
arguments apply to why overflow is not likely: 2³² symbols would require as many
string instances (at 24 bytes each) and map entries (at 24 bytes or more each,
assuming that the map holds on average at most one item per bucket as the docs
say). a full symbol table would require at least 192GB of memory just for
symbols, which is well out of reach. (an ofborg eval of nixpks today creates
less than a million symbols!)
Pos objects are somewhat wasteful as they duplicate the origin file name and
input type for each object. on files that produce more than one Pos when parsed
this a sizeable waste of memory (one pointer per Pos). the same goes for
ptr<Pos> on 64 bit machines: parsing enough source to require 8 bytes to locate
a position would need at least 8GB of input and 64GB of expression memory. it's
not likely that we'll hit that any time soon, so we can use a uint32_t index to
locate positions instead.
we'll retain the old coerceToString interface that returns a string, but callers
that don't need the returned value to outlive the Value it came from can save
copies by using the new interface instead. for values that weren't stringy we'll
pass a new buffer argument that'll be used for storage and shouldn't be
inspected.
- Make passing the position to `forceValue` mandatory,
this way we remember people that the position is
important for better error messages
- Add pos to all `forceValue` calls
