this is a how-to guide which should not be in the reference manual.
it also refers to `nix-env`, which should not be the first thing readers
of the reference manual encounter, as it behaves very differently in
spirit from the rest of Nix.
slightly reword the documentation to be more concise and informative.
- Improved API docs from comment
- Exit codes are for `nix-build`, not just `nix-store --release`
- Make note in tests so the magic numbers are not surprising
Picking up where #8387 left off.
Deleting store info corrected (there is a foot-gun in Nix with
`--delete-generations old`!)
Also a few things are cleaned up based on feedback.
Co-authored-by: Valentin Gagarin <valentin.gagarin@tweag.io>
Co-authored-by: Eelco Dolstra <edolstra@gmail.com>
Add support to --list-generations
as another way to say
nix-env --profile /nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/$USER/channels --list-generations
the way we did for nix-channel --rollback [generation id]
e.g. nix-env -e subversion => nix-env --uninstall subversion
The aim is to make the documentation less cryptic for newcomers and the
long options are more self-documenting.
The change was made with the following script:
<https://github.com/aschmolck/convert-short-nix-opts-to-long-ones>
and sanity checked visually.
This gives some more context and should clarify why it works that way.
Also link it from the section on `NIX_USER_CONF_FILES`.
Co-authored-by: John Ericson <git@JohnEricson.me>
it's probably better not to show the manifest file documentation in the
command-specific pages, because these are implementation details that are not really practically useful.
this means no additional hassle for building the manual, but clutters
the table of contents a bit.
- Create a glossary entry for experimental features.
- Have the man page experimental feature notice link `nix-commmand`.
(Eventually this should be programmed, based on whether the command is
experimental, and if so what experimental feature does it depend on.)
- Document which installables depend on which experimental features.
I tried to use the same style (bold warning and block quote) that the
top of the man page uses.
Co-authored-by: Valentin Gagarin <valentin.gagarin@tweag.io>
the semantics are not explained in the referenced section any more, they
have been moved to the documentation for common options in the new CLI [0].
[0]: 703d863a48
Documentation on "classic" commands with many sub-commands are
notoriously hard to discover due to lack of overview and anchor links.
Additionally the information on common options and environment variables
is not accessible offline in man pages, and therefore often overlooked
by readers.
With this change, each sub-command of nix-store and nix-env gets its
own page in the manual (listed in the table of contents), and each own
man page.
Also, man pages for each subcommand now (again) list common options
and environment variables. While this makes each page quite long and
some common parameters don't apply, this should still make it easier
to navigate as that additional information was not accessible on the
command line at all.
It is now possible to run 'nix-store --<subcommand> --help` to display
help pages for the given subcommand.
Co-authored-by: Valentin Gagarin <valentin.gagarin@tweag.io>
Add the --base64 and --sri flags for the Base64 and SRI format output.
Add the --base16 flag to explicitly specify the hexadecimal format.
Add the --to-base64 and --to-sri flag to convert a hash to the above
mentioned format.
XDG Base Directory is a standard for locations for storing various
files. Nix has a few files which seem to fit in the standard, but
currently use a custom location directly in the user's ~, polluting
it:
- ~/.nix-profile
- ~/.nix-defexpr
- ~/.nix-channels
This commit adds a config option (use-xdg-base-directories) to follow
the XDG spec and instead use the following locations:
- $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/profile
- $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/defexpr
- $XDG_STATE_HOME/nix/channels
If $XDG_STATE_HOME is not set, it is assumed to be ~/.local/state.
Co-authored-by: Théophane Hufschmitt <7226587+thufschmitt@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Tim Fenney <kodekata@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: pasqui23 <pasqui23@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Artturin <Artturin@artturin.com>
Co-authored-by: John Ericson <Ericson2314@Yahoo.com>
Commit 14bc3ce3d6 (0.13~43) changed the
timestamps in the Nix store from 0 to 1. Update the nix-store man
page to match.
Signed-off-by: Anders Kaseorg <andersk@mit.edu>
this avoids incorrect rendering on the man pages, since `lowdown`
neither parses the anchor syntax nor HTML.
this should rather be fixed in lowdown, as adding more anchors
would otherwise produce ever more noise and error-prone repetition.
These only functioned if a very narrow combination of conditions held:
- The result path does not yet exist (--check did not result in
repeated builds), AND
- The result path is not available from any configured substituters, AND
- No remote builders that can build the path are available.
If any of these do not hold, a derivation would be built 0 or 1 times
regardless of the repeat option. Thus, remove it to avoid confusion.
after discussing this with multiple people, I'm convinced that "build
task" is more precise: a derivation is not an action, but inert until it
is built. also it's easier to pronounce.
proposal: use "build task" for the generic concept "description of how
to derive new files from the contents of existing files". then it will
be easier to distinguish what we mean by "derivation" (a specific data
structure and Nix language value type) and "store derivation" (a
serialisation of a derivation into a file in the Nix store).
it is out of date, all over the place in level of detail, is really
about `nixpkgs`, and in general instructions should not be part of
a reference manual.
also:
- update redirects and internal links
- use "Nix language" consistently
Added using the following sed scripts:
- For command-ref/opt-common.md:
s~- `(--?)([^`]+)`~- [`\1\2`]{#opt-\2}~g
- For expressions/builtin-constants.md:
s~- `(builtins\.?)([^`]+)`~- [`\1\2`]{#builtins-\2}~g
- For expressions/advanced-attributes.md
s~^ - `([^`]+)`~ - [`\1`]{#adv-attr-\1}~g
and manually adjusted outputHashAlgo & outputHashMode.
- For glossary.md
s~^ - (`([^`]+)`|(.+)) ?\\~ - [\1]{#gloss-\2\3}\\~g;
s~(gloss-\w+) ~\1-~g
and manually adjusted anchors for Nix expression, user environment, NAR, ∅ and ε.
- For command-ref/env-common.md
s~^ - `([^`]+)`~ - [`\1`]{#env-\1}~g'
This is in line with XDG Base Directory Specification, where ~/.config is supposed to be used when XDG_CONFIG_HOME is unset.
It also better matches the reality, where ~/.config/nix.conf does not seem to be used.
They are equivalent according to
<https://spec.commonmark.org/0.29/#hard-line-breaks>,
and the trailing spaces tend to be a pain (because the make git
complain, editors tend to want to remove them − the `.editorconfig`
actually specifies that − etc..).
http://nixos.org redirects to https://nixos.org and apparently the HTTP library doesn't follow the redirect, so the output is empty.
When defining https in the request it crashes because the library doesn't seem to support https.
So this switches the example to a different http library.
This removes the extra-substituters and extra-sandbox-paths settings
and instead makes every array setting extensible by setting
"extra-<name> = <value>" in the configuration file or passing
"--<name> <value>" on the command line.
