This command shows why a package has another package in its runtime
closure. For example, to see why VLC has libdrm.dev in its closure:
$ nix why-depends nixpkgs.vlc nixpkgs.libdrm.dev
/nix/store/g901z9pcj0n5yy5n6ykxk3qm4ina1d6z-vlc-2.2.5.1:
lib/libvlccore.so.8.0.0: …nfig:/nix/store/405lmx6jl8lp0ad1vrr6j498chrqhz8g-libdrm-2.4.75-d…
/nix/store/s3nm7kd8hlcg0facn2q1ff2n7wrwdi2l-mesa-noglu-17.0.7-dev:
nix-support/propagated-native-build-inputs: …-dev /nix/store/405lmx6jl8lp0ad1vrr6j498chrqhz8g-libdrm-2.4.75-d…
Thus, VLC's lib/libvlccore.so.8.0.0 as well as mesa-noglu's
nix-support/propagated-native-build-inputs cause the dependency.
This is useful for testing commands in isolation.
For example,
$ nix run nixpkgs.geeqie -i -k DISPLAY -k XAUTHORITY -c geeqie
runs geeqie in an empty environment, except for $DISPLAY and
$XAUTHORITY.
E.g.
nix run nixpkgs.hello -c hello --greeting Hallo
Note that unlike "nix-shell --command", no quoting of arguments is
necessary.
"-c" (short for "--command") cannot be combined with "--" because they
both consume all remaining arguments. But since installables shouldn't
start with a dash, this is unlikely to cause problems.
Running "nix run" with a diverted store, e.g.
$ nix run --store local?root=/tmp/nix nixpkgs.hello
stopped working when Nix became multithreaded, because
unshare(CLONE_NEWUSER) doesn't work in multithreaded processes. The
obvious solution is to terminate all other threads first, but 1) there
is no way to terminate Boehm GC marker threads; and 2) it appears that
the kernel has a race where unshare(CLONE_NEWUSER) will still fail for
some indeterminate amount of time after joining other threads.
So instead, "nix run" will now exec() a single-threaded helper ("nix
__run_in_chroot") that performs the actual unshare()/chroot()/exec().
The package list is now cached in
~/.cache/nix/package-search.json. This gives a substantial speedup to
"nix search" queries. For example (on an SSD):
First run: (no package search cache, cold page cache)
$ time nix search blender
Attribute name: nixpkgs.blender
Package name: blender
Version: 2.78c
Description: 3D Creation/Animation/Publishing System
real 0m6.516s
Second run: (package search cache populated)
$ time nix search blender
Attribute name: nixpkgs.blender
Package name: blender
Version: 2.78c
Description: 3D Creation/Animation/Publishing System
real 0m0.143s
