[Nix-dev] [PATCH] Allow roots to refer to arbitrary files in the store

[Shea Levy]

On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 04:59:15PM +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> ludo at gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès) skribis:
> 
> > Shea Levy <shea at shealevy.com> skribis:
> >
> >> On Mon, Apr 14, 2014 at 03:38:01PM +0200, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> >>> The patch below allows files such as /nix/store/foo to be protected from
> >>> GC if a root refers to them.  This makes it easy for a build hook to use
> >>> such files for its temporary working files.
> >>> 
> >>> WDYT?
> >>> 
> >>
> >> It seems a bit odd to me to be using the store as a temporary file
> >> location. What's wrong with $TMPDIR?
> >
> > Well, this is useful for build hooks, because it guarantees that any
> > garbage they leave there will eventually be reclaimed.
> 
> It also guarantees that this thing lives on the same file system as the
> store, which means that rename(2) can be used to move it to its final
> location in the store.
> 

Hmm using the store as an auto-collected $TMPDIR seems wrong, but this
is a decent argument. Do you have a specific use case already planned?

> 
> Ludo’.