NixOS

Table of Contents

Overview of Nixpkgs

The Nix Packages collection (Nixpkgs) is a set of thousands of packages for the Nix package manager, released under a permissive MIT license. Packages are available for several platforms, and can be used with the Nix package manager on most GNU/Linux distributions as well as NixOS.

This manual primarily describes how to write packages for the Nix Packages collection (Nixpkgs). Thus it’s mainly for packagers and developers who want to add packages to Nixpkgs. If you like to learn more about the Nix package manager and the Nix expression language, then you are kindly referred to the Nix manual. The NixOS distribution is documented in the NixOS manual.

Nix expressions describe how to build packages from source and are collected in the nixpkgs repository. Also included in the collection are Nix expressions for NixOS modules. With these expressions the Nix package manager can build binary packages.

Packages, including the Nix packages collection, are distributed through channels. The collection is distributed for users of Nix on non-NixOS distributions through the channel nixpkgs. Users of NixOS generally use one of the nixos-* channels, e.g. nixos-22.11, which includes all packages and modules for the stable NixOS 22.11. Stable NixOS releases are generally only given security updates. More up to date packages and modules are available via the nixos-unstable channel.

Both nixos-unstable and nixpkgs follow the master branch of the Nixpkgs repository, although both do lag the master branch by generally a couple of days. Updates to a channel are distributed as soon as all tests for that channel pass, e.g. this table shows the status of tests for the nixpkgs channel.

The tests are conducted by a cluster called Hydra, which also builds binary packages from the Nix expressions in Nixpkgs for x86_64-linux, i686-linux and x86_64-darwin. The binaries are made available via a binary cache.

The current Nix expressions of the channels are available in the nixpkgs repository in branches that correspond to the channel names (e.g. nixos-22.11-small).

Global configuration

Nix comes with certain defaults about what packages can and cannot be installed, based on a package’s metadata. By default, Nix will prevent installation if any of the following criteria are true:

  • The package is thought to be broken, and has had its meta.broken set to true.

  • The package isn’t intended to run on the given system, as none of its meta.platforms match the given system.

  • The package’s meta.license is set to a license which is considered to be unfree.

  • The package has known security vulnerabilities but has not or can not be updated for some reason, and a list of issues has been entered in to the package’s meta.knownVulnerabilities.

Note that all this is checked during evaluation already, and the check includes any package that is evaluated. In particular, all build-time dependencies are checked. nix-env -qa will (attempt to) hide any packages that would be refused.

Each of these criteria can be altered in the nixpkgs configuration.

The nixpkgs configuration for a NixOS system is set in the configuration.nix, as in the following example:

{
  nixpkgs.config = {
    allowUnfree = true;
  };
}

However, this does not allow unfree software for individual users. Their configurations are managed separately.

A user’s nixpkgs configuration is stored in a user-specific configuration file located at ~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix. For example:

{
  allowUnfree = true;
}

Note that we are not able to test or build unfree software on Hydra due to policy. Most unfree licenses prohibit us from either executing or distributing the software.

Installing broken packages

There are two ways to try compiling a package which has been marked as broken.

  • For allowing the build of a broken package once, you can use an environment variable for a single invocation of the nix tools:

    $ export NIXPKGS_ALLOW_BROKEN=1
    
  • For permanently allowing broken packages to be built, you may add allowBroken = true; to your user’s configuration file, like this:

    {
      allowBroken = true;
    }
    

Installing packages on unsupported systems

There are also two ways to try compiling a package which has been marked as unsupported for the given system.

  • For allowing the build of an unsupported package once, you can use an environment variable for a single invocation of the nix tools:

    $ export NIXPKGS_ALLOW_UNSUPPORTED_SYSTEM=1
    
  • For permanently allowing unsupported packages to be built, you may add allowUnsupportedSystem = true; to your user’s configuration file, like this:

    {
      allowUnsupportedSystem = true;
    }
    

The difference between a package being unsupported on some system and being broken is admittedly a bit fuzzy. If a program ought to work on a certain platform, but doesn’t, the platform should be included in meta.platforms, but marked as broken with e.g. meta.broken = !hostPlatform.isWindows. Of course, this begs the question of what “ought” means exactly. That is left to the package maintainer.

Installing unfree packages

All users of Nixpkgs are free software users, and many users (and developers) of Nixpkgs want to limit and tightly control their exposure to unfree software. At the same time, many users need (or want) to run some specific pieces of proprietary software. Nixpkgs includes some expressions for unfree software packages. By default unfree software cannot be installed and doesn’t show up in searches.

There are several ways to tweak how Nix handles a package which has been marked as unfree.

  • To temporarily allow all unfree packages, you can use an environment variable for a single invocation of the nix tools:

    $ export NIXPKGS_ALLOW_UNFREE=1
    
  • It is possible to permanently allow individual unfree packages, while still blocking unfree packages by default using the allowUnfreePredicate configuration option in the user configuration file.

    This option is a function which accepts a package as a parameter, and returns a boolean. The following example configuration accepts a package and always returns false:

    {
      allowUnfreePredicate = (pkg: false);
    }
    

    For a more useful example, try the following. This configuration only allows unfree packages named roon-server and visual studio code:

    {
      allowUnfreePredicate = pkg: builtins.elem (lib.getName pkg) [
        "roon-server"
        "vscode"
      ];
    }
    
  • It is also possible to allow and block licenses that are specifically acceptable or not acceptable, using allowlistedLicenses and blocklistedLicenses, respectively.

    The following example configuration allowlists the licenses amd and wtfpl:

    {
      allowlistedLicenses = with lib.licenses; [ amd wtfpl ];
    }
    

    The following example configuration blocklists the gpl3Only and agpl3Only licenses:

    {
      blocklistedLicenses = with lib.licenses; [ agpl3Only gpl3Only ];
    }
    

    Note that allowlistedLicenses only applies to unfree licenses unless allowUnfree is enabled. It is not a generic allowlist for all types of licenses. blocklistedLicenses applies to all licenses.

A complete list of licenses can be found in the file lib/licenses.nix of the nixpkgs tree.

Installing insecure packages

There are several ways to tweak how Nix handles a package which has been marked as insecure.

  • To temporarily allow all insecure packages, you can use an environment variable for a single invocation of the nix tools:

    $ export NIXPKGS_ALLOW_INSECURE=1
    
  • It is possible to permanently allow individual insecure packages, while still blocking other insecure packages by default using the permittedInsecurePackages configuration option in the user configuration file.

    The following example configuration permits the installation of the hypothetically insecure package hello, version 1.2.3:

    {
      permittedInsecurePackages = [
        "hello-1.2.3"
      ];
    }
    
  • It is also possible to create a custom policy around which insecure packages to allow and deny, by overriding the allowInsecurePredicate configuration option.

    The allowInsecurePredicate option is a function which accepts a package and returns a boolean, much like allowUnfreePredicate.

    The following configuration example only allows insecure packages with very short names:

    {
      allowInsecurePredicate = pkg: builtins.stringLength (lib.getName pkg) <= 5;
    }
    

    Note that permittedInsecurePackages is only checked if allowInsecurePredicate is not specified.

Modify packages via packageOverrides

You can define a function called packageOverrides in your local ~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix to override Nix packages. It must be a function that takes pkgs as an argument and returns a modified set of packages.

{
  packageOverrides = pkgs: rec {
    foo = pkgs.foo.override { ... };
  };
}

config Options Reference

The following attributes can be passed in config.

enableParallelBuildingByDefault

Whether to set enableParallelBuilding to true by default while building nixpkgs packages. Changing the default may cause a mass rebuild.

Type: boolean

Default: false

Declared by:

pkgs/top-level/config.nix
allowAliases

Whether to expose old attribute names for compatibility.

The recommended setting is to enable this, as it improves backward compatibity, easing updates.

The only reason to disable aliases is for continuous integration purposes. For instance, Nixpkgs should not depend on aliases in its internal code. Projects that aren’t Nixpkgs should be cautious of instantly removing all usages of aliases, as migrating too soon can break compatibility with the stable Nixpkgs releases.

Type: boolean

Default: true

Declared by:

pkgs/top-level/config.nix
allowBroken

Whether to allow broken packages.

See Installing broken packages in the NixOS manual.

Type: boolean

Default: false || builtins.getEnv "NIXPKGS_ALLOW_BROKEN" == "1"

Declared by:

pkgs/top-level/config.nix
allowUnfree

Whether to allow unfree packages.

See Installing unfree packages in the NixOS manual.

Type: boolean

Default: false || builtins.getEnv "NIXPKGS_ALLOW_UNFREE" == "1"

Declared by:

pkgs/top-level/config.nix
allowUnsupportedSystem

Whether to allow unsupported packages.

See Installing packages on unsupported systems in the NixOS manual.

Type: boolean

Default: false || builtins.getEnv "NIXPKGS_ALLOW_UNSUPPORTED_SYSTEM" == "1"

Declared by:

pkgs/top-level/config.nix
checkMeta

Whether to check that the meta attribute of derivations are correct during evaluation time.

Type: boolean

Default: false

Declared by:

pkgs/top-level/config.nix
configurePlatformsByDefault

Whether to set configurePlatforms to ["build" "host"] by default while building nixpkgs packages. Changing the default may cause a mass rebuild.

Type: boolean

Default: false

Declared by:

pkgs/top-level/config.nix
contentAddressedByDefault

Whether to set __contentAddressed to true by default while building nixpkgs packages. Changing the default may cause a mass rebuild.

Type: boolean

Default: false

Declared by:

pkgs/top-level/config.nix
cudaSupport

Whether to build packages with CUDA support by default while building nixpkgs packages. Changing the default may cause a mass rebuild.

Type: boolean

Default: false

Declared by:

pkgs/top-level/config.nix
doCheckByDefault

Whether to run checkPhase by default while building nixpkgs packages. Changing the default may cause a mass rebuild.

Type: boolean

Default: false

Declared by:

pkgs/top-level/config.nix
showDerivationWarnings

Which warnings to display for potentially dangerous or deprecated values passed into stdenv.mkDerivation.

A list of warnings can be found in /pkgs/stdenv/generic/check-meta.nix.

This is not a stable interface; warnings may be added, changed or removed without prior notice.

Type: list of value “maintainerless” (singular enum)

Default: [ ]

Declared by:

pkgs/top-level/config.nix
strictDepsByDefault

Whether to set strictDeps to true by default while building nixpkgs packages. Changing the default may cause a mass rebuild.

Type: boolean

Default: false

Declared by:

pkgs/top-level/config.nix
structuredAttrsByDefault

Whether to set __structuredAttrs to true by default while building nixpkgs packages. Changing the default may cause a mass rebuild.

Type: boolean

Default: false

Declared by:

pkgs/top-level/config.nix
warnUndeclaredOptions

Whether to warn when config contains an unrecognized attribute.

Type: boolean

Default: false

Declared by:

pkgs/top-level/config.nix

Declarative Package Management

Build an environment

Using packageOverrides, it is possible to manage packages declaratively. This means that we can list all of our desired packages within a declarative Nix expression. For example, to have aspell, bc, ffmpeg, coreutils, gdb, nixUnstable, emscripten, jq, nox, and silver-searcher, we could use the following in ~/.config/nixpkgs/config.nix:

{
  packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; {
    myPackages = pkgs.buildEnv {
      name = "my-packages";
      paths = [
        aspell
        bc
        coreutils
        gdb
        ffmpeg
        nixUnstable
        emscripten
        jq
        nox
        silver-searcher
      ];
    };
  };
}

To install it into our environment, you can just run nix-env -iA nixpkgs.myPackages. If you want to load the packages to be built from a working copy of nixpkgs you just run nix-env -f. -iA myPackages. To explore what’s been installed, just look through ~/.nix-profile/. You can see that a lot of stuff has been installed. Some of this stuff is useful some of it isn’t. Let’s tell Nixpkgs to only link the stuff that we want:

{
  packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; {
    myPackages = pkgs.buildEnv {
      name = "my-packages";
      paths = [
        aspell
        bc
        coreutils
        gdb
        ffmpeg
        nixUnstable
        emscripten
        jq
        nox
        silver-searcher
      ];
      pathsToLink = [ "/share" "/bin" ];
    };
  };
}

pathsToLink tells Nixpkgs to only link the paths listed which gets rid of the extra stuff in the profile. /bin and /share are good defaults for a user environment, getting rid of the clutter. If you are running on Nix on MacOS, you may want to add another path as well, /Applications, that makes GUI apps available.

Getting documentation

After building that new environment, look through ~/.nix-profile to make sure everything is there that we wanted. Discerning readers will note that some files are missing. Look inside ~/.nix-profile/share/man/man1/ to verify this. There are no man pages for any of the Nix tools! This is because some packages like Nix have multiple outputs for things like documentation (see section 4). Let’s make Nix install those as well.

{
  packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; {
    myPackages = pkgs.buildEnv {
      name = "my-packages";
      paths = [
        aspell
        bc
        coreutils
        ffmpeg
        nixUnstable
        emscripten
        jq
        nox
        silver-searcher
      ];
      pathsToLink = [ "/share/man" "/share/doc" "/bin" ];
      extraOutputsToInstall = [ "man" "doc" ];
    };
  };
}

This provides us with some useful documentation for using our packages. However, if we actually want those manpages to be detected by man, we need to set up our environment. This can also be managed within Nix expressions.

{
  packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; rec {
    myProfile = writeText "my-profile" ''
      export PATH=$HOME/.nix-profile/bin:/nix/var/nix/profiles/default/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
      export MANPATH=$HOME/.nix-profile/share/man:/nix/var/nix/profiles/default/share/man:/usr/share/man
    '';
    myPackages = pkgs.buildEnv {
      name = "my-packages";
      paths = [
        (runCommand "profile" {} ''
          mkdir -p $out/etc/profile.d
          cp ${myProfile} $out/etc/profile.d/my-profile.sh
        '')
        aspell
        bc
        coreutils
        ffmpeg
        man
        nixUnstable
        emscripten
        jq
        nox
        silver-searcher
      ];
      pathsToLink = [ "/share/man" "/share/doc" "/bin" "/etc" ];
      extraOutputsToInstall = [ "man" "doc" ];
    };
  };
}

For this to work fully, you must also have this script sourced when you are logged in. Try adding something like this to your ~/.profile file:

#!/bin/sh
if [ -d "${HOME}/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d" ]; then
  for i in "${HOME}/.nix-profile/etc/profile.d/"*.sh; do
    if [ -r "$i" ]; then
      . "$i"
    fi
  done
fi

Now just run . "${HOME}/.profile" and you can start loading man pages from your environment.

GNU info setup

Configuring GNU info is a little bit trickier than man pages. To work correctly, info needs a database to be generated. This can be done with some small modifications to our environment scripts.

{
  packageOverrides = pkgs: with pkgs; rec {
    myProfile = writeText "my-profile" ''
      export PATH=$HOME/.nix-profile/bin:/nix/var/nix/profiles/default/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin
      export MANPATH=$HOME/.nix-profile/share/man:/nix/var/nix/profiles/default/share/man:/usr/share/man
      export INFOPATH=$HOME/.nix-profile/share/info:/nix/var/nix/profiles/default/share/info:/usr/share/info
    '';
    myPackages = pkgs.buildEnv {
      name = "my-packages";
      paths = [
        (runCommand "profile" {} ''
          mkdir -p $out/etc/profile.d
          cp ${myProfile} $out/etc/profile.d/my-profile.sh
        '')
        aspell
        bc
        coreutils
        ffmpeg
        man
        nixUnstable
        emscripten
        jq
        nox
        silver-searcher
        texinfoInteractive
      ];
      pathsToLink = [ "/share/man" "/share/doc" "/share/info" "/bin" "/etc" ];
      extraOutputsToInstall = [ "man" "doc" "info" ];
      postBuild = ''
        if [ -x $out/bin/install-info -a -w $out/share/info ]; then
          shopt -s nullglob
          for i in $out/share/info/*.info $out/share/info/*.info.gz; do
              $out/bin/install-info $i $out/share/info/dir
          done
        fi
      '';
    };
  };
}

postBuild tells Nixpkgs to run a command after building the environment. In this case, install-info adds the installed info pages to dir which is GNU info’s default root node. Note that texinfoInteractive is added to the environment to give the install-info command.

Overlays

This chapter describes how to extend and change Nixpkgs using overlays. Overlays are used to add layers in the fixed-point used by Nixpkgs to compose the set of all packages.

Nixpkgs can be configured with a list of overlays, which are applied in order. This means that the order of the overlays can be significant if multiple layers override the same package.

Installing overlays

The list of overlays can be set either explicitly in a Nix expression, or through <nixpkgs-overlays> or user configuration files.

Set overlays in NixOS or Nix expressions

On a NixOS system the value of the nixpkgs.overlays option, if present, is passed to the system Nixpkgs directly as an argument. Note that this does not affect the overlays for non-NixOS operations (e.g. nix-env), which are looked up independently.

The list of overlays can be passed explicitly when importing nixpkgs, for example import <nixpkgs> { overlays = [ overlay1 overlay2 ]; }.

NOTE: DO NOT USE THIS in nixpkgs. Further overlays can be added by calling the pkgs.extend or pkgs.appendOverlays, although it is often preferable to avoid these functions, because they recompute the Nixpkgs fixpoint, which is somewhat expensive to do.

Install overlays via configuration lookup

The list of overlays is determined as follows.

  1. First, if an overlays argument to the Nixpkgs function itself is given, then that is used and no path lookup will be performed.

  2. Otherwise, if the Nix path entry <nixpkgs-overlays> exists, we look for overlays at that path, as described below.

    See the section on NIX_PATH in the Nix manual for more details on how to set a value for <nixpkgs-overlays>.

  3. If one of ~/.config/nixpkgs/overlays.nix and ~/.config/nixpkgs/overlays/ exists, then we look for overlays at that path, as described below. It is an error if both exist.

If we are looking for overlays at a path, then there are two cases:

  • If the path is a file, then the file is imported as a Nix expression and used as the list of overlays.

  • If the path is a directory, then we take the content of the directory, order it lexicographically, and attempt to interpret each as an overlay by:

    • Importing the file, if it is a .nix file.

    • Importing a top-level default.nix file, if it is a directory.

Because overlays that are set in NixOS configuration do not affect non-NixOS operations such as nix-env, the overlays.nix option provides a convenient way to use the same overlays for a NixOS system configuration and user configuration: the same file can be used as overlays.nix and imported as the value of nixpkgs.overlays.

Defining overlays

Overlays are Nix functions which accept two arguments, conventionally called self and super, and return a set of packages. For example, the following is a valid overlay.

self: super:

{
  boost = super.boost.override {
    python = self.python3;
  };
  rr = super.callPackage ./pkgs/rr {
    stdenv = self.stdenv_32bit;
  };
}

The first argument (self) corresponds to the final package set. You should use this set for the dependencies of all packages specified in your overlay. For example, all the dependencies of rr in the example above come from self, as well as the overridden dependencies used in the boost override.

The second argument (super) corresponds to the result of the evaluation of the previous stages of Nixpkgs. It does not contain any of the packages added by the current overlay, nor any of the following overlays. This set should be used either to refer to packages you wish to override, or to access functions defined in Nixpkgs. For example, the original recipe of boost in the above example, comes from super, as well as the callPackage function.

The value returned by this function should be a set similar to pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix, containing overridden and/or new packages.

Overlays are similar to other methods for customizing Nixpkgs, in particular the packageOverrides attribute described in the section called “Modify packages via packageOverrides. Indeed, packageOverrides acts as an overlay with only the super argument. It is therefore appropriate for basic use, but overlays are more powerful and easier to distribute.

Using overlays to configure alternatives

Certain software packages have different implementations of the same interface. Other distributions have functionality to switch between these. For example, Debian provides DebianAlternatives. Nixpkgs has what we call alternatives, which are configured through overlays.

BLAS/LAPACK

In Nixpkgs, we have multiple implementations of the BLAS/LAPACK numerical linear algebra interfaces. They are:

  • OpenBLAS

    The Nixpkgs attribute is openblas for ILP64 (integer width = 64 bits) and openblasCompat for LP64 (integer width = 32 bits). openblasCompat is the default.

  • LAPACK reference (also provides BLAS and CBLAS)

    The Nixpkgs attribute is lapack-reference.

  • Intel MKL (only works on the x86_64 architecture, unfree)

    The Nixpkgs attribute is mkl.

  • BLIS

    BLIS, available through the attribute blis, is a framework for linear algebra kernels. In addition, it implements the BLAS interface.

  • AMD BLIS/LIBFLAME (optimized for modern AMD x86_64 CPUs)

    The AMD fork of the BLIS library, with attribute amd-blis, extends BLIS with optimizations for modern AMD CPUs. The changes are usually submitted to the upstream BLIS project after some time. However, AMD BLIS typically provides some performance improvements on AMD Zen CPUs. The complementary AMD LIBFLAME library, with attribute amd-libflame, provides a LAPACK implementation.

Introduced in PR #83888, we are able to override the blas and lapack packages to use different implementations, through the blasProvider and lapackProvider argument. This can be used to select a different provider. BLAS providers will have symlinks in $out/lib/libblas.so.3 and $out/lib/libcblas.so.3 to their respective BLAS libraries. Likewise, LAPACK providers will have symlinks in $out/lib/liblapack.so.3 and $out/lib/liblapacke.so.3 to their respective LAPACK libraries. For example, Intel MKL is both a BLAS and LAPACK provider. An overlay can be created to use Intel MKL that looks like:

self: super:

{
  blas = super.blas.override {
    blasProvider = self.mkl;
  };

  lapack = super.lapack.override {
    lapackProvider = self.mkl;
  };
}

This overlay uses Intel’s MKL library for both BLAS and LAPACK interfaces. Note that the same can be accomplished at runtime using LD_LIBRARY_PATH of libblas.so.3 and liblapack.so.3. For instance:

$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$(nix-build -A mkl)/lib${LD_LIBRARY_PATH:+:}$LD_LIBRARY_PATH nix-shell -p octave --run octave

Intel MKL requires an openmp implementation when running with multiple processors. By default, mkl will use Intel’s iomp implementation if no other is specified, but this is a runtime-only dependency and binary compatible with the LLVM implementation. To use that one instead, Intel recommends users set it with LD_PRELOAD. Note that mkl is only available on x86_64-linux and x86_64-darwin. Moreover, Hydra is not building and distributing pre-compiled binaries using it.

To override blas and lapack with its reference implementations (i.e. for development purposes), one can use the following overlay:

self: super:

{
  blas = super.blas.override {
    blasProvider = self.lapack-reference;
  };

  lapack = super.lapack.override {
    lapackProvider = self.lapack-reference;
  };
}

For BLAS/LAPACK switching to work correctly, all packages must depend on blas or lapack. This ensures that only one BLAS/LAPACK library is used at one time. There are two versions of BLAS/LAPACK currently in the wild, LP64 (integer size = 32 bits) and ILP64 (integer size = 64 bits). The attributes blas and lapack are LP64 by default. Their ILP64 version are provided through the attributes blas-ilp64 and lapack-ilp64. Some software needs special flags or patches to work with ILP64. You can check if ILP64 is used in Nixpkgs with blas.isILP64 and lapack.isILP64. Some software does NOT work with ILP64, and derivations need to specify an assertion to prevent this. You can prevent ILP64 from being used with the following:

{ stdenv, blas, lapack, ... }:

assert (!blas.isILP64) && (!lapack.isILP64);

stdenv.mkDerivation {
  ...
}

Switching the MPI implementation

All programs that are built with MPI support use the generic attribute mpi as an input. At the moment Nixpkgs natively provides two different MPI implementations:

  • Open MPI (default), attribute name openmpi

  • MPICH, attribute name mpich

  • MVAPICH, attribute name mvapich

To provide MPI enabled applications that use MPICH, instead of the default Open MPI, simply use the following overlay:

self: super:

{
  mpi = self.mpich;
}

Overriding

Sometimes one wants to override parts of nixpkgs, e.g. derivation attributes, the results of derivations.

These functions are used to make changes to packages, returning only single packages. Overlays, on the other hand, can be used to combine the overridden packages across the entire package set of Nixpkgs.

<pkg>.override

The function override is usually available for all the derivations in the nixpkgs expression (pkgs).

It is used to override the arguments passed to a function.

Example usages:

pkgs.foo.override { arg1 = val1; arg2 = val2; ... }

It’s also possible to access the previous arguments.

pkgs.foo.override (previous: { arg1 = previous.arg1; ... })
import pkgs.path { overlays = [ (self: super: {
  foo = super.foo.override { barSupport = true ; };
  })]};
mypkg = pkgs.callPackage ./mypkg.nix {
  mydep = pkgs.mydep.override { ... };
  }

In the first example, pkgs.foo is the result of a function call with some default arguments, usually a derivation. Using pkgs.foo.override will call the same function with the given new arguments.

<pkg>.overrideAttrs

The function overrideAttrs allows overriding the attribute set passed to a stdenv.mkDerivation call, producing a new derivation based on the original one. This function is available on all derivations produced by the stdenv.mkDerivation function, which is most packages in the nixpkgs expression pkgs.

Example usages:

helloBar = pkgs.hello.overrideAttrs (finalAttrs: previousAttrs: {
  pname = previousAttrs.pname + "-bar";
});

In the above example, “-bar” is appended to the pname attribute, while all other attributes will be retained from the original hello package.

The argument previousAttrs is conventionally used to refer to the attr set originally passed to stdenv.mkDerivation.

The argument finalAttrs refers to the final attributes passed to mkDerivation, plus the finalPackage attribute which is equal to the result of mkDerivation or subsequent overrideAttrs calls.

If only a one-argument function is written, the argument has the meaning of previousAttrs.

Function arguments can be omitted entirely if there is no need to access previousAttrs or finalAttrs.

helloWithDebug = pkgs.hello.overrideAttrs {
  separateDebugInfo = true;
};

In the above example, the separateDebugInfo attribute is overridden to be true, thus building debug info for helloWithDebug.

<pkg>.overrideDerivation

The function overrideDerivation creates a new derivation based on an existing one by overriding the original’s attributes with the attribute set produced by the specified function. This function is available on all derivations defined using the makeOverridable function. Most standard derivation-producing functions, such as stdenv.mkDerivation, are defined using this function, which means most packages in the nixpkgs expression, pkgs, have this function.

Example usage:

mySed = pkgs.gnused.overrideDerivation (oldAttrs: {
  name = "sed-4.2.2-pre";
  src = fetchurl {
    url = "ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/sed/sed-4.2.2-pre.tar.bz2";
    hash = "sha256-MxBJRcM2rYzQYwJ5XKxhXTQByvSg5jZc5cSHEZoB2IY=";
  };
  patches = [];
});

In the above example, the name, src, and patches of the derivation will be overridden, while all other attributes will be retained from the original derivation.

The argument oldAttrs is used to refer to the attribute set of the original derivation.

lib.makeOverridable

The function lib.makeOverridable is used to make the result of a function easily customizable. This utility only makes sense for functions that accept an argument set and return an attribute set.

Example usage:

f = { a, b }: { result = a+b; };
c = lib.makeOverridable f { a = 1; b = 2; };

The variable c is the value of the f function applied with some default arguments. Hence the value of c.result is 3, in this example.

The variable c however also has some additional functions, like c.override which can be used to override the default arguments. In this example the value of (c.override { a = 4; }).result is 6.

Functions reference

The nixpkgs repository has several utility functions to manipulate Nix expressions.

Nixpkgs Library Functions

Nixpkgs provides a standard library at pkgs.lib, or through import <nixpkgs/lib>.

lib.asserts: assertion functions

lib.asserts.assertMsg

Type: assertMsg :: Bool -> String -> Bool

Throw if pred is false, else return pred. Intended to be used to augment asserts with helpful error messages.

pred

Predicate that needs to succeed, otherwise msg is thrown

msg

Message to throw in case pred fails

Example 1. lib.asserts.assertMsg usage example

assertMsg false "nope"
stderr> error: nope

assert assertMsg ("foo" == "bar") "foo is not bar, silly"; ""
stderr> error: foo is not bar, silly


Located at lib/asserts.nix:19 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.asserts.assertOneOf

Type: assertOneOf :: String -> ComparableVal -> List ComparableVal -> Bool

Specialized assertMsg for checking if val is one of the elements of the list xs. Useful for checking enums.

name

The name of the variable the user entered val into, for inclusion in the error message

val

The value of what the user provided, to be compared against the values in xs

xs

The list of valid values

Example 2. lib.asserts.assertOneOf usage example

let sslLibrary = "libressl";
in assertOneOf "sslLibrary" sslLibrary [ "openssl" "bearssl" ]
stderr> error: sslLibrary must be one of [
stderr>   "openssl"
stderr>   "bearssl"
stderr> ], but is: "libressl"


Located at lib/asserts.nix:40 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets: attribute set functions

lib.attrsets.attrByPath

Type: attrByPath :: [String] -> Any -> AttrSet -> Any

Return an attribute from nested attribute sets.

attrPath

A list of strings representing the attribute path to return from set

default

Default value if attrPath does not resolve to an existing value

set

The nested attribute set to select values from

Example 3. lib.attrsets.attrByPath usage example

x = { a = { b = 3; }; }
# ["a" "b"] is equivalent to x.a.b
# 6 is a default value to return if the path does not exist in attrset
attrByPath ["a" "b"] 6 x
=> 3
attrByPath ["z" "z"] 6 x
=> 6


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:30 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.hasAttrByPath

Type: hasAttrByPath :: [String] -> AttrSet -> Bool

Return if an attribute from nested attribute set exists.

attrPath

A list of strings representing the attribute path to check from set

e

The nested attribute set to check

Example 4. lib.attrsets.hasAttrByPath usage example

x = { a = { b = 3; }; }
hasAttrByPath ["a" "b"] x
=> true
hasAttrByPath ["z" "z"] x
=> false


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:56 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.setAttrByPath

Type: setAttrByPath :: [String] -> Any -> AttrSet

Create a new attribute set with value set at the nested attribute location specified in attrPath.

attrPath

A list of strings representing the attribute path to set

value

The value to set at the location described by attrPath

Example 5. lib.attrsets.setAttrByPath usage example

setAttrByPath ["a" "b"] 3
=> { a = { b = 3; }; }


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:78 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.getAttrFromPath

Type: getAttrFromPath :: [String] -> AttrSet -> Any

Like attrByPath, but without a default value. If it doesn’t find the path it will throw an error.

attrPath

A list of strings representing the attribute path to get from set

set

The nested attribute set to find the value in.

Example 6. lib.attrsets.getAttrFromPath usage example

x = { a = { b = 3; }; }
getAttrFromPath ["a" "b"] x
=> 3
getAttrFromPath ["z" "z"] x
=> error: cannot find attribute `z.z'


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:104 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.concatMapAttrs

Type: concatMapAttrs :: (String -> a -> AttrSet) -> AttrSet -> AttrSet

Map each attribute in the given set and merge them into a new attribute set.

f

Function argument

v

Function argument

Example 7. lib.attrsets.concatMapAttrs usage example

concatMapAttrs
  (name: value: {
    ${name} = value;
    ${name + value} = value;
  })
  { x = "a"; y = "b"; }
=> { x = "a"; xa = "a"; y = "b"; yb = "b"; }


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:126 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.updateManyAttrsByPath

Type: updateManyAttrsByPath :: [{ path :: [String]; update :: (Any -> Any); }] -> AttrSet -> AttrSet

Update or set specific paths of an attribute set.

Takes a list of updates to apply and an attribute set to apply them to, and returns the attribute set with the updates applied. Updates are represented as { path = ...; update = ...; } values, where path is a list of strings representing the attribute path that should be updated, and update is a function that takes the old value at that attribute path as an argument and returns the new value it should be.

Properties:

  • Updates to deeper attribute paths are applied before updates to more shallow attribute paths

  • Multiple updates to the same attribute path are applied in the order they appear in the update list

  • If any but the last path element leads into a value that is not an attribute set, an error is thrown

  • If there is an update for an attribute path that doesn’t exist, accessing the argument in the update function causes an error, but intermediate attribute sets are implicitly created as needed

Example 8. lib.attrsets.updateManyAttrsByPath usage example

updateManyAttrsByPath [
  {
    path = [ "a" "b" ];
    update = old: { d = old.c; };
  }
  {
    path = [ "a" "b" "c" ];
    update = old: old + 1;
  }
  {
    path = [ "x" "y" ];
    update = old: "xy";
  }
] { a.b.c = 0; }
=> { a = { b = { d = 1; }; }; x = { y = "xy"; }; }


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:177 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.attrVals

Type: attrVals :: [String] -> AttrSet -> [Any]

Return the specified attributes from a set.

nameList

The list of attributes to fetch from set. Each attribute name must exist on the attrbitue set

set

The set to get attribute values from

Example 9. lib.attrsets.attrVals usage example

attrVals ["a" "b" "c"] as
=> [as.a as.b as.c]


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:245 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.attrValues

Type: attrValues :: AttrSet -> [Any]

Return the values of all attributes in the given set, sorted by attribute name.

Example 10. lib.attrsets.attrValues usage example

attrValues {c = 3; a = 1; b = 2;}
=> [1 2 3]


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:262 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.getAttrs

Type: getAttrs :: [String] -> AttrSet -> AttrSet

Given a set of attribute names, return the set of the corresponding attributes from the given set.

names

A list of attribute names to get out of set

attrs

The set to get the named attributes from

Example 11. lib.attrsets.getAttrs usage example

getAttrs [ "a" "b" ] { a = 1; b = 2; c = 3; }
=> { a = 1; b = 2; }


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:275 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.catAttrs

Type: catAttrs :: String -> [AttrSet] -> [Any]

Collect each attribute named attr from a list of attribute sets. Sets that don’t contain the named attribute are ignored.

Example 12. lib.attrsets.catAttrs usage example

catAttrs "a" [{a = 1;} {b = 0;} {a = 2;}]
=> [1 2]


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:291 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.filterAttrs

Type: filterAttrs :: (String -> Any -> Bool) -> AttrSet -> AttrSet

Filter an attribute set by removing all attributes for which the given predicate return false.

pred

Predicate taking an attribute name and an attribute value, which returns true to include the attribute, or false to exclude the attribute.

set

The attribute set to filter

Example 13. lib.attrsets.filterAttrs usage example

filterAttrs (n: v: n == "foo") { foo = 1; bar = 2; }
=> { foo = 1; }


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:305 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.filterAttrsRecursive

Type: filterAttrsRecursive :: (String -> Any -> Bool) -> AttrSet -> AttrSet

Filter an attribute set recursively by removing all attributes for which the given predicate return false.

pred

Predicate taking an attribute name and an attribute value, which returns true to include the attribute, or false to exclude the attribute.

set

The attribute set to filter

Example 14. lib.attrsets.filterAttrsRecursive usage example

filterAttrsRecursive (n: v: v != null) { foo = { bar = null; }; }
=> { foo = {}; }


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:323 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.foldlAttrs

Type: foldlAttrs :: ( a -> String -> b -> a ) -> a -> { ... :: b } -> a

Like builtins.foldl’ but for attribute sets. Iterates over every name-value pair in the given attribute set. The result of the callback function is often called acc for accumulator. It is passed between callbacks from left to right and the final acc is the return value of foldlAttrs.

Attention: There is a completely different function lib.foldAttrs which has nothing to do with this function, despite the similar name.

f

Function argument

init

Function argument

set

Function argument

Example 15. lib.attrsets.foldlAttrs usage example

foldlAttrs
  (acc: name: value: {
    sum = acc.sum + value;
    names = acc.names ++ [name];
  })
  { sum = 0; names = []; }
  {
    foo = 1;
    bar = 10;
  }
->
  {
    sum = 11;
    names = ["bar" "foo"];
  }

foldlAttrs
  (throw "function not needed")
  123
  {};
->
  123

foldlAttrs
  (_: _: v: v)
  (throw "initial accumulator not needed")
  { z = 3; a = 2; };
->
  3

The accumulator doesn't have to be an attrset.
It can be as simple as a number or string.

foldlAttrs
  (acc: _: v: acc * 10 + v)
  1
  { z = 1; a = 2; };
->
  121


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:394 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.foldAttrs

Type: foldAttrs :: (Any -> Any -> Any) -> Any -> [AttrSets] -> Any

Apply fold functions to values grouped by key.

op

A function, given a value and a collector combines the two.

nul

The starting value.

list_of_attrs

A list of attribute sets to fold together by key.

Example 16. lib.attrsets.foldAttrs usage example

foldAttrs (item: acc: [item] ++ acc) [] [{ a = 2; } { a = 3; }]
=> { a = [ 2 3 ]; }


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:410 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.collect

Type: collect :: (AttrSet -> Bool) -> AttrSet -> [x]

Recursively collect sets that verify a given predicate named pred from the set attrs. The recursion is stopped when the predicate is verified.

pred

Given an attribute’s value, determine if recursion should stop.

attrs

The attribute set to recursively collect.

Example 17. lib.attrsets.collect usage example

collect isList { a = { b = ["b"]; }; c = [1]; }
=> [["b"] [1]]

collect (x: x ? outPath)
   { a = { outPath = "a/"; }; b = { outPath = "b/"; }; }
=> [{ outPath = "a/"; } { outPath = "b/"; }]


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:439 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.cartesianProductOfSets

Type: cartesianProductOfSets :: AttrSet -> [AttrSet]

Return the cartesian product of attribute set value combinations.

attrsOfLists

Attribute set with attributes that are lists of values

Example 18. lib.attrsets.cartesianProductOfSets usage example

cartesianProductOfSets { a = [ 1 2 ]; b = [ 10 20 ]; }
=> [
     { a = 1; b = 10; }
     { a = 1; b = 20; }
     { a = 2; b = 10; }
     { a = 2; b = 20; }
   ]


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:464 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.nameValuePair

Type: nameValuePair :: String -> Any -> { name :: String; value :: Any; }

Utility function that creates a {name, value} pair as expected by builtins.listToAttrs.

name

Attribute name

value

Attribute value

Example 19. lib.attrsets.nameValuePair usage example

nameValuePair "some" 6
=> { name = "some"; value = 6; }


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:483 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.mapAttrs

Type: mapAttrs :: (String -> Any -> Any) -> AttrSet -> AttrSet

Apply a function to each element in an attribute set, creating a new attribute set.

Example 20. lib.attrsets.mapAttrs usage example

mapAttrs (name: value: name + "-" + value)
   { x = "foo"; y = "bar"; }
=> { x = "x-foo"; y = "y-bar"; }


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:501 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.mapAttrs'

Type: mapAttrs' :: (String -> Any -> { name :: String; value :: Any; }) -> AttrSet -> AttrSet

Like mapAttrs, but allows the name of each attribute to be changed in addition to the value. The applied function should return both the new name and value as a nameValuePair.

f

A function, given an attribute’s name and value, returns a new nameValuePair.

set

Attribute set to map over.

Example 21. lib.attrsets.mapAttrs' usage example

mapAttrs' (name: value: nameValuePair ("foo_" + name) ("bar-" + value))
   { x = "a"; y = "b"; }
=> { foo_x = "bar-a"; foo_y = "bar-b"; }


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:518 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.mapAttrsToList

Type: mapAttrsToList :: (String -> a -> b) -> AttrSet -> [b]

Call a function for each attribute in the given set and return the result in a list.

f

A function, given an attribute’s name and value, returns a new value.

attrs

Attribute set to map over.

Example 22. lib.attrsets.mapAttrsToList usage example

mapAttrsToList (name: value: name + value)
   { x = "a"; y = "b"; }
=> [ "xa" "yb" ]


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:538 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.mapAttrsRecursive

Type: mapAttrsRecursive :: ([String] -> a -> b) -> AttrSet -> AttrSet

Like mapAttrs, except that it recursively applies itself to the leaf attributes of a potentially-nested attribute set: the second argument of the function will never be an attrset. Also, the first argument of the argument function is a list of the attribute names that form the path to the leaf attribute.

For a function that gives you control over what counts as a leaf, see mapAttrsRecursiveCond.

f

A function, given a list of attribute names and a value, returns a new value.

set

Set to recursively map over.

Example 23. lib.attrsets.mapAttrsRecursive usage example

mapAttrsRecursive (path: value: concatStringsSep "-" (path ++ [value]))
  { n = { a = "A"; m = { b = "B"; c = "C"; }; }; d = "D"; }
=> { n = { a = "n-a-A"; m = { b = "n-m-b-B"; c = "n-m-c-C"; }; }; d = "d-D"; }


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:563 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.mapAttrsRecursiveCond

Type: mapAttrsRecursiveCond :: (AttrSet -> Bool) -> ([String] -> a -> b) -> AttrSet -> AttrSet

Like mapAttrsRecursive, but it takes an additional predicate function that tells it whether to recurse into an attribute set. If it returns false, mapAttrsRecursiveCond does not recurse, but does apply the map function. If it returns true, it does recurse, and does not apply the map function.

cond

A function, given the attribute set the recursion is currently at, determine if to recurse deeper into that attribute set.

f

A function, given a list of attribute names and a value, returns a new value.

set

Attribute set to recursively map over.

Example 24. lib.attrsets.mapAttrsRecursiveCond usage example

# To prevent recursing into derivations (which are attribute
# sets with the attribute "type" equal to "derivation"):
mapAttrsRecursiveCond
  (as: !(as ? "type" && as.type == "derivation"))
  (x: ... do something ...)
  attrs


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:588 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.genAttrs

Type: genAttrs :: [ String ] -> (String -> Any) -> AttrSet

Generate an attribute set by mapping a function over a list of attribute names.

names

Names of values in the resulting attribute set.

f

A function, given the name of the attribute, returns the attribute’s value.

Example 25. lib.attrsets.genAttrs usage example

genAttrs [ "foo" "bar" ] (name: "x_" + name)
=> { foo = "x_foo"; bar = "x_bar"; }


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:617 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.isDerivation

Type: isDerivation :: Any -> Bool

Check whether the argument is a derivation. Any set with { type = "derivation"; } counts as a derivation.

value

Value to check.

Example 26. lib.attrsets.isDerivation usage example

nixpkgs = import <nixpkgs> {}
isDerivation nixpkgs.ruby
=> true
isDerivation "foobar"
=> false


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:638 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.toDerivation

Type: toDerivation :: Path -> Derivation

Converts a store path to a fake derivation.

path

A store path to convert to a derivation.

Located at lib/attrsets.nix:647 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.optionalAttrs

Type: optionalAttrs :: Bool -> AttrSet -> AttrSet

If cond is true, return the attribute set as, otherwise an empty attribute set.

cond

Condition under which the as attribute set is returned.

as

The attribute set to return if cond is true.

Example 27. lib.attrsets.optionalAttrs usage example

optionalAttrs (true) { my = "set"; }
=> { my = "set"; }
optionalAttrs (false) { my = "set"; }
=> { }


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:675 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.zipAttrsWithNames

Type: zipAttrsWithNames :: [ String ] -> (String -> [ Any ] -> Any) -> [ AttrSet ] -> AttrSet

Merge sets of attributes and use the function f to merge attributes values.

names

List of attribute names to zip.

f

A function, accepts an attribute name, all the values, and returns a combined value.

sets

List of values from the list of attribute sets.

Example 28. lib.attrsets.zipAttrsWithNames usage example

zipAttrsWithNames ["a"] (name: vs: vs) [{a = "x";} {a = "y"; b = "z";}]
=> { a = ["x" "y"]; }


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:693 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.zipAttrsWith

Type: zipAttrsWith :: (String -> [ Any ] -> Any) -> [ AttrSet ] -> AttrSet

Merge sets of attributes and use the function f to merge attribute values. Like lib.attrsets.zipAttrsWithNames with all key names are passed for names.

Implementation note: Common names appear multiple times in the list of names, hopefully this does not affect the system because the maximal laziness avoid computing twice the same expression and listToAttrs does not care about duplicated attribute names.

Example 29. lib.attrsets.zipAttrsWith usage example

zipAttrsWith (name: values: values) [{a = "x";} {a = "y"; b = "z";}]
=> { a = ["x" "y"]; b = ["z"]; }


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:721 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.zipAttrs

Type: zipAttrs :: [ AttrSet ] -> AttrSet

Merge sets of attributes and combine each attribute value in to a list.

Like lib.attrsets.zipAttrsWith with (name: values: values) as the function.

sets

List of attribute sets to zip together.

Example 30. lib.attrsets.zipAttrs usage example

zipAttrs [{a = "x";} {a = "y"; b = "z";}]
=> { a = ["x" "y"]; b = ["z"]; }


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:736 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.mergeAttrsList

Type: mergeAttrsList :: [ Attrs ] -> Attrs

Merge a list of attribute sets together using the // operator. In case of duplicate attributes, values from later list elements take precedence over earlier ones. The result is the same as foldl mergeAttrs { }, but the performance is better for large inputs. For n list elements, each with an attribute set containing m unique attributes, the complexity of this operation is O(nm log n).

list

Function argument

Example 31. lib.attrsets.mergeAttrsList usage example

mergeAttrsList [ { a = 0; b = 1; } { c = 2; d = 3; } ]
=> { a = 0; b = 1; c = 2; d = 3; }
mergeAttrsList [ { a = 0; } { a = 1; } ]
=> { a = 1; }


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:756 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.recursiveUpdateUntil

Type: recursiveUpdateUntil :: ( [ String ] -> AttrSet -> AttrSet -> Bool ) -> AttrSet -> AttrSet -> AttrSet

Does the same as the update operator ‘//’ except that attributes are merged until the given predicate is verified. The predicate should accept 3 arguments which are the path to reach the attribute, a part of the first attribute set and a part of the second attribute set. When the predicate is satisfied, the value of the first attribute set is replaced by the value of the second attribute set.

pred

Predicate, taking the path to the current attribute as a list of strings for attribute names, and the two values at that path from the original arguments.

lhs

Left attribute set of the merge.

rhs

Right attribute set of the merge.

Example 32. lib.attrsets.recursiveUpdateUntil usage example

recursiveUpdateUntil (path: l: r: path == ["foo"]) {
  # first attribute set
  foo.bar = 1;
  foo.baz = 2;
  bar = 3;
} {
  #second attribute set
  foo.bar = 1;
  foo.quz = 2;
  baz = 4;
}

=> {
  foo.bar = 1; # 'foo.*' from the second set
  foo.quz = 2; #
  bar = 3;     # 'bar' from the first set
  baz = 4;     # 'baz' from the second set
}


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:808 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.recursiveUpdate

Type: recursiveUpdate :: AttrSet -> AttrSet -> AttrSet

A recursive variant of the update operator ‘//’. The recursion stops when one of the attribute values is not an attribute set, in which case the right hand side value takes precedence over the left hand side value.

lhs

Left attribute set of the merge.

rhs

Right attribute set of the merge.

Example 33. lib.attrsets.recursiveUpdate usage example

recursiveUpdate {
  boot.loader.grub.enable = true;
  boot.loader.grub.device = "/dev/hda";
} {
  boot.loader.grub.device = "";
}

returns: {
  boot.loader.grub.enable = true;
  boot.loader.grub.device = "";
}


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:848 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.matchAttrs

Type: matchAttrs :: AttrSet -> AttrSet -> Bool

Returns true if the pattern is contained in the set. False otherwise.

pattern

Attribute set structure to match

attrs

Attribute set to find patterns in

Example 34. lib.attrsets.matchAttrs usage example

matchAttrs { cpu = {}; } { cpu = { bits = 64; }; }
=> true


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:865 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.overrideExisting

Type: overrideExisting :: AttrSet -> AttrSet -> AttrSet

Override only the attributes that are already present in the old set useful for deep-overriding.

old

Original attribute set

new

Attribute set with attributes to override in old.

Example 35. lib.attrsets.overrideExisting usage example

overrideExisting {} { a = 1; }
=> {}
overrideExisting { b = 2; } { a = 1; }
=> { b = 2; }
overrideExisting { a = 3; b = 2; } { a = 1; }
=> { a = 1; b = 2; }


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:893 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.showAttrPath

Type: showAttrPath :: [String] -> String

Turns a list of strings into a human-readable description of those strings represented as an attribute path. The result of this function is not intended to be machine-readable. Create a new attribute set with value set at the nested attribute location specified in attrPath.

path

Attribute path to render to a string

Example 36. lib.attrsets.showAttrPath usage example

showAttrPath [ "foo" "10" "bar" ]
=> "foo.\"10\".bar"
showAttrPath []
=> "<root attribute path>"


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:915 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.getOutput

Type: getOutput :: String -> Derivation -> String

Get a package output. If no output is found, fallback to .out and then to the default.

output

Function argument

pkg

Function argument

Example 37. lib.attrsets.getOutput usage example

getOutput "dev" pkgs.openssl
=> "/nix/store/9rz8gxhzf8sw4kf2j2f1grr49w8zx5vj-openssl-1.0.1r-dev"


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:932 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.getBin

Type: getBin :: Derivation -> String

Get a package’s bin output. If the output does not exist, fallback to .out and then to the default.

Example 38. lib.attrsets.getBin usage example

getBin pkgs.openssl
=> "/nix/store/9rz8gxhzf8sw4kf2j2f1grr49w8zx5vj-openssl-1.0.1r"


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:947 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.getLib

Type: getLib :: Derivation -> String

Get a package’s lib output. If the output does not exist, fallback to .out and then to the default.

Example 39. lib.attrsets.getLib usage example

getLib pkgs.openssl
=> "/nix/store/9rz8gxhzf8sw4kf2j2f1grr49w8zx5vj-openssl-1.0.1r-lib"


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:960 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.getDev

Type: getDev :: Derivation -> String

Get a package’s dev output. If the output does not exist, fallback to .out and then to the default.

Example 40. lib.attrsets.getDev usage example

getDev pkgs.openssl
=> "/nix/store/9rz8gxhzf8sw4kf2j2f1grr49w8zx5vj-openssl-1.0.1r-dev"


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:973 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.getMan

Type: getMan :: Derivation -> String

Get a package’s man output. If the output does not exist, fallback to .out and then to the default.

Example 41. lib.attrsets.getMan usage example

getMan pkgs.openssl
=> "/nix/store/9rz8gxhzf8sw4kf2j2f1grr49w8zx5vj-openssl-1.0.1r-man"


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:986 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.chooseDevOutputs

Type: chooseDevOutputs :: [Derivation] -> [String]

Pick the outputs of packages to place in buildInputs

drvs

List of packages to pick dev outputs from

Located at lib/attrsets.nix:993 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.recurseIntoAttrs

Type: recurseIntoAttrs :: AttrSet -> AttrSet

Make various Nix tools consider the contents of the resulting attribute set when looking for what to build, find, etc.

This function only affects a single attribute set; it does not apply itself recursively for nested attribute sets.

attrs

An attribute set to scan for derivations.

Example 42. lib.attrsets.recurseIntoAttrs usage example

{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:
{
  myTools = pkgs.lib.recurseIntoAttrs {
    inherit (pkgs) hello figlet;
  };
}


Located at lib/attrsets.nix:1016 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.dontRecurseIntoAttrs

Type: dontRecurseIntoAttrs :: AttrSet -> AttrSet

Undo the effect of recurseIntoAttrs.

attrs

An attribute set to not scan for derivations.

Located at lib/attrsets.nix:1026 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.attrsets.unionOfDisjoint

Type: unionOfDisjoint :: AttrSet -> AttrSet -> AttrSet

unionOfDisjoint x y is equal to x // y // z where the attrnames in z are the intersection of the attrnames in x and y, and all values assert with an error message. This operator is commutative, unlike (//).

x

Function argument

y

Function argument

Located at lib/attrsets.nix:1038 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings: string manipulation functions

lib.strings.concatStrings

Type: concatStrings :: [string] -> string

Concatenate a list of strings.

Example 43. lib.strings.concatStrings usage example

concatStrings ["foo" "bar"]
=> "foobar"


Located at lib/strings.nix:50 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.concatMapStrings

Type: concatMapStrings :: (a -> string) -> [a] -> string

Map a function over a list and concatenate the resulting strings.

f

Function argument

list

Function argument

Example 44. lib.strings.concatMapStrings usage example

concatMapStrings (x: "a" + x) ["foo" "bar"]
=> "afooabar"


Located at lib/strings.nix:60 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.concatImapStrings

Type: concatImapStrings :: (int -> a -> string) -> [a] -> string

Like concatMapStrings except that the f functions also gets the position as a parameter.

f

Function argument

list

Function argument

Example 45. lib.strings.concatImapStrings usage example

concatImapStrings (pos: x: "${toString pos}-${x}") ["foo" "bar"]
=> "1-foo2-bar"


Located at lib/strings.nix:71 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.intersperse

Type: intersperse :: a -> [a] -> [a]

Place an element between each element of a list

separator

Separator to add between elements

list

Input list

Example 46. lib.strings.intersperse usage example

intersperse "/" ["usr" "local" "bin"]
=> ["usr" "/" "local" "/" "bin"].


Located at lib/strings.nix:81 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.concatStringsSep

Type: concatStringsSep :: string -> [string] -> string

Concatenate a list of strings with a separator between each element

Example 47. lib.strings.concatStringsSep usage example

concatStringsSep "/" ["usr" "local" "bin"]
=> "usr/local/bin"


Located at lib/strings.nix:98 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.concatMapStringsSep

Type: concatMapStringsSep :: string -> (a -> string) -> [a] -> string

Maps a function over a list of strings and then concatenates the result with the specified separator interspersed between elements.

sep

Separator to add between elements

f

Function to map over the list

list

List of input strings

Example 48. lib.strings.concatMapStringsSep usage example

concatMapStringsSep "-" (x: toUpper x)  ["foo" "bar" "baz"]
=> "FOO-BAR-BAZ"


Located at lib/strings.nix:111 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.concatImapStringsSep

Type: concatIMapStringsSep :: string -> (int -> a -> string) -> [a] -> string

Same as concatMapStringsSep, but the mapping function additionally receives the position of its argument.

sep

Separator to add between elements

f

Function that receives elements and their positions

list

List of input strings

Example 49. lib.strings.concatImapStringsSep usage example

concatImapStringsSep "-" (pos: x: toString (x / pos)) [ 6 6 6 ]
=> "6-3-2"


Located at lib/strings.nix:128 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.concatLines

Type: concatLines :: [string] -> string

Concatenate a list of strings, adding a newline at the end of each one. Defined as concatMapStrings (s: s + "\n").

Example 50. lib.strings.concatLines usage example

concatLines [ "foo" "bar" ]
=> "foo\nbar\n"


Located at lib/strings.nix:145 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.makeSearchPath

Type: makeSearchPath :: string -> [string] -> string

Construct a Unix-style, colon-separated search path consisting of the given subDir appended to each of the given paths.

subDir

Directory name to append

paths

List of base paths

Example 51. lib.strings.makeSearchPath usage example

makeSearchPath "bin" ["/root" "/usr" "/usr/local"]
=> "/root/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin"
makeSearchPath "bin" [""]
=> "/bin"


Located at lib/strings.nix:158 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.makeSearchPathOutput

Type: string -> string -> [package] -> string

Construct a Unix-style search path by appending the given subDir to the specified output of each of the packages. If no output by the given name is found, fallback to .out and then to the default.

output

Package output to use

subDir

Directory name to append

pkgs

List of packages

Example 52. lib.strings.makeSearchPathOutput usage example

makeSearchPathOutput "dev" "bin" [ pkgs.openssl pkgs.zlib ]
=> "/nix/store/9rz8gxhzf8sw4kf2j2f1grr49w8zx5vj-openssl-1.0.1r-dev/bin:/nix/store/wwh7mhwh269sfjkm6k5665b5kgp7jrk2-zlib-1.2.8/bin"


Located at lib/strings.nix:176 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.makeLibraryPath

Construct a library search path (such as RPATH) containing the libraries for a set of packages

Example 53. lib.strings.makeLibraryPath usage example

makeLibraryPath [ "/usr" "/usr/local" ]
=> "/usr/lib:/usr/local/lib"
pkgs = import <nixpkgs> { }
makeLibraryPath [ pkgs.openssl pkgs.zlib ]
=> "/nix/store/9rz8gxhzf8sw4kf2j2f1grr49w8zx5vj-openssl-1.0.1r/lib:/nix/store/wwh7mhwh269sfjkm6k5665b5kgp7jrk2-zlib-1.2.8/lib"


Located at lib/strings.nix:194 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.makeBinPath

Construct a binary search path (such as $PATH) containing the binaries for a set of packages.

Example 54. lib.strings.makeBinPath usage example

makeBinPath ["/root" "/usr" "/usr/local"]
=> "/root/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin"


Located at lib/strings.nix:203 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.normalizePath

Type: normalizePath :: string -> string

Normalize path, removing extraneous /s

s

Function argument

Example 55. lib.strings.normalizePath usage example

normalizePath "/a//b///c/"
=> "/a/b/c/"


Located at lib/strings.nix:213 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.optionalString

Type: optionalString :: bool -> string -> string

Depending on the boolean `cond’, return either the given string or the empty string. Useful to concatenate against a bigger string.

cond

Condition

string

String to return if condition is true

Example 56. lib.strings.optionalString usage example

optionalString true "some-string"
=> "some-string"
optionalString false "some-string"
=> ""


Located at lib/strings.nix:239 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.hasPrefix

Type: hasPrefix :: string -> string -> bool

Determine whether a string has given prefix.

pref

Prefix to check for

str

Input string

Example 57. lib.strings.hasPrefix usage example

hasPrefix "foo" "foobar"
=> true
hasPrefix "foo" "barfoo"
=> false


Located at lib/strings.nix:255 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.hasSuffix

Type: hasSuffix :: string -> string -> bool

Determine whether a string has given suffix.

suffix

Suffix to check for

content

Input string

Example 58. lib.strings.hasSuffix usage example

hasSuffix "foo" "foobar"
=> false
hasSuffix "foo" "barfoo"
=> true


Located at lib/strings.nix:282 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.hasInfix

Type: hasInfix :: string -> string -> bool

Determine whether a string contains the given infix

infix

Function argument

content

Function argument

Example 59. lib.strings.hasInfix usage example

hasInfix "bc" "abcd"
=> true
hasInfix "ab" "abcd"
=> true
hasInfix "cd" "abcd"
=> true
hasInfix "foo" "abcd"
=> false


Located at lib/strings.nix:319 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.stringToCharacters

Type: stringToCharacters :: string -> [string]

Convert a string to a list of characters (i.e. singleton strings). This allows you to, e.g., map a function over each character. However, note that this will likely be horribly inefficient; Nix is not a general purpose programming language. Complex string manipulations should, if appropriate, be done in a derivation. Also note that Nix treats strings as a list of bytes and thus doesn’t handle unicode.

s

Function argument

Example 60. lib.strings.stringToCharacters usage example

stringToCharacters ""
=> [ ]
stringToCharacters "abc"
=> [ "a" "b" "c" ]
stringToCharacters "🦄"
=> [ "�" "�" "�" "�" ]


Located at lib/strings.nix:349 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.stringAsChars

Type: stringAsChars :: (string -> string) -> string -> string

Manipulate a string character by character and replace them by strings before concatenating the results.

f

Function to map over each individual character

s

Input string

Example 61. lib.strings.stringAsChars usage example

stringAsChars (x: if x == "a" then "i" else x) "nax"
=> "nix"


Located at lib/strings.nix:361 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.charToInt

Type: charToInt :: string -> int

Convert char to ascii value, must be in printable range

c

Function argument

Example 62. lib.strings.charToInt usage example

charToInt "A"
=> 65
charToInt "("
=> 40


Located at lib/strings.nix:380 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.escape

Type: escape :: [string] -> string -> string

Escape occurrence of the elements of list in string by prefixing it with a backslash.

list

Function argument

Example 63. lib.strings.escape usage example

escape ["(" ")"] "(foo)"
=> "\\(foo\\)"


Located at lib/strings.nix:391 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.escapeC

Type: escapeC = [string] -> string -> string

Escape occurrence of the element of list in string by converting to its ASCII value and prefixing it with \x. Only works for printable ascii characters.

list

Function argument

Example 64. lib.strings.escapeC usage example

escapeC [" "] "foo bar"
=> "foo\\x20bar"


Located at lib/strings.nix:404 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.escapeURL

Type: escapeURL :: string -> string

Escape the string so it can be safely placed inside a URL query.

Example 65. lib.strings.escapeURL usage example

escapeURL "foo/bar baz"
=> "foo%2Fbar%20baz"


Located at lib/strings.nix:415 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.escapeShellArg

Type: escapeShellArg :: string -> string

Quote string to be used safely within the Bourne shell.

arg

Function argument

Example 66. lib.strings.escapeShellArg usage example

escapeShellArg "esc'ape\nme"
=> "'esc'\\''ape\nme'"


Located at lib/strings.nix:429 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.escapeShellArgs

Type: escapeShellArgs :: [string] -> string

Quote all arguments to be safely passed to the Bourne shell.

Example 67. lib.strings.escapeShellArgs usage example

escapeShellArgs ["one" "two three" "four'five"]
=> "'one' 'two three' 'four'\\''five'"


Located at lib/strings.nix:439 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.isValidPosixName

Type: string -> bool

Test whether the given name is a valid POSIX shell variable name.

name

Function argument

Example 68. lib.strings.isValidPosixName usage example

isValidPosixName "foo_bar000"
=> true
isValidPosixName "0-bad.jpg"
=> false


Located at lib/strings.nix:451 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.toShellVar

Type: string -> (string | listOf string | attrsOf string) -> string

Translate a Nix value into a shell variable declaration, with proper escaping.

The value can be a string (mapped to a regular variable), a list of strings (mapped to a Bash-style array) or an attribute set of strings (mapped to a Bash-style associative array). Note that “string” includes string-coercible values like paths or derivations.

Strings are translated into POSIX sh-compatible code; lists and attribute sets assume a shell that understands Bash syntax (e.g. Bash or ZSH).

name

Function argument

value

Function argument

Example 69. lib.strings.toShellVar usage example

''
  ${toShellVar "foo" "some string"}
  [[ "$foo" == "some string" ]]
''


Located at lib/strings.nix:471 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.toShellVars

Type: attrsOf (string | listOf string | attrsOf string) -> string

Translate an attribute set into corresponding shell variable declarations using toShellVar.

vars

Function argument

Example 70. lib.strings.toShellVars usage example

let
  foo = "value";
  bar = foo;
in ''
  ${toShellVars { inherit foo bar; }}
  [[ "$foo" == "$bar" ]]
''


Located at lib/strings.nix:499 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.escapeNixString

Type: string -> string

Turn a string into a Nix expression representing that string

s

Function argument

Example 71. lib.strings.escapeNixString usage example

escapeNixString "hello\${}\n"
=> "\"hello\\\${}\\n\""


Located at lib/strings.nix:509 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.escapeRegex

Type: string -> string

Turn a string into an exact regular expression

Example 72. lib.strings.escapeRegex usage example

escapeRegex "[^a-z]*"
=> "\\[\\^a-z]\\*"


Located at lib/strings.nix:519 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.escapeNixIdentifier

Type: string -> string

Quotes a string if it can’t be used as an identifier directly.

s

Function argument

Example 73. lib.strings.escapeNixIdentifier usage example

escapeNixIdentifier "hello"
=> "hello"
escapeNixIdentifier "0abc"
=> "\"0abc\""


Located at lib/strings.nix:531 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.escapeXML

Type: string -> string

Escapes a string such that it is safe to include verbatim in an XML document.

Example 74. lib.strings.escapeXML usage example

escapeXML ''"test" 'test' < & >''
=> "&quot;test&quot; &apos;test&apos; &lt; &amp; &gt;"


Located at lib/strings.nix:545 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.toLower

Type: toLower :: string -> string

Converts an ASCII string to lower-case.

Example 75. lib.strings.toLower usage example

toLower "HOME"
=> "home"


Located at lib/strings.nix:564 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.toUpper

Type: toUpper :: string -> string

Converts an ASCII string to upper-case.

Example 76. lib.strings.toUpper usage example

toUpper "home"
=> "HOME"


Located at lib/strings.nix:574 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.addContextFrom

Appends string context from another string. This is an implementation detail of Nix and should be used carefully.

Strings in Nix carry an invisible context which is a list of strings representing store paths. If the string is later used in a derivation attribute, the derivation will properly populate the inputDrvs and inputSrcs.

a

Function argument

b

Function argument

Example 77. lib.strings.addContextFrom usage example

pkgs = import <nixpkgs> { };
addContextFrom pkgs.coreutils "bar"
=> "bar"


Located at lib/strings.nix:589 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.splitString

Cut a string with a separator and produces a list of strings which were separated by this separator.

sep

Function argument

s

Function argument

Example 78. lib.strings.splitString usage example

splitString "." "foo.bar.baz"
=> [ "foo" "bar" "baz" ]
splitString "/" "/usr/local/bin"
=> [ "" "usr" "local" "bin" ]


Located at lib/strings.nix:600 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.removePrefix

Type: string -> string -> string

Return a string without the specified prefix, if the prefix matches.

prefix

Prefix to remove if it matches

str

Input string

Example 79. lib.strings.removePrefix usage example

removePrefix "foo." "foo.bar.baz"
=> "bar.baz"
removePrefix "xxx" "foo.bar.baz"
=> "foo.bar.baz"


Located at lib/strings.nix:616 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.removeSuffix

Type: string -> string -> string

Return a string without the specified suffix, if the suffix matches.

suffix

Suffix to remove if it matches

str

Input string

Example 80. lib.strings.removeSuffix usage example

removeSuffix "front" "homefront"
=> "home"
removeSuffix "xxx" "homefront"
=> "homefront"


Located at lib/strings.nix:649 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.versionOlder

Return true if string v1 denotes a version older than v2.

v1

Function argument

v2

Function argument

Example 81. lib.strings.versionOlder usage example

versionOlder "1.1" "1.2"
=> true
versionOlder "1.1" "1.1"
=> false


Located at lib/strings.nix:680 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.versionAtLeast

Return true if string v1 denotes a version equal to or newer than v2.

v1

Function argument

v2

Function argument

Example 82. lib.strings.versionAtLeast usage example

versionAtLeast "1.1" "1.0"
=> true
versionAtLeast "1.1" "1.1"
=> true
versionAtLeast "1.1" "1.2"
=> false


Located at lib/strings.nix:692 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.getName

This function takes an argument that’s either a derivation or a derivation’s “name” attribute and extracts the name part from that argument.

x

Function argument

Example 83. lib.strings.getName usage example

getName "youtube-dl-2016.01.01"
=> "youtube-dl"
getName pkgs.youtube-dl
=> "youtube-dl"


Located at lib/strings.nix:704 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.getVersion

This function takes an argument that’s either a derivation or a derivation’s “name” attribute and extracts the version part from that argument.

x

Function argument

Example 84. lib.strings.getVersion usage example

getVersion "youtube-dl-2016.01.01"
=> "2016.01.01"
getVersion pkgs.youtube-dl
=> "2016.01.01"


Located at lib/strings.nix:721 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.nameFromURL

Extract name with version from URL. Ask for separator which is supposed to start extension.

url

Function argument

sep

Function argument

Example 85. lib.strings.nameFromURL usage example

nameFromURL "https://nixos.org/releases/nix/nix-1.7/nix-1.7-x86_64-linux.tar.bz2" "-"
=> "nix"
nameFromURL "https://nixos.org/releases/nix/nix-1.7/nix-1.7-x86_64-linux.tar.bz2" "_"
=> "nix-1.7-x86"


Located at lib/strings.nix:737 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.mesonOption

Type:

mesonOption :: string -> string -> string

@param feature The feature to be set
@param value The desired value

Create a -D<feature>=<value> string that can be passed to typical Meson invocations.

feature

Function argument

value

Function argument

Example 86. lib.strings.mesonOption usage example

mesonOption "engine" "opengl"
=> "-Dengine=opengl"


Located at lib/strings.nix:756 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.mesonBool

Type:

mesonBool :: string -> bool -> string

@param condition The condition to be made true or false
@param flag The controlling flag of the condition

Create a -D<condition>={true,false} string that can be passed to typical Meson invocations.

condition

Function argument

flag

Function argument

Example 87. lib.strings.mesonBool usage example

mesonBool "hardened" true
=> "-Dhardened=true"
mesonBool "static" false
=> "-Dstatic=false"


Located at lib/strings.nix:775 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.mesonEnable

Type:

mesonEnable :: string -> bool -> string

@param feature The feature to be enabled or disabled
@param flag The controlling flag

Create a -D<feature>={enabled,disabled} string that can be passed to typical Meson invocations.

feature

Function argument

flag

Function argument

Example 88. lib.strings.mesonEnable usage example

mesonEnable "docs" true
=> "-Ddocs=enabled"
mesonEnable "savage" false
=> "-Dsavage=disabled"


Located at lib/strings.nix:794 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.enableFeature

Create an --{enable,disable}-<feat> string that can be passed to standard GNU Autoconf scripts.

enable

Function argument

feat

Function argument

Example 89. lib.strings.enableFeature usage example

enableFeature true "shared"
=> "--enable-shared"
enableFeature false "shared"
=> "--disable-shared"


Located at lib/strings.nix:808 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.enableFeatureAs

Create an --{enable-<feat>=<value>,disable-<feat>} string that can be passed to standard GNU Autoconf scripts.

enable

Function argument

feat

Function argument

value

Function argument

Example 90. lib.strings.enableFeatureAs usage example

enableFeatureAs true "shared" "foo"
=> "--enable-shared=foo"
enableFeatureAs false "shared" (throw "ignored")
=> "--disable-shared"


Located at lib/strings.nix:821 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.withFeature

Create an --{with,without}-<feat> string that can be passed to standard GNU Autoconf scripts.

with_

Function argument

feat

Function argument

Example 91. lib.strings.withFeature usage example

withFeature true "shared"
=> "--with-shared"
withFeature false "shared"
=> "--without-shared"


Located at lib/strings.nix:832 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.withFeatureAs

Create an --{with-<feat>=<value>,without-<feat>} string that can be passed to standard GNU Autoconf scripts.

with_

Function argument

feat

Function argument

value

Function argument

Example 92. lib.strings.withFeatureAs usage example

withFeatureAs true "shared" "foo"
=> "--with-shared=foo"
withFeatureAs false "shared" (throw "ignored")
=> "--without-shared"


Located at lib/strings.nix:845 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.fixedWidthString

Type: fixedWidthString :: int -> string -> string -> string

Create a fixed width string with additional prefix to match required width.

This function will fail if the input string is longer than the requested length.

width

Function argument

filler

Function argument

str

Function argument

Example 93. lib.strings.fixedWidthString usage example

fixedWidthString 5 "0" (toString 15)
=> "00015"


Located at lib/strings.nix:859 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.fixedWidthNumber

Format a number adding leading zeroes up to fixed width.

width

Function argument

n

Function argument

Example 94. lib.strings.fixedWidthNumber usage example

fixedWidthNumber 5 15
=> "00015"


Located at lib/strings.nix:876 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.floatToString

Convert a float to a string, but emit a warning when precision is lost during the conversion

float

Function argument

Example 95. lib.strings.floatToString usage example

floatToString 0.000001
=> "0.000001"
floatToString 0.0000001
=> trace: warning: Imprecise conversion from float to string 0.000000
   "0.000000"


Located at lib/strings.nix:888 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.isCoercibleToString

Soft-deprecated function. While the original implementation is available as isConvertibleWithToString, consider using isStringLike instead, if suitable.

Located at lib/strings.nix:896 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.isConvertibleWithToString

Check whether a list or other value can be passed to toString.

Many types of value are coercible to string this way, including int, float, null, bool, list of similarly coercible values.

x

Function argument

Located at lib/strings.nix:905 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.isStringLike

Check whether a value can be coerced to a string. The value must be a string, path, or attribute set.

String-like values can be used without explicit conversion in string interpolations and in most functions that expect a string.

x

Function argument

Located at lib/strings.nix:916 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.isStorePath

Check whether a value is a store path.

x

Function argument

Example 96. lib.strings.isStorePath usage example

isStorePath "/nix/store/d945ibfx9x185xf04b890y4f9g3cbb63-python-2.7.11/bin/python"
=> false
isStorePath "/nix/store/d945ibfx9x185xf04b890y4f9g3cbb63-python-2.7.11"
=> true
isStorePath pkgs.python
=> true
isStorePath [] || isStorePath 42 || isStorePath {} || …
=> false


Located at lib/strings.nix:934 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.toInt

Type: string -> int

Parse a string as an int. Does not support parsing of integers with preceding zero due to ambiguity between zero-padded and octal numbers. See toIntBase10.

str

Function argument

Example 97. lib.strings.toInt usage example

toInt "1337"
=> 1337

toInt "-4"
=> -4

toInt " 123 "
=> 123

toInt "00024"
=> error: Ambiguity in interpretation of 00024 between octal and zero padded integer.

toInt "3.14"
=> error: floating point JSON numbers are not supported


Located at lib/strings.nix:964 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.toIntBase10

Type: string -> int

Parse a string as a base 10 int. This supports parsing of zero-padded integers.

str

Function argument

Example 98. lib.strings.toIntBase10 usage example

toIntBase10 "1337"
=> 1337

toIntBase10 "-4"
=> -4

toIntBase10 " 123 "
=> 123

toIntBase10 "00024"
=> 24

toIntBase10 "3.14"
=> error: floating point JSON numbers are not supported


Located at lib/strings.nix:1015 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.readPathsFromFile

Read a list of paths from file, relative to the rootPath. Lines beginning with # are treated as comments and ignored. Whitespace is significant.

NOTE: This function is not performant and should be avoided.

Example 99. lib.strings.readPathsFromFile usage example

readPathsFromFile /prefix
  ./pkgs/development/libraries/qt-5/5.4/qtbase/series
=> [ "/prefix/dlopen-resolv.patch" "/prefix/tzdir.patch"
     "/prefix/dlopen-libXcursor.patch" "/prefix/dlopen-openssl.patch"
     "/prefix/dlopen-dbus.patch" "/prefix/xdg-config-dirs.patch"
     "/prefix/nix-profiles-library-paths.patch"
     "/prefix/compose-search-path.patch" ]


Located at lib/strings.nix:1058 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.fileContents

Type: fileContents :: path -> string

Read the contents of a file removing the trailing \n

file

Function argument

Example 100. lib.strings.fileContents usage example

$ echo "1.0" > ./version

fileContents ./version
=> "1.0"


Located at lib/strings.nix:1078 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.sanitizeDerivationName

Type: sanitizeDerivationName :: String -> String

Creates a valid derivation name from a potentially invalid one.

Example 101. lib.strings.sanitizeDerivationName usage example

sanitizeDerivationName "../hello.bar # foo"
=> "-hello.bar-foo"
sanitizeDerivationName ""
=> "unknown"
sanitizeDerivationName pkgs.hello
=> "-nix-store-2g75chlbpxlrqn15zlby2dfh8hr9qwbk-hello-2.10"


Located at lib/strings.nix:1093 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.levenshtein

Type: levenshtein :: string -> string -> int

Computes the Levenshtein distance between two strings. Complexity O(n*m) where n and m are the lengths of the strings. Algorithm adjusted from https://stackoverflow.com/a/9750974/6605742

a

Function argument

b

Function argument

Example 102. lib.strings.levenshtein usage example

levenshtein "foo" "foo"
=> 0
levenshtein "book" "hook"
=> 1
levenshtein "hello" "Heyo"
=> 3


Located at lib/strings.nix:1132 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.commonPrefixLength

Returns the length of the prefix common to both strings.

a

Function argument

b

Function argument

Located at lib/strings.nix:1153 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.commonSuffixLength

Returns the length of the suffix common to both strings.

a

Function argument

b

Function argument

Located at lib/strings.nix:1161 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.strings.levenshteinAtMost

Type: levenshteinAtMost :: int -> string -> string -> bool

Returns whether the levenshtein distance between two strings is at most some value Complexity is O(min(n,m)) for k <= 2 and O(n*m) otherwise

Example 103. lib.strings.levenshteinAtMost usage example

levenshteinAtMost 0 "foo" "foo"
=> true
levenshteinAtMost 1 "foo" "boa"
=> false
levenshteinAtMost 2 "foo" "boa"
=> true
levenshteinAtMost 2 "This is a sentence" "this is a sentense."
=> false
levenshteinAtMost 3 "This is a sentence" "this is a sentense."
=> true


Located at lib/strings.nix:1185 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.versions: version string functions

lib.versions.splitVersion

Break a version string into its component parts.

Example 104. lib.versions.splitVersion usage example

splitVersion "1.2.3"
=> ["1" "2" "3"]


Located at lib/versions.nix:12 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.versions.major

Get the major version string from a string.

v

Function argument

Example 105. lib.versions.major usage example

major "1.2.3"
=> "1"


Located at lib/versions.nix:20 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.versions.minor

Get the minor version string from a string.

v

Function argument

Example 106. lib.versions.minor usage example

minor "1.2.3"
=> "2"


Located at lib/versions.nix:28 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.versions.patch

Get the patch version string from a string.

v

Function argument

Example 107. lib.versions.patch usage example

patch "1.2.3"
=> "3"


Located at lib/versions.nix:36 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.versions.majorMinor

Get string of the first two parts (major and minor) of a version string.

v

Function argument

Example 108. lib.versions.majorMinor usage example

majorMinor "1.2.3"
=> "1.2"


Located at lib/versions.nix:45 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.versions.pad

Pad a version string with zeros to match the given number of components.

n

Function argument

version

Function argument

Example 109. lib.versions.pad usage example

pad 3 "1.2"
=> "1.2.0"
pad 3 "1.3-rc1"
=> "1.3.0-rc1"
pad 3 "1.2.3.4"
=> "1.2.3"


Located at lib/versions.nix:59 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial: miscellaneous functions

lib.trivial.id

Type: id :: a -> a

The identity function For when you need a function that does “nothing”.

x

The value to return

Located at lib/trivial.nix:12 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.const

Type: const :: a -> b -> a

The constant function

Ignores the second argument. If called with only one argument, constructs a function that always returns a static value.

x

Value to return

y

Value to ignore

Example 110. lib.trivial.const usage example

let f = const 5; in f 10
=> 5


Located at lib/trivial.nix:26 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.pipe

Type: pipe :: a -> [<functions>] -> <return type of last function>

Pipes a value through a list of functions, left to right.

val

Function argument

functions

Function argument

Example 111. lib.trivial.pipe usage example

pipe 2 [
    (x: x + 2)  # 2 + 2 = 4
    (x: x * 2)  # 4 * 2 = 8
  ]
  => 8

  # ideal to do text transformations
  pipe [ "a/b" "a/c" ] [

    # create the cp command
    (map (file: ''cp "${src}/${file}" $out\n''))

    # concatenate all commands into one string
    lib.concatStrings

    # make that string into a nix derivation
    (pkgs.runCommand "copy-to-out" {})

  ]
  => <drv which copies all files to $out>

The output type of each function has to be the input type
of the next function, and the last function returns the
final value.


Located at lib/trivial.nix:61 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.concat

Type: concat :: [a] -> [a] -> [a]

Concatenate two lists

x

Function argument

y

Function argument

Example 112. lib.trivial.concat usage example

concat [ 1 2 ] [ 3 4 ]
=> [ 1 2 3 4 ]


Located at lib/trivial.nix:80 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.or

boolean “or”

x

Function argument

y

Function argument

Located at lib/trivial.nix:83 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.and

boolean “and”

x

Function argument

y

Function argument

Located at lib/trivial.nix:86 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.bitAnd

bitwise “and”

Located at lib/trivial.nix:89 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.bitOr

bitwise “or”

Located at lib/trivial.nix:94 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.bitXor

bitwise “xor”

Located at lib/trivial.nix:99 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.bitNot

bitwise “not”

Located at lib/trivial.nix:104 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.boolToString

Type: boolToString :: bool -> string

Convert a boolean to a string.

This function uses the strings “true” and “false” to represent boolean values. Calling toString on a bool instead returns “1” and “” (sic!).

b

Function argument

Located at lib/trivial.nix:114 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.mergeAttrs

Merge two attribute sets shallowly, right side trumps left

mergeAttrs :: attrs -> attrs -> attrs

x

Left attribute set

y

Right attribute set (higher precedence for equal keys)

Example 113. lib.trivial.mergeAttrs usage example

mergeAttrs { a = 1; b = 2; } { b = 3; c = 4; }
=> { a = 1; b = 3; c = 4; }


Located at lib/trivial.nix:124 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.flip

Type: flip :: (a -> b -> c) -> (b -> a -> c)

Flip the order of the arguments of a binary function.

f

Function argument

a

Function argument

b

Function argument

Example 114. lib.trivial.flip usage example

flip concat [1] [2]
=> [ 2 1 ]


Located at lib/trivial.nix:138 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.mapNullable

Apply function if the supplied argument is non-null.

f

Function to call

a

Argument to check for null before passing it to f

Example 115. lib.trivial.mapNullable usage example

mapNullable (x: x+1) null
=> null
mapNullable (x: x+1) 22
=> 23


Located at lib/trivial.nix:148 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.version

Returns the current full nixpkgs version number.

Located at lib/trivial.nix:164 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.release

Returns the current nixpkgs release number as string.

Located at lib/trivial.nix:167 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.oldestSupportedRelease

The latest release that is supported, at the time of release branch-off, if applicable.

Ideally, out-of-tree modules should be able to evaluate cleanly with all supported Nixpkgs versions (master, release and old release until EOL). So if possible, deprecation warnings should take effect only when all out-of-tree expressions/libs/modules can upgrade to the new way without losing support for supported Nixpkgs versions.

This release number allows deprecation warnings to be implemented such that they take effect as soon as the oldest release reaches end of life.

Located at lib/trivial.nix:180 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.isInOldestRelease

Whether a feature is supported in all supported releases (at the time of release branch-off, if applicable). See oldestSupportedRelease.

release

Release number of feature introduction as an integer, e.g. 2111 for 21.11. Set it to the upcoming release, matching the nixpkgs/.version file.

Located at lib/trivial.nix:186 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.codeName

Returns the current nixpkgs release code name.

On each release the first letter is bumped and a new animal is chosen starting with that new letter.

Located at lib/trivial.nix:198 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.versionSuffix

Returns the current nixpkgs version suffix as string.

Located at lib/trivial.nix:201 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.revisionWithDefault

Type: revisionWithDefault :: string -> string

Attempts to return the the current revision of nixpkgs and returns the supplied default value otherwise.

default

Default value to return if revision can not be determined

Located at lib/trivial.nix:212 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.inNixShell

Type: inNixShell :: bool

Determine whether the function is being called from inside a Nix shell.

Located at lib/trivial.nix:230 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.inPureEvalMode

Type: inPureEvalMode :: bool

Determine whether the function is being called from inside pure-eval mode by seeing whether builtins contains currentSystem. If not, we must be in pure-eval mode.

Located at lib/trivial.nix:238 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.min

Return minimum of two numbers.

x

Function argument

y

Function argument

Located at lib/trivial.nix:243 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.max

Return maximum of two numbers.

x

Function argument

y

Function argument

Located at lib/trivial.nix:246 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.mod

Integer modulus

base

Function argument

int

Function argument

Example 116. lib.trivial.mod usage example

mod 11 10
=> 1
mod 1 10
=> 1


Located at lib/trivial.nix:256 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.compare

C-style comparisons

a < b, compare a b => -1 a == b, compare a b => 0 a > b, compare a b => 1

a

Function argument

b

Function argument

Located at lib/trivial.nix:267 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.splitByAndCompare

Type: (a -> bool) -> (a -> a -> int) -> (a -> a -> int) -> (a -> a -> int)

Split type into two subtypes by predicate p, take all elements of the first subtype to be less than all the elements of the second subtype, compare elements of a single subtype with yes and no respectively.

p

Predicate

yes

Comparison function if predicate holds for both values

no

Comparison function if predicate holds for neither value

a

First value to compare

b

Second value to compare

Example 117. lib.trivial.splitByAndCompare usage example

let cmp = splitByAndCompare (hasPrefix "foo") compare compare; in

cmp "a" "z" => -1
cmp "fooa" "fooz" => -1

cmp "f" "a" => 1
cmp "fooa" "a" => -1
# while
compare "fooa" "a" => 1


Located at lib/trivial.nix:292 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.importJSON

Type: importJSON :: path -> any

Reads a JSON file.

path

Function argument

Located at lib/trivial.nix:312 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.importTOML

Type: importTOML :: path -> any

Reads a TOML file.

path

Function argument

Located at lib/trivial.nix:319 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.warn

Type: string -> a -> a

Print a warning before returning the second argument. This function behaves like builtins.trace, but requires a string message and formats it as a warning, including the warning: prefix.

To get a call stack trace and abort evaluation, set the environment variable NIX_ABORT_ON_WARN=true and set the Nix options --option pure-eval false --show-trace

Located at lib/trivial.nix:347 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.warnIf

Type: bool -> string -> a -> a

Like warn, but only warn when the first argument is true.

cond

Function argument

msg

Function argument

Located at lib/trivial.nix:357 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.warnIfNot

Type: bool -> string -> a -> a

Like warnIf, but negated (warn if the first argument is false).

cond

Function argument

msg

Function argument

Located at lib/trivial.nix:364 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.throwIfNot

Type: bool -> string -> a -> a

Like the assert b; e expression, but with a custom error message and without the semicolon.

If true, return the identity function, r: r.

If false, throw the error message.

Calls can be juxtaposed using function application, as (r: r) a = a, so (r: r) (r: r) a = a, and so forth.

cond

Function argument

msg

Function argument

Example 118. lib.trivial.throwIfNot usage example

throwIfNot (lib.isList overlays) "The overlays argument to nixpkgs must be a list."
lib.foldr (x: throwIfNot (lib.isFunction x) "All overlays passed to nixpkgs must be functions.") (r: r) overlays
pkgs


Located at lib/trivial.nix:386 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.throwIf

Type: bool -> string -> a -> a

Like throwIfNot, but negated (throw if the first argument is true).

cond

Function argument

msg

Function argument

Located at lib/trivial.nix:393 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.checkListOfEnum

Type: String -> List ComparableVal -> List ComparableVal -> a -> a

Check if the elements in a list are valid values from a enum, returning the identity function, or throwing an error message otherwise.

msg

Function argument

valid

Function argument

given

Function argument

Example 119. lib.trivial.checkListOfEnum usage example

let colorVariants = ["bright" "dark" "black"]
in checkListOfEnum "color variants" [ "standard" "light" "dark" ] colorVariants;
=>
error: color variants: bright, black unexpected; valid ones: standard, light, dark


Located at lib/trivial.nix:405 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.setFunctionArgs

Add metadata about expected function arguments to a function. The metadata should match the format given by builtins.functionArgs, i.e. a set from expected argument to a bool representing whether that argument has a default or not. setFunctionArgs : (a → b) → Map String Bool → (a → b)

This function is necessary because you can’t dynamically create a function of the { a, b ? foo, … }: format, but some facilities like callPackage expect to be able to query expected arguments.

f

Function argument

args

Function argument

Located at lib/trivial.nix:428 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.functionArgs

Extract the expected function arguments from a function. This works both with nix-native { a, b ? foo, … }: style functions and functions with args set with ‘setFunctionArgs’. It has the same return type and semantics as builtins.functionArgs. setFunctionArgs : (a → b) → Map String Bool.

f

Function argument

Located at lib/trivial.nix:440 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.isFunction

Check whether something is a function or something annotated with function args.

f

Function argument

Located at lib/trivial.nix:448 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.toFunction

Turns any non-callable values into constant functions. Returns callable values as is.

v

Any value

Example 120. lib.trivial.toFunction usage example

nix-repl> lib.toFunction 1 2
1

nix-repl> lib.toFunction (x: x + 1) 2
3


Located at lib/trivial.nix:463 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.toHexString

Convert the given positive integer to a string of its hexadecimal representation. For example:

toHexString 0 => “0”

toHexString 16 => “10”

toHexString 250 => “FA”

i

Function argument

Located at lib/trivial.nix:479 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.trivial.toBaseDigits

toBaseDigits base i converts the positive integer i to a list of its digits in the given base. For example:

toBaseDigits 10 123 => [ 1 2 3 ]

toBaseDigits 2 6 => [ 1 1 0 ]

toBaseDigits 16 250 => [ 15 10 ]

base

Function argument

i

Function argument

Located at lib/trivial.nix:505 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.fixedPoints: explicit recursion functions

lib.fixedPoints.fix

Type:

fix :: (a -> a) -> a

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-point_combinator for further
details.

Compute the fixed point of the given function f, which is usually an attribute set that expects its final, non-recursive representation as an argument:

f = self: { foo = "foo"; bar = "bar"; foobar = self.foo + self.bar; }

Nix evaluates this recursion until all references to self have been resolved. At that point, the final result is returned and f x = x holds:

nix-repl> fix f
{ bar = "bar"; foo = "foo"; foobar = "foobar"; }
f

Function argument

Located at lib/fixed-points.nix:25 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.fixedPoints.fix'

A variant of fix that records the original recursive attribute set in the result, in an attribute named __unfix__.

This is useful in combination with the extends function to implement deep overriding.

f

Function argument

Located at lib/fixed-points.nix:34 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.fixedPoints.converge

Type: (a -> a) -> a -> a

Return the fixpoint that f converges to when called iteratively, starting with the input x.

nix-repl> converge (x: x / 2) 16
0
f

Function argument

x

Function argument

Located at lib/fixed-points.nix:47 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.fixedPoints.extends

Modify the contents of an explicitly recursive attribute set in a way that honors self-references. This is accomplished with a function

g = self: super: { foo = super.foo + " + "; }

that has access to the unmodified input (super) as well as the final non-recursive representation of the attribute set (self). extends differs from the native // operator insofar as that it’s applied before references to self are resolved:

nix-repl> fix (extends g f)
{ bar = "bar"; foo = "foo + "; foobar = "foo + bar"; }

The name of the function is inspired by object-oriented inheritance, i.e. think of it as an infix operator g extends f that mimics the syntax from Java. It may seem counter-intuitive to have the “base class” as the second argument, but it’s nice this way if several uses of extends are cascaded.

To get a better understanding how extends turns a function with a fix point (the package set we start with) into a new function with a different fix point (the desired packages set) lets just see, how extends g f unfolds with g and f defined above:

extends g f = self: let super = f self; in super // g self super;
            = self: let super = { foo = "foo"; bar = "bar"; foobar = self.foo + self.bar; }; in super // g self super
            = self: { foo = "foo"; bar = "bar"; foobar = self.foo + self.bar; } // g self { foo = "foo"; bar = "bar"; foobar = self.foo + self.bar; }
            = self: { foo = "foo"; bar = "bar"; foobar = self.foo + self.bar; } // { foo = "foo" + " + "; }
            = self: { foo = "foo + "; bar = "bar"; foobar = self.foo + self.bar; }
f

Function argument

rattrs

Function argument

self

Function argument

Located at lib/fixed-points.nix:91 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.fixedPoints.composeExtensions

Compose two extending functions of the type expected by ‘extends’ into one where changes made in the first are available in the ‘super’ of the second

f

Function argument

g

Function argument

final

Function argument

prev

Function argument

Located at lib/fixed-points.nix:98 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.fixedPoints.composeManyExtensions

Compose several extending functions of the type expected by ‘extends’ into one where changes made in preceding functions are made available to subsequent ones.

composeManyExtensions : [packageSet -> packageSet -> packageSet] -> packageSet -> packageSet -> packageSet
                          ^final        ^prev         ^overrides     ^final        ^prev         ^overrides

Located at lib/fixed-points.nix:114 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.fixedPoints.makeExtensible

Create an overridable, recursive attribute set. For example:

nix-repl> obj = makeExtensible (self: { })

nix-repl> obj
{ __unfix__ = «lambda»; extend = «lambda»; }

nix-repl> obj = obj.extend (self: super: { foo = "foo"; })

nix-repl> obj
{ __unfix__ = «lambda»; extend = «lambda»; foo = "foo"; }

nix-repl> obj = obj.extend (self: super: { foo = super.foo + " + "; bar = "bar"; foobar = self.foo + self.bar; })

nix-repl> obj
{ __unfix__ = «lambda»; bar = "bar"; extend = «lambda»; foo = "foo + "; foobar = "foo + bar"; }

Located at lib/fixed-points.nix:137 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.fixedPoints.makeExtensibleWithCustomName

Same as makeExtensible but the name of the extending attribute is customized.

extenderName

Function argument

rattrs

Function argument

Located at lib/fixed-points.nix:143 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists: list manipulation functions

lib.lists.singleton

Type: singleton :: a -> [a]

Create a list consisting of a single element. singleton x is sometimes more convenient with respect to indentation than [x] when x spans multiple lines.

x

Function argument

Example 121. lib.lists.singleton usage example

singleton "foo"
=> [ "foo" ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:23 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.forEach

Type: forEach :: [a] -> (a -> b) -> [b]

Apply the function to each element in the list. Same as map, but arguments flipped.

xs

Function argument

f

Function argument

Example 122. lib.lists.forEach usage example

forEach [ 1 2 ] (x:
  toString x
)
=> [ "1" "2" ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:36 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.foldr

Type: foldr :: (a -> b -> b) -> b -> [a] -> b

“right fold” a binary function op between successive elements of list with nul as the starting value, i.e., foldr op nul [x_1 x_2 ... x_n] == op x_1 (op x_2 ... (op x_n nul)).

op

Function argument

nul

Function argument

list

Function argument

Example 123. lib.lists.foldr usage example

concat = foldr (a: b: a + b) "z"
concat [ "a" "b" "c" ]
=> "abcz"
# different types
strange = foldr (int: str: toString (int + 1) + str) "a"
strange [ 1 2 3 4 ]
=> "2345a"


Located at lib/lists.nix:53 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.fold

fold is an alias of foldr for historic reasons

Located at lib/lists.nix:64 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.foldl

Type: foldl :: (b -> a -> b) -> b -> [a] -> b

“left fold”, like foldr, but from the left: foldl op nul [x_1 x_2 ... x_n] == op (... (op (op nul x_1) x_2) ... x_n).

op

Function argument

nul

Function argument

list

Function argument

Example 124. lib.lists.foldl usage example

lconcat = foldl (a: b: a + b) "z"
lconcat [ "a" "b" "c" ]
=> "zabc"
# different types
lstrange = foldl (str: int: str + toString (int + 1)) "a"
lstrange [ 1 2 3 4 ]
=> "a2345"


Located at lib/lists.nix:81 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.foldl'

Type: foldl' :: (b -> a -> b) -> b -> [a] -> b

Strict version of foldl.

The difference is that evaluation is forced upon access. Usually used with small whole results (in contrast with lazily-generated list or large lists where only a part is consumed.)

Located at lib/lists.nix:97 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.imap0

Type: imap0 :: (int -> a -> b) -> [a] -> [b]

Map with index starting from 0

f

Function argument

list

Function argument

Example 125. lib.lists.imap0 usage example

imap0 (i: v: "${v}-${toString i}") ["a" "b"]
=> [ "a-0" "b-1" ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:107 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.imap1

Type: imap1 :: (int -> a -> b) -> [a] -> [b]

Map with index starting from 1

f

Function argument

list

Function argument

Example 126. lib.lists.imap1 usage example

imap1 (i: v: "${v}-${toString i}") ["a" "b"]
=> [ "a-1" "b-2" ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:117 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.concatMap

Type: concatMap :: (a -> [b]) -> [a] -> [b]

Map and concatenate the result.

Example 127. lib.lists.concatMap usage example

concatMap (x: [x] ++ ["z"]) ["a" "b"]
=> [ "a" "z" "b" "z" ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:127 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.flatten

Flatten the argument into a single list; that is, nested lists are spliced into the top-level lists.

x

Function argument

Example 128. lib.lists.flatten usage example

flatten [1 [2 [3] 4] 5]
=> [1 2 3 4 5]
flatten 1
=> [1]


Located at lib/lists.nix:138 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.remove

Type: remove :: a -> [a] -> [a]

Remove elements equal to ‘e’ from a list. Useful for buildInputs.

e

Element to remove from the list

Example 129. lib.lists.remove usage example

remove 3 [ 1 3 4 3 ]
=> [ 1 4 ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:151 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.findSingle

Type: findSingle :: (a -> bool) -> a -> a -> [a] -> a

Find the sole element in the list matching the specified predicate, returns default if no such element exists, or multiple if there are multiple matching elements.

pred

Predicate

default

Default value to return if element was not found.

multiple

Default value to return if more than one element was found

list

Input list

Example 130. lib.lists.findSingle usage example

findSingle (x: x == 3) "none" "multiple" [ 1 3 3 ]
=> "multiple"
findSingle (x: x == 3) "none" "multiple" [ 1 3 ]
=> 3
findSingle (x: x == 3) "none" "multiple" [ 1 9 ]
=> "none"


Located at lib/lists.nix:169 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.findFirstIndex

Type: findFirstIndex :: (a -> Bool) -> b -> [a] -> (Int | b)

Find the first index in the list matching the specified predicate or return default if no such element exists.

pred

Predicate

default

Default value to return

list

Input list

Example 131. lib.lists.findFirstIndex usage example

findFirstIndex (x: x > 3) null [ 0 6 4 ]
=> 1
findFirstIndex (x: x > 9) null [ 0 6 4 ]
=> null


Located at lib/lists.nix:194 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.findFirst

Type: findFirst :: (a -> bool) -> a -> [a] -> a

Find the first element in the list matching the specified predicate or return default if no such element exists.

pred

Predicate

default

Default value to return

list

Input list

Example 132. lib.lists.findFirst usage example

findFirst (x: x > 3) 7 [ 1 6 4 ]
=> 6
findFirst (x: x > 9) 7 [ 1 6 4 ]
=> 7


Located at lib/lists.nix:245 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.any

Type: any :: (a -> bool) -> [a] -> bool

Return true if function pred returns true for at least one element of list.

Example 133. lib.lists.any usage example

any isString [ 1 "a" { } ]
=> true
any isString [ 1 { } ]
=> false


Located at lib/lists.nix:271 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.all

Type: all :: (a -> bool) -> [a] -> bool

Return true if function pred returns true for all elements of list.

Example 134. lib.lists.all usage example

all (x: x < 3) [ 1 2 ]
=> true
all (x: x < 3) [ 1 2 3 ]
=> false


Located at lib/lists.nix:284 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.count

Type: count :: (a -> bool) -> [a] -> int

Count how many elements of list match the supplied predicate function.

pred

Predicate

Example 135. lib.lists.count usage example

count (x: x == 3) [ 3 2 3 4 6 ]
=> 2


Located at lib/lists.nix:295 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.optional

Type: optional :: bool -> a -> [a]

Return a singleton list or an empty list, depending on a boolean value. Useful when building lists with optional elements (e.g. ++ optional (system == "i686-linux") firefox).

cond

Function argument

elem

Function argument

Example 136. lib.lists.optional usage example

optional true "foo"
=> [ "foo" ]
optional false "foo"
=> [ ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:311 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.optionals

Type: optionals :: bool -> [a] -> [a]

Return a list or an empty list, depending on a boolean value.

cond

Condition

elems

List to return if condition is true

Example 137. lib.lists.optionals usage example

optionals true [ 2 3 ]
=> [ 2 3 ]
optionals false [ 2 3 ]
=> [ ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:323 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.toList

If argument is a list, return it; else, wrap it in a singleton list. If you’re using this, you should almost certainly reconsider if there isn’t a more “well-typed” approach.

x

Function argument

Example 138. lib.lists.toList usage example

toList [ 1 2 ]
=> [ 1 2 ]
toList "hi"
=> [ "hi "]


Located at lib/lists.nix:340 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.range

Type: range :: int -> int -> [int]

Return a list of integers from first up to and including last.

first

First integer in the range

last

Last integer in the range

Example 139. lib.lists.range usage example

range 2 4
=> [ 2 3 4 ]
range 3 2
=> [ ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:352 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.replicate

Type: replicate :: int -> a -> [a]

Return a list with n copies of an element.

n

Function argument

elem

Function argument

Example 140. lib.lists.replicate usage example

replicate 3 "a"
=> [ "a" "a" "a" ]
replicate 2 true
=> [ true true ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:372 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.partition

Type: (a -> bool) -> [a] -> { right :: [a]; wrong :: [a]; }

Splits the elements of a list in two lists, right and wrong, depending on the evaluation of a predicate.

Example 141. lib.lists.partition usage example

partition (x: x > 2) [ 5 1 2 3 4 ]
=> { right = [ 5 3 4 ]; wrong = [ 1 2 ]; }


Located at lib/lists.nix:383 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.groupBy'

Splits the elements of a list into many lists, using the return value of a predicate. Predicate should return a string which becomes keys of attrset groupBy returns.

groupBy' allows to customise the combining function and initial value

op

Function argument

nul

Function argument

pred

Function argument

lst

Function argument

Example 142. lib.lists.groupBy' usage example

groupBy (x: boolToString (x > 2)) [ 5 1 2 3 4 ]
=> { true = [ 5 3 4 ]; false = [ 1 2 ]; }
groupBy (x: x.name) [ {name = "icewm"; script = "icewm &";}
                      {name = "xfce";  script = "xfce4-session &";}
                      {name = "icewm"; script = "icewmbg &";}
                      {name = "mate";  script = "gnome-session &";}
                    ]
=> { icewm = [ { name = "icewm"; script = "icewm &"; }
               { name = "icewm"; script = "icewmbg &"; } ];
     mate  = [ { name = "mate";  script = "gnome-session &"; } ];
     xfce  = [ { name = "xfce";  script = "xfce4-session &"; } ];
   }

groupBy' builtins.add 0 (x: boolToString (x > 2)) [ 5 1 2 3 4 ]
=> { true = 12; false = 3; }


Located at lib/lists.nix:412 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.zipListsWith

Type: zipListsWith :: (a -> b -> c) -> [a] -> [b] -> [c]

Merges two lists of the same size together. If the sizes aren’t the same the merging stops at the shortest. How both lists are merged is defined by the first argument.

f

Function to zip elements of both lists

fst

First list

snd

Second list

Example 143. lib.lists.zipListsWith usage example

zipListsWith (a: b: a + b) ["h" "l"] ["e" "o"]
=> ["he" "lo"]


Located at lib/lists.nix:432 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.zipLists

Type: zipLists :: [a] -> [b] -> [{ fst :: a; snd :: b; }]

Merges two lists of the same size together. If the sizes aren’t the same the merging stops at the shortest.

Example 144. lib.lists.zipLists usage example

zipLists [ 1 2 ] [ "a" "b" ]
=> [ { fst = 1; snd = "a"; } { fst = 2; snd = "b"; } ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:451 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.reverseList

Type: reverseList :: [a] -> [a]

Reverse the order of the elements of a list.

xs

Function argument

Example 145. lib.lists.reverseList usage example

reverseList [ "b" "o" "j" ]
=> [ "j" "o" "b" ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:462 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.listDfs

Depth-First Search (DFS) for lists list != [].

before a b == true means that b depends on a (there’s an edge from b to a).

stopOnCycles

Function argument

before

Function argument

list

Function argument

Example 146. lib.lists.listDfs usage example

listDfs true hasPrefix [ "/home/user" "other" "/" "/home" ]
  == { minimal = "/";                  # minimal element
       visited = [ "/home/user" ];     # seen elements (in reverse order)
       rest    = [ "/home" "other" ];  # everything else
     }

listDfs true hasPrefix [ "/home/user" "other" "/" "/home" "/" ]
  == { cycle   = "/";                  # cycle encountered at this element
       loops   = [ "/" ];              # and continues to these elements
       visited = [ "/" "/home/user" ]; # elements leading to the cycle (in reverse order)
       rest    = [ "/home" "other" ];  # everything else


Located at lib/lists.nix:484 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.toposort

Sort a list based on a partial ordering using DFS. This implementation is O(N^2), if your ordering is linear, use sort instead.

before a b == true means that b should be after a in the result.

before

Function argument

list

Function argument

Example 147. lib.lists.toposort usage example

toposort hasPrefix [ "/home/user" "other" "/" "/home" ]
  == { result = [ "/" "/home" "/home/user" "other" ]; }

toposort hasPrefix [ "/home/user" "other" "/" "/home" "/" ]
  == { cycle = [ "/home/user" "/" "/" ]; # path leading to a cycle
       loops = [ "/" ]; }                # loops back to these elements

toposort hasPrefix [ "other" "/home/user" "/home" "/" ]
  == { result = [ "other" "/" "/home" "/home/user" ]; }

toposort (a: b: a < b) [ 3 2 1 ] == { result = [ 1 2 3 ]; }


Located at lib/lists.nix:523 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.sort

Sort a list based on a comparator function which compares two elements and returns true if the first argument is strictly below the second argument. The returned list is sorted in an increasing order. The implementation does a quick-sort.

Example 148. lib.lists.sort usage example

sort (a: b: a < b) [ 5 3 7 ]
=> [ 3 5 7 ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:551 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.compareLists

Compare two lists element-by-element.

cmp

Function argument

a

Function argument

b

Function argument

Example 149. lib.lists.compareLists usage example

compareLists compare [] []
=> 0
compareLists compare [] [ "a" ]
=> -1
compareLists compare [ "a" ] []
=> 1
compareLists compare [ "a" "b" ] [ "a" "c" ]
=> -1


Located at lib/lists.nix:580 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.naturalSort

Sort list using “Natural sorting”. Numeric portions of strings are sorted in numeric order.

lst

Function argument

Example 150. lib.lists.naturalSort usage example

naturalSort ["disk11" "disk8" "disk100" "disk9"]
=> ["disk8" "disk9" "disk11" "disk100"]
naturalSort ["10.46.133.149" "10.5.16.62" "10.54.16.25"]
=> ["10.5.16.62" "10.46.133.149" "10.54.16.25"]
naturalSort ["v0.2" "v0.15" "v0.0.9"]
=> [ "v0.0.9" "v0.2" "v0.15" ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:603 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.take

Type: take :: int -> [a] -> [a]

Return the first (at most) N elements of a list.

count

Number of elements to take

Example 151. lib.lists.take usage example

take 2 [ "a" "b" "c" "d" ]
=> [ "a" "b" ]
take 2 [ ]
=> [ ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:621 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.drop

Type: drop :: int -> [a] -> [a]

Remove the first (at most) N elements of a list.

count

Number of elements to drop

list

Input list

Example 152. lib.lists.drop usage example

drop 2 [ "a" "b" "c" "d" ]
=> [ "c" "d" ]
drop 2 [ ]
=> [ ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:635 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.hasPrefix

Type: hasPrefix :: [a] -> [a] -> bool

Whether the first list is a prefix of the second list.

list1

Function argument

list2

Function argument

Example 153. lib.lists.hasPrefix usage example

hasPrefix [ 1 2 ] [ 1 2 3 4 ]
=> true
hasPrefix [ 0 1 ] [ 1 2 3 4 ]
=> false


Located at lib/lists.nix:651 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.removePrefix

Type: removePrefix :: [a] -> [a] -> [a]

Remove the first list as a prefix from the second list. Error if the first list isn’t a prefix of the second list.

list1

Function argument

list2

Function argument

Example 154. lib.lists.removePrefix usage example

removePrefix [ 1 2 ] [ 1 2 3 4 ]
=> [ 3 4 ]
removePrefix [ 0 1 ] [ 1 2 3 4 ]
=> <error>


Located at lib/lists.nix:667 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.sublist

Type: sublist :: int -> int -> [a] -> [a]

Return a list consisting of at most count elements of list, starting at index start.

start

Index at which to start the sublist

count

Number of elements to take

list

Input list

Example 155. lib.lists.sublist usage example

sublist 1 3 [ "a" "b" "c" "d" "e" ]
=> [ "b" "c" "d" ]
sublist 1 3 [ ]
=> [ ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:686 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.commonPrefix

Type: commonPrefix :: [a] -> [a] -> [a]

The common prefix of two lists.

list1

Function argument

list2

Function argument

Example 156. lib.lists.commonPrefix usage example

commonPrefix [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 ] [ 1 2 4 8 ]
=> [ 1 2 ]
commonPrefix [ 1 2 3 ] [ 1 2 3 4 5 ]
=> [ 1 2 3 ]
commonPrefix [ 1 2 3 ] [ 4 5 6 ]
=> [ ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:712 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.last

Type: last :: [a] -> a

Return the last element of a list.

This function throws an error if the list is empty.

list

Function argument

Example 157. lib.lists.last usage example

last [ 1 2 3 ]
=> 3


Located at lib/lists.nix:736 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.init

Type: init :: [a] -> [a]

Return all elements but the last.

This function throws an error if the list is empty.

list

Function argument

Example 158. lib.lists.init usage example

init [ 1 2 3 ]
=> [ 1 2 ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:750 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.crossLists

Return the image of the cross product of some lists by a function.

Example 159. lib.lists.crossLists usage example

crossLists (x:y: "${toString x}${toString y}") [[1 2] [3 4]]
=> [ "13" "14" "23" "24" ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:761 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.unique

Type: unique :: [a] -> [a]

Remove duplicate elements from the list. O(n^2) complexity.

Example 160. lib.lists.unique usage example

unique [ 3 2 3 4 ]
=> [ 3 2 4 ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:774 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.intersectLists

Intersects list ‘e’ and another list. O(nm) complexity.

e

Function argument

Example 161. lib.lists.intersectLists usage example

intersectLists [ 1 2 3 ] [ 6 3 2 ]
=> [ 3 2 ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:782 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.subtractLists

Subtracts list ‘e’ from another list. O(nm) complexity.

e

Function argument

Example 162. lib.lists.subtractLists usage example

subtractLists [ 3 2 ] [ 1 2 3 4 5 3 ]
=> [ 1 4 5 ]


Located at lib/lists.nix:790 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.lists.mutuallyExclusive

Test if two lists have no common element. It should be slightly more efficient than (intersectLists a b == [])

a

Function argument

b

Function argument

Located at lib/lists.nix:795 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.debug: debugging functions

lib.debug.traceIf

Type: traceIf :: bool -> string -> a -> a

Conditionally trace the supplied message, based on a predicate.

pred

Predicate to check

msg

Message that should be traced

x

Value to return

Example 163. lib.debug.traceIf usage example

traceIf true "hello" 3
trace: hello
=> 3


Located at lib/debug.nix:44 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.debug.traceValFn

Type: traceValFn :: (a -> b) -> a -> a

Trace the supplied value after applying a function to it, and return the original value.

f

Function to apply

x

Value to trace and return

Example 164. lib.debug.traceValFn usage example

traceValFn (v: "mystring ${v}") "foo"
trace: mystring foo
=> "foo"


Located at lib/debug.nix:62 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.debug.traceVal

Type: traceVal :: a -> a

Trace the supplied value and return it.

Example 165. lib.debug.traceVal usage example

traceVal 42
# trace: 42
=> 42


Located at lib/debug.nix:77 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.debug.traceSeq

Type: traceSeq :: a -> b -> b

builtins.trace, but the value is builtins.deepSeqed first.

x

The value to trace

y

The value to return

Example 166. lib.debug.traceSeq usage example

trace { a.b.c = 3; } null
trace: { a = <CODE>; }
=> null
traceSeq { a.b.c = 3; } null
trace: { a = { b = { c = 3; }; }; }
=> null


Located at lib/debug.nix:91 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.debug.traceSeqN

Type: traceSeqN :: Int -> a -> b -> b

Like traceSeq, but only evaluate down to depth n. This is very useful because lots of traceSeq usages lead to an infinite recursion.

depth

Function argument

x

Function argument

y

Function argument

Example 167. lib.debug.traceSeqN usage example

traceSeqN 2 { a.b.c = 3; } null
trace: { a = { b = {…}; }; }
=> null


Located at lib/debug.nix:108 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.debug.traceValSeqFn

A combination of traceVal and traceSeq that applies a provided function to the value to be traced after deepSeqing it.

f

Function to apply

v

Value to trace

Located at lib/debug.nix:125 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.debug.traceValSeq

A combination of traceVal and traceSeq.

Located at lib/debug.nix:132 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.debug.traceValSeqNFn

A combination of traceVal and traceSeqN that applies a provided function to the value to be traced.

f

Function to apply

depth

Function argument

v

Value to trace

Located at lib/debug.nix:136 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.debug.traceValSeqN

A combination of traceVal and traceSeqN.

Located at lib/debug.nix:144 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.debug.traceFnSeqN

Trace the input and output of a function f named name, both down to depth.

This is useful for adding around a function call, to see the before/after of values as they are transformed.

depth

Function argument

name

Function argument

f

Function argument

v

Function argument

Example 168. lib.debug.traceFnSeqN usage example

traceFnSeqN 2 "id" (x: x) { a.b.c = 3; }
trace: { fn = "id"; from = { a.b = {…}; }; to = { a.b = {…}; }; }
=> { a.b.c = 3; }


Located at lib/debug.nix:157 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.debug.runTests

Type:

runTests :: {
  tests = [ String ];
  ${testName} :: {
    expr :: a;
    expected :: a;
  };
}
->
[
  {
    name :: String;
    expected :: a;
    result :: a;
  }
]

Evaluates a set of tests.

A test is an attribute set {expr, expected}, denoting an expression and its expected result.

The result is a list of failed tests, each represented as {name, expected, result},

  • expected

    • What was passed as expected

  • result

    • The actual result of the test

Used for regression testing of the functions in lib; see tests.nix for more examples.

Important: Only attributes that start with test are executed.

  • If you want to run only a subset of the tests add the attribute tests = ["testName"];

tests

Tests to run

Example 169. lib.debug.runTests usage example

runTests {
  testAndOk = {
    expr = lib.and true false;
    expected = false;
  };
  testAndFail = {
    expr = lib.and true false;
    expected = true;
  };
}
->
[
  {
    name = "testAndFail";
    expected = true;
    result = false;
  }
]


Located at lib/debug.nix:229 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.debug.testAllTrue

Create a test assuming that list elements are true.

expr

Function argument

Example 170. lib.debug.testAllTrue usage example

{ testX = allTrue [ true ]; }


Located at lib/debug.nix:245 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.options: NixOS / nixpkgs option handling

lib.options.isOption

Type: isOption :: a -> bool

Returns true when the given argument is an option

Example 171. lib.options.isOption usage example

isOption 1             // => false
isOption (mkOption {}) // => true


Located at lib/options.nix:56 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.options.mkOption

Creates an Option attribute set. mkOption accepts an attribute set with the following keys:

All keys default to null when not given.

structured function argument
default

Default value used when no definition is given in the configuration.

defaultText

Textual representation of the default, for the manual.

example

Example value used in the manual.

description

String describing the option.

relatedPackages

Related packages used in the manual (see genRelatedPackages in …/nixos/lib/make-options-doc/default.nix).

type

Option type, providing type-checking and value merging.

apply

Function that converts the option value to something else.

internal

Whether the option is for NixOS developers only.

visible

Whether the option shows up in the manual. Default: true. Use false to hide the option and any sub-options from submodules. Use “shallow” to hide only sub-options.

readOnly

Whether the option can be set only once

Example 172. lib.options.mkOption usage example

mkOption { }  // => { _type = "option"; }
mkOption { default = "foo"; } // => { _type = "option"; default = "foo"; }


Located at lib/options.nix:66 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.options.mkEnableOption

Creates an Option attribute set for a boolean value option i.e an option to be toggled on or off:

name

Name for the created option

Example 173. lib.options.mkEnableOption usage example

mkEnableOption "foo"
=> { _type = "option"; default = false; description = "Whether to enable foo."; example = true; type = { ... }; }


Located at lib/options.nix:98 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.options.mkPackageOption

Type: mkPackageOption :: pkgs -> (string|[string]) -> { default? :: [string], example? :: null|string|[string], extraDescription? :: string } -> option

Creates an Option attribute set for an option that specifies the package a module should use for some purpose.

The package is specified in the third argument under default as a list of strings representing its attribute path in nixpkgs (or another package set). Because of this, you need to pass nixpkgs itself (or a subset) as the first argument.

The second argument may be either a string or a list of strings. It provides the display name of the package in the description of the generated option (using only the last element if the passed value is a list) and serves as the fallback value for the default argument.

To include extra information in the description, pass extraDescription to append arbitrary text to the generated description. You can also pass an example value, either a literal string or an attribute path.

The default argument can be omitted if the provided name is an attribute of pkgs (if name is a string) or a valid attribute path in pkgs (if name is a list).

If you wish to explicitly provide no default, pass null as default.

pkgs

Package set (a specific version of nixpkgs or a subset)

name

Name for the package, shown in option description

structured function argument
nullable

Whether the package can be null, for example to disable installing a package altogether.

default

The attribute path where the default package is located (may be omitted)

example

A string or an attribute path to use as an example (may be omitted)

extraDescription

Additional text to include in the option description (may be omitted)

Example 174. lib.options.mkPackageOption usage example

mkPackageOption pkgs "hello" { }
=> { _type = "option"; default = «derivation /nix/store/3r2vg51hlxj3cx5vscp0vkv60bqxkaq0-hello-2.10.drv»; defaultText = { ... }; description = "The hello package to use."; type = { ... }; }


mkPackageOption pkgs "GHC" {
  default = [ "ghc" ];
  example = "pkgs.haskell.packages.ghc92.ghc.withPackages (hkgs: [ hkgs.primes ])";
}
=> { _type = "option"; default = «derivation /nix/store/jxx55cxsjrf8kyh3fp2ya17q99w7541r-ghc-8.10.7.drv»; defaultText = { ... }; description = "The GHC package to use."; example = { ... }; type = { ... }; }


mkPackageOption pkgs [ "python39Packages" "pytorch" ] {
  extraDescription = "This is an example and doesn't actually do anything.";
}
=> { _type = "option"; default = «derivation /nix/store/gvqgsnc4fif9whvwd9ppa568yxbkmvk8-python3.9-pytorch-1.10.2.drv»; defaultText = { ... }; description = "The pytorch package to use. This is an example and doesn't actually do anything."; type = { ... }; }


Located at lib/options.nix:149 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.options.mkPackageOptionMD

Alias of mkPackageOption. Previously used to create options with markdown documentation, which is no longer required.

Located at lib/options.nix:188 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.options.mkSinkUndeclaredOptions

This option accepts anything, but it does not produce any result.

This is useful for sharing a module across different module sets without having to implement similar features as long as the values of the options are not accessed.

attrs

Function argument

Located at lib/options.nix:195 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.options.mergeEqualOption

“Merge” option definitions by checking that they all have the same value.

loc

Function argument

defs

Function argument

Located at lib/options.nix:228 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.options.getValues

Type: getValues :: [ { value :: a; } ] -> [a]

Extracts values of all “value” keys of the given list.

Example 175. lib.options.getValues usage example

getValues [ { value = 1; } { value = 2; } ] // => [ 1 2 ]
getValues [ ]                               // => [ ]


Located at lib/options.nix:248 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.options.getFiles

Type: getFiles :: [ { file :: a; } ] -> [a]

Extracts values of all “file” keys of the given list

Example 176. lib.options.getFiles usage example

getFiles [ { file = "file1"; } { file = "file2"; } ] // => [ "file1" "file2" ]
getFiles [ ]                                         // => [ ]


Located at lib/options.nix:258 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.options.scrubOptionValue

This function recursively removes all derivation attributes from x except for the name attribute.

This is to make the generation of options.xml much more efficient: the XML representation of derivations is very large (on the order of megabytes) and is not actually used by the manual generator.

This function was made obsolete by renderOptionValue and is kept for compatibility with out-of-tree code.

x

Function argument

Located at lib/options.nix:316 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.options.renderOptionValue

Ensures that the given option value (default or example) is a _typed string by rendering Nix values to literalExpressions.

v

Function argument

Located at lib/options.nix:327 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.options.literalExpression

For use in the defaultText and example option attributes. Causes the given string to be rendered verbatim in the documentation as Nix code. This is necessary for complex values, e.g. functions, or values that depend on other values or packages.

text

Function argument

Located at lib/options.nix:340 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.options.mdDoc

Transition marker for documentation that’s already migrated to markdown syntax. This is a no-op and no longer needed.

Located at lib/options.nix:349 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.options.literalMD

For use in the defaultText and example option attributes. Causes the given MD text to be inserted verbatim in the documentation, for when a literalExpression would be too hard to read.

text

Function argument

Located at lib/options.nix:355 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.options.showOption

Convert an option, described as a list of the option parts to a human-readable version.

parts

Function argument

Example 177. lib.options.showOption usage example

(showOption ["foo" "bar" "baz"]) == "foo.bar.baz"
  (showOption ["foo" "bar.baz" "tux"]) == "foo.\"bar.baz\".tux"
  (showOption ["windowManager" "2bwm" "enable"]) == "windowManager.\"2bwm\".enable"

Placeholders will not be quoted as they are not actual values:
  (showOption ["foo" "*" "bar"]) == "foo.*.bar"
  (showOption ["foo" "<name>" "bar"]) == "foo.<name>.bar"


Located at lib/options.nix:373 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.path: path functions

lib.path.append

Type: append :: Path -> String -> Path

Append a subpath string to a path.

Like path + ("/" + string) but safer, because it errors instead of returning potentially surprising results. More specifically, it checks that the first argument is a path value type, and that the second argument is a valid subpath string.

Laws:

  • Not influenced by subpath normalisation:

    append p s == append p (subpath.normalise s)
    
path

The absolute path to append to

subpath

The subpath string to append

Example 178. lib.path.append usage example

append /foo "bar/baz"
=> /foo/bar/baz

# subpaths don't need to be normalised
append /foo "./bar//baz/./"
=> /foo/bar/baz

# can append to root directory
append /. "foo/bar"
=> /foo/bar

# first argument needs to be a path value type
append "/foo" "bar"
=> <error>

# second argument needs to be a valid subpath string
append /foo /bar
=> <error>
append /foo ""
=> <error>
append /foo "/bar"
=> <error>
append /foo "../bar"
=> <error>


Located at lib/path/default.nix:166 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.path.hasPrefix

Type: hasPrefix :: Path -> Path -> Bool

Whether the first path is a component-wise prefix of the second path.

Laws:

path1

Function argument

Example 179. lib.path.hasPrefix usage example

hasPrefix /foo /foo/bar
=> true
hasPrefix /foo /foo
=> true
hasPrefix /foo/bar /foo
=> false
hasPrefix /. /foo
=> true


Located at lib/path/default.nix:200 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.path.removePrefix

Type: removePrefix :: Path -> Path -> String

Remove the first path as a component-wise prefix from the second path. The result is a normalised subpath string.

Laws:

path1

Function argument

Example 180. lib.path.removePrefix usage example

removePrefix /foo /foo/bar/baz
=> "./bar/baz"
removePrefix /foo /foo
=> "./."
removePrefix /foo/bar /foo
=> <error>
removePrefix /. /foo
=> "./foo"


Located at lib/path/default.nix:245 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.path.splitRoot

Type: splitRoot :: Path -> { root :: Path, subpath :: String }

Split the filesystem root from a path. The result is an attribute set with these attributes:

  • root: The filesystem root of the path, meaning that this directory has no parent directory.

  • subpath: The normalised subpath string that when appended to root returns the original path.

Laws:

  • Appending the root and subpath gives the original path:

    p ==
      append
        (splitRoot p).root
        (splitRoot p).subpath
    
  • Trying to get the parent directory of root using readDir returns root itself:

    dirOf (splitRoot p).root == (splitRoot p).root
    
path

The path to split the root off of

Example 181. lib.path.splitRoot usage example

splitRoot /foo/bar
=> { root = /.; subpath = "./foo/bar"; }

splitRoot /.
=> { root = /.; subpath = "./."; }

# Nix neutralises `..` path components for all path values automatically
splitRoot /foo/../bar
=> { root = /.; subpath = "./bar"; }

splitRoot "/foo/bar"
=> <error>


Located at lib/path/default.nix:310 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.path.subpath.isValid

Type: subpath.isValid :: String -> Bool

Whether a value is a valid subpath string.

A subpath string points to a specific file or directory within an absolute base directory. It is a stricter form of a relative path that excludes .. components, since those could escape the base directory.

  • The value is a string.

  • The string is not empty.

  • The string doesn’t start with a /.

  • The string doesn’t contain any .. path components.

value

The value to check

Example 182. lib.path.subpath.isValid usage example

# Not a string
subpath.isValid null
=> false

# Empty string
subpath.isValid ""
=> false

# Absolute path
subpath.isValid "/foo"
=> false

# Contains a `..` path component
subpath.isValid "../foo"
=> false

# Valid subpath
subpath.isValid "foo/bar"
=> true

# Doesn't need to be normalised
subpath.isValid "./foo//bar/"
=> true


Located at lib/path/default.nix:365 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.path.subpath.join

Type: subpath.join :: [ String ] -> String

Join subpath strings together using /, returning a normalised subpath string.

Like concatStringsSep "/" but safer, specifically:

  • All elements must be valid subpath strings.

  • The result gets normalised.

  • The edge case of an empty list gets properly handled by returning the neutral subpath "./.".

Laws:

  • Associativity:

    subpath.join [ x (subpath.join [ y z ]) ] == subpath.join [ (subpath.join [ x y ]) z ]
    
  • Identity - "./." is the neutral element for normalised paths:

    subpath.join [ ] == "./."
    subpath.join [ (subpath.normalise p) "./." ] == subpath.normalise p
    subpath.join [ "./." (subpath.normalise p) ] == subpath.normalise p
    
  • Normalisation - the result is normalised:

    subpath.join ps == subpath.normalise (subpath.join ps)
    
  • For non-empty lists, the implementation is equivalent to normalising the result of concatStringsSep "/". Note that the above laws can be derived from this one:

    ps != [] -> subpath.join ps == subpath.normalise (concatStringsSep "/" ps)
    
subpaths

The list of subpaths to join together

Example 183. lib.path.subpath.join usage example

subpath.join [ "foo" "bar/baz" ]
=> "./foo/bar/baz"

# normalise the result
subpath.join [ "./foo" "." "bar//./baz/" ]
=> "./foo/bar/baz"

# passing an empty list results in the current directory
subpath.join [ ]
=> "./."

# elements must be valid subpath strings
subpath.join [ /foo ]
=> <error>
subpath.join [ "" ]
=> <error>
subpath.join [ "/foo" ]
=> <error>
subpath.join [ "../foo" ]
=> <error>


Located at lib/path/default.nix:428 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.path.subpath.components

Type: subpath.components :: String -> [ String ]

Split a subpath into its path component strings. Throw an error if the subpath isn’t valid. Note that the returned path components are also valid subpath strings, though they are intentionally not normalised.

Laws:

  • Splitting a subpath into components and joining the components gives the same subpath but normalised:

    subpath.join (subpath.components s) == subpath.normalise s
    
subpath

The subpath string to split into components

Example 184. lib.path.subpath.components usage example

subpath.components "."
=> [ ]

subpath.components "./foo//bar/./baz/"
=> [ "foo" "bar" "baz" ]

subpath.components "/foo"
=> <error>


Located at lib/path/default.nix:470 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.path.subpath.normalise

Type: subpath.normalise :: String -> String

Normalise a subpath. Throw an error if the subpath isn’t valid.

  • Limit repeating / to a single one.

  • Remove redundant . components.

  • Remove trailing / and /..

  • Add leading ./.

Laws:

  • Idempotency - normalising multiple times gives the same result:

    subpath.normalise (subpath.normalise p) == subpath.normalise p
    
  • Uniqueness - there’s only a single normalisation for the paths that lead to the same file system node:

    subpath.normalise p != subpath.normalise q -> $(realpath ${p}) != $(realpath ${q})
    
  • Don’t change the result when appended to a Nix path value:

    append base p == append base (subpath.normalise p)
    
  • Don’t change the path according to realpath:

    $(realpath ${p}) == $(realpath ${subpath.normalise p})
    
  • Only error on invalid subpaths:

    builtins.tryEval (subpath.normalise p)).success == subpath.isValid p
    
subpath

The subpath string to normalise

Example 185. lib.path.subpath.normalise usage example

# limit repeating `/` to a single one
subpath.normalise "foo//bar"
=> "./foo/bar"

# remove redundant `.` components
subpath.normalise "foo/./bar"
=> "./foo/bar"

# add leading `./`
subpath.normalise "foo/bar"
=> "./foo/bar"

# remove trailing `/`
subpath.normalise "foo/bar/"
=> "./foo/bar"

# remove trailing `/.`
subpath.normalise "foo/bar/."
=> "./foo/bar"

# Return the current directory as `./.`
subpath.normalise "."
=> "./."

# error on `..` path components
subpath.normalise "foo/../bar"
=> <error>

# error on empty string
subpath.normalise ""
=> <error>

# error on absolute path
subpath.normalise "/foo"
=> <error>


Located at lib/path/default.nix:551 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.filesystem: filesystem functions

lib.filesystem.pathType

Type: pathType :: Path -> String

The type of a path. The path needs to exist and be accessible. The result is either “directory” for a directory, “regular” for a regular file, “symlink” for a symlink, or “unknown” for anything else.

Example 186. lib.filesystem.pathType usage example

pathType /.
=> "directory"

pathType /some/file.nix
=> "regular"


Located at lib/filesystem.nix:33 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.filesystem.pathIsDirectory

Type: pathIsDirectory :: Path -> Bool

Whether a path exists and is a directory.

path

Function argument

Example 187. lib.filesystem.pathIsDirectory usage example

pathIsDirectory /.
=> true

pathIsDirectory /this/does/not/exist
=> false

pathIsDirectory /some/file.nix
=> false


Located at lib/filesystem.nix:65 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.filesystem.pathIsRegularFile

Type: pathIsRegularFile :: Path -> Bool

Whether a path exists and is a regular file, meaning not a symlink or any other special file type.

path

Function argument

Example 188. lib.filesystem.pathIsRegularFile usage example

pathIsRegularFile /.
=> false

pathIsRegularFile /this/does/not/exist
=> false

pathIsRegularFile /some/file.nix
=> true


Located at lib/filesystem.nix:84 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.filesystem.haskellPathsInDir

Type: Path -> Map String Path

A map of all haskell packages defined in the given path, identified by having a cabal file with the same name as the directory itself.

root

The directory within to search

Located at lib/filesystem.nix:94 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.filesystem.locateDominatingFile

Type: RegExp -> Path -> Nullable { path : Path; matches : [ MatchResults ]; }

Find the first directory containing a file matching ‘pattern’ upward from a given ‘file’. Returns ‘null’ if no directories contain a file matching ‘pattern’.

pattern

The pattern to search for

file

The file to start searching upward from

Located at lib/filesystem.nix:117 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.filesystem.listFilesRecursive

Type: Path -> [ Path ]

Given a directory, return a flattened list of all files within it recursively.

dir

The path to recursively list

Located at lib/filesystem.nix:145 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.fileset: file set functions

lib.fileset.toSource

Type:

toSource :: {
  root :: Path,
  fileset :: FileSet,
} -> SourceLike

Add the local files contained in fileset to the store as a single store path rooted at root.

The result is the store path as a string-like value, making it usable e.g. as the src of a derivation, or in string interpolation:

stdenv.mkDerivation {
  src = lib.fileset.toSource { ... };
  # ...
}

The name of the store path is always source.

structured function argument
root

(required) The local directory path that will correspond to the root of the resulting store path. Paths in strings, including Nix store paths, cannot be passed as root. root has to be a directory.

fileset

(required) The file set whose files to import into the store. File sets can be created using other functions in this library. This argument can also be a path, which gets implicitly coerced to a file set.

Example 189. lib.fileset.toSource usage example

# Import the current directory into the store
# but only include files under ./src
toSource {
  root = ./.;
  fileset = ./src;
}
=> "/nix/store/...-source"

# Import the current directory into the store
# but only include ./Makefile and all files under ./src
toSource {
  root = ./.;
  fileset = union
    ./Makefile
    ./src;
}
=> "/nix/store/...-source"

# Trying to include a file outside the root will fail
toSource {
  root = ./.;
  fileset = unions [
    ./Makefile
    ./src
    ../LICENSE
  ];
}
=> <error>

# The root needs to point to a directory that contains all the files
toSource {
  root = ../.;
  fileset = unions [
    ./Makefile
    ./src
    ../LICENSE
  ];
}
=> "/nix/store/...-source"

# The root has to be a local filesystem path
toSource {
  root = "/nix/store/...-source";
  fileset = ./.;
}
=> <error>


Located at lib/fileset/default.nix:112 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.fileset.union

Type: union :: FileSet -> FileSet -> FileSet

The file set containing all files that are in either of two given file sets. This is the same as unions, but takes just two file sets instead of a list. See also Union (set theory).

The given file sets are evaluated as lazily as possible, with the first argument being evaluated first if needed.

fileset1

The first file set. This argument can also be a path, which gets implicitly coerced to a file set.

fileset2

The second file set. This argument can also be a path, which gets implicitly coerced to a file set.

Example 190. lib.fileset.union usage example

# Create a file set containing the file `Makefile`
# and all files recursively in the `src` directory
union ./Makefile ./src

# Create a file set containing the file `Makefile`
# and the LICENSE file from the parent directory
union ./Makefile ../LICENSE


Located at lib/fileset/default.nix:207 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.fileset.unions

Type: unions :: [ FileSet ] -> FileSet

The file set containing all files that are in any of the given file sets. This is the same as union, but takes a list of file sets instead of just two. See also Union (set theory).

The given file sets are evaluated as lazily as possible, with earlier elements being evaluated first if needed.

filesets

A list of file sets. Must contain at least 1 element. The elements can also be paths, which get implicitly coerced to file sets.

Example 191. lib.fileset.unions usage example

# Create a file set containing selected files
unions [
  # Include the single file `Makefile` in the current directory
  # This errors if the file doesn't exist
  ./Makefile

  # Recursively include all files in the `src/code` directory
  # If this directory is empty this has no effect
  ./src/code

  # Include the files `run.sh` and `unit.c` from the `tests` directory
  ./tests/run.sh
  ./tests/unit.c

  # Include the `LICENSE` file from the parent directory
  ../LICENSE
]


Located at lib/fileset/default.nix:259 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.sources: source filtering functions

lib.sources.commitIdFromGitRepo

Get the commit id of a git repo.

path

Function argument

Example 192. lib.sources.commitIdFromGitRepo usage example

commitIdFromGitRepo <nixpkgs/.git>


Located at lib/sources.nix:271 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.sources.cleanSource

Filters a source tree removing version control files and directories using cleanSourceFilter.

src

Function argument

Example 193. lib.sources.cleanSource usage example

cleanSource ./.


Located at lib/sources.nix:271 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.sources.cleanSourceWith

Like builtins.filterSource, except it will compose with itself, allowing you to chain multiple calls together without any intermediate copies being put in the nix store.

structured function argument
src

A path or cleanSourceWith result to filter and/or rename.

filter

Optional with default value: constant true (include everything) The function will be combined with the && operator such that src.filter is called lazily. For implementing a filter, see https://nixos.org/nix/manual/#builtin-filterSource Type: A function (path -> type -> bool)

name

Optional name to use as part of the store path. This defaults to src.name or otherwise "source".

Example 194. lib.sources.cleanSourceWith usage example

lib.cleanSourceWith {
  filter = f;
  src = lib.cleanSourceWith {
    filter = g;
    src = ./.;
  };
}
# Succeeds!

builtins.filterSource f (builtins.filterSource g ./.)
# Fails!


Located at lib/sources.nix:271 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.sources.cleanSourceFilter

A basic filter for cleanSourceWith that removes directories of version control system, backup files (*~) and some generated files.

name

Function argument

type

Function argument

Located at lib/sources.nix:271 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.sources.sourceByRegex

Filter sources by a list of regular expressions.

src

Function argument

regexes

Function argument

Example 195. lib.sources.sourceByRegex usage example

src = sourceByRegex ./my-subproject [".*\.py$" "^database.sql$"]


Located at lib/sources.nix:271 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.sources.sourceFilesBySuffices

Type: sourceLike -> [String] -> Source

Get all files ending with the specified suffices from the given source directory or its descendants, omitting files that do not match any suffix. The result of the example below will include files like ./dir/module.c and ./dir/subdir/doc.xml if present.

src

Path or source containing the files to be returned

exts

A list of file suffix strings

Example 196. lib.sources.sourceFilesBySuffices usage example

sourceFilesBySuffices ./. [ ".xml" ".c" ]


Located at lib/sources.nix:271 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.sources.trace

Type: sources.trace :: sourceLike -> Source

Add logging to a source, for troubleshooting the filtering behavior.

src

Source to debug. The returned source will behave like this source, but also log its filter invocations.

Located at lib/sources.nix:271 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.cli: command-line serialization functions

lib.cli.toGNUCommandLineShell

Automatically convert an attribute set to command-line options.

This helps protect against malformed command lines and also to reduce boilerplate related to command-line construction for simple use cases.

toGNUCommandLine returns a list of nix strings. toGNUCommandLineShell returns an escaped shell string.

options

Function argument

attrs

Function argument

Example 197. lib.cli.toGNUCommandLineShell usage example

cli.toGNUCommandLine {} {
  data = builtins.toJSON { id = 0; };
  X = "PUT";
  retry = 3;
  retry-delay = null;
  url = [ "https://example.com/foo" "https://example.com/bar" ];
  silent = false;
  verbose = true;
}
=> [
  "-X" "PUT"
  "--data" "{\"id\":0}"
  "--retry" "3"
  "--url" "https://example.com/foo"
  "--url" "https://example.com/bar"
  "--verbose"
]

cli.toGNUCommandLineShell {} {
  data = builtins.toJSON { id = 0; };
  X = "PUT";
  retry = 3;
  retry-delay = null;
  url = [ "https://example.com/foo" "https://example.com/bar" ];
  silent = false;
  verbose = true;
}
=> "'-X' 'PUT' '--data' '{\"id\":0}' '--retry' '3' '--url' 'https://example.com/foo' '--url' 'https://example.com/bar' '--verbose'";


Located at lib/cli.nix:42 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant: GVariant formatted string serialization functions

lib.gvariant.isGVariant

Type: isGVariant :: Any -> Bool

Check if a value is a GVariant value

v

Function argument

Located at lib/gvariant.nix:53 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkValue

Type: mkValue :: Any -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant value that most closely matches the given Nix value. If no GVariant value can be found unambiguously then error is thrown.

v

Function argument

Located at lib/gvariant.nix:61 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkArray

Type: mkArray :: [Any] -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant array from the given type of the elements and a Nix list.

elems

Function argument

Example 198. lib.gvariant.mkArray usage example

# Creating a string array
lib.gvariant.mkArray [ "a" "b" "c" ]


Located at lib/gvariant.nix:84 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkEmptyArray

Type: mkEmptyArray :: gvariant.type -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant array from the given empty Nix list.

elemType

Function argument

Example 199. lib.gvariant.mkEmptyArray usage example

# Creating an empty string array
lib.gvariant.mkEmptyArray (lib.gvariant.type.string)


Located at lib/gvariant.nix:105 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkVariant

Type: mkVariant :: Any -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant variant from the given Nix value. Variants are containers of different GVariant type.

elem

Function argument

Example 200. lib.gvariant.mkVariant usage example

lib.gvariant.mkArray [
  (lib.gvariant.mkVariant "a string")
  (lib.gvariant.mkVariant (lib.gvariant.mkInt32 1))
]


Located at lib/gvariant.nix:122 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkDictionaryEntry

Type: mkDictionaryEntry :: String -> Any -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant dictionary entry from the given key and value.

name

The key of the entry

value

The value of the entry

Example 201. lib.gvariant.mkDictionaryEntry usage example

# A dictionary describing an Epiphany’s search provider
[
  (lib.gvariant.mkDictionaryEntry "url" (lib.gvariant.mkVariant "https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%s&t=epiphany"))
  (lib.gvariant.mkDictionaryEntry "bang" (lib.gvariant.mkVariant "!d"))
  (lib.gvariant.mkDictionaryEntry "name" (lib.gvariant.mkVariant "DuckDuckGo"))
]


Located at lib/gvariant.nix:141 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkMaybe

Type: mkMaybe :: gvariant.type -> Any -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant maybe from the given element type.

elemType

Function argument

elem

Function argument

Located at lib/gvariant.nix:160 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkNothing

Type: mkNothing :: gvariant.type -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant nothing from the given element type.

elemType

Function argument

Located at lib/gvariant.nix:174 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkJust

Type: mkJust :: Any -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant just from the given Nix value.

elem

Function argument

Located at lib/gvariant.nix:181 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkTuple

Type: mkTuple :: [Any] -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant tuple from the given Nix list.

elems

Function argument

Located at lib/gvariant.nix:188 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkBoolean

Type: mkBoolean :: Bool -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant boolean from the given Nix bool value.

v

Function argument

Located at lib/gvariant.nix:203 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkString

Type: mkString :: String -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant string from the given Nix string value.

v

Function argument

Located at lib/gvariant.nix:213 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkObjectpath

Type: mkObjectpath :: String -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant object path from the given Nix string value.

v

Function argument

Located at lib/gvariant.nix:224 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkUchar

Type: mkUchar :: Int -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant uchar from the given Nix int value.

Located at lib/gvariant.nix:234 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkInt16

Type: mkInt16 :: Int -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant int16 from the given Nix int value.

Located at lib/gvariant.nix:241 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkUint16

Type: mkUint16 :: Int -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant uint16 from the given Nix int value.

Located at lib/gvariant.nix:248 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkInt32

Type: mkInt32 :: Int -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant int32 from the given Nix int value.

v

Function argument

Located at lib/gvariant.nix:255 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkUint32

Type: mkUint32 :: Int -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant uint32 from the given Nix int value.

Located at lib/gvariant.nix:265 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkInt64

Type: mkInt64 :: Int -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant int64 from the given Nix int value.

Located at lib/gvariant.nix:272 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkUint64

Type: mkUint64 :: Int -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant uint64 from the given Nix int value.

Located at lib/gvariant.nix:279 in <nixpkgs>.

lib.gvariant.mkDouble

Type: mkDouble :: Float -> gvariant

Returns the GVariant double from the given Nix float value.

v

Function argument

Located at lib/gvariant.nix:286 in <nixpkgs>.

Generators

Generators are functions that create file formats from nix data structures, e. g. for configuration files. There are generators available for: INI, JSON and YAML

All generators follow a similar call interface: generatorName configFunctions data, where configFunctions is an attrset of user-defined functions that format nested parts of the content. They each have common defaults, so often they do not need to be set manually. An example is mkSectionName ? (name: libStr.escape [ "[" "]" ] name) from the INI generator. It receives the name of a section and sanitizes it. The default mkSectionName escapes [ and ] with a backslash.

Generators can be fine-tuned to produce exactly the file format required by your application/service. One example is an INI-file format which uses : as separator, the strings "yes"/"no" as boolean values and requires all string values to be quoted:

with lib;
let
  customToINI = generators.toINI {
    # specifies how to format a key/value pair
    mkKeyValue = generators.mkKeyValueDefault {
      # specifies the generated string for a subset of nix values
      mkValueString = v:
             if v == true then ''"yes"''
        else if v == false then ''"no"''
        else if isString v then ''"${v}"''
        # and delegates all other values to the default generator
        else generators.mkValueStringDefault {} v;
    } ":";
  };

# the INI file can now be given as plain old nix values
in customToINI {
  main = {
    pushinfo = true;
    autopush = false;
    host = "localhost";
    port = 42;
  };
  mergetool = {
    merge = "diff3";
  };
}

This will produce the following INI file as nix string:

[main]
autopush:"no"
host:"localhost"
port:42
pushinfo:"yes"
str\:ange:"very::strange"

[mergetool]
merge:"diff3"

Detailed documentation for each generator can be found in lib/generators.nix.

Debugging Nix Expressions

Nix is a unityped, dynamic language, this means every value can potentially appear anywhere. Since it is also non-strict, evaluation order and what ultimately is evaluated might surprise you. Therefore it is important to be able to debug nix expressions.

In the lib/debug.nix file you will find a number of functions that help (pretty-)printing values while evaluation is running. You can even specify how deep these values should be printed recursively, and transform them on the fly. Please consult the docstrings in lib/debug.nix for usage information.

prefer-remote-fetch overlay

prefer-remote-fetch is an overlay that download sources on remote builder. This is useful when the evaluating machine has a slow upload while the builder can fetch faster directly from the source. To use it, put the following snippet as a new overlay:

self: super:
  (super.prefer-remote-fetch self super)

A full configuration example for that sets the overlay up for your own account, could look like this

$ mkdir ~/.config/nixpkgs/overlays/
$ cat > ~/.config/nixpkgs/overlays/prefer-remote-fetch.nix <<EOF
  self: super: super.prefer-remote-fetch self super
EOF

pkgs.nix-gitignore

pkgs.nix-gitignore is a function that acts similarly to builtins.filterSource but also allows filtering with the help of the gitignore format.

Usage

pkgs.nix-gitignore exports a number of functions, but you’ll most likely need either gitignoreSource or gitignoreSourcePure. As their first argument, they both accept either 1. a file with gitignore lines or 2. a string with gitignore lines, or 3. a list of either of the two. They will be concatenated into a single big string.

{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:

 nix-gitignore.gitignoreSource [] ./source
     # Simplest version

 nix-gitignore.gitignoreSource "supplemental-ignores\n" ./source
     # This one reads the ./source/.gitignore and concats the auxiliary ignores

 nix-gitignore.gitignoreSourcePure "ignore-this\nignore-that\n" ./source
     # Use this string as gitignore, don't read ./source/.gitignore.

 nix-gitignore.gitignoreSourcePure ["ignore-this\nignore-that\n", ~/.gitignore] ./source
     # It also accepts a list (of strings and paths) that will be concatenated
     # once the paths are turned to strings via readFile.

These functions are derived from the Filter functions by setting the first filter argument to (_: _: true):

gitignoreSourcePure = gitignoreFilterSourcePure (_: _: true);
gitignoreSource = gitignoreFilterSource (_: _: true);

Those filter functions accept the same arguments the builtins.filterSource function would pass to its filters, thus fn: gitignoreFilterSourcePure fn "" should be extensionally equivalent to filterSource. The file is blacklisted if it’s blacklisted by either your filter or the gitignoreFilter.

If you want to make your own filter from scratch, you may use

gitignoreFilter = ign: root: filterPattern (gitignoreToPatterns ign) root;

gitignore files in subdirectories

If you wish to use a filter that would search for .gitignore files in subdirectories, just like git does by default, use this function:

gitignoreFilterRecursiveSource = filter: patterns: root:
# OR
gitignoreRecursiveSource = gitignoreFilterSourcePure (_: _: true);

File sets

The lib.fileset library allows you to work with file sets. A file set is a mathematical set of local files that can be added to the Nix store for use in Nix derivations. File sets are easy and safe to use, providing obvious and composable semantics with good error messages to prevent mistakes.

These sections apply to the entire library. See the function reference for function-specific documentation.

The file set library is currently somewhat limited but is being expanded to include more functions over time.

Implicit coercion from paths to file sets

All functions accepting file sets as arguments can also accept paths as arguments. Such path arguments are implicitly coerced to file sets containing all files under that path:

  • A path to a file turns into a file set containing that single file.

  • A path to a directory turns into a file set containing all files recursively in that directory.

If the path points to a non-existent location, an error is thrown.

Example

Assume we are in a local directory with a file hierarchy like this:

├─ a/
│  ├─ x (file)
│  └─ b/
│     └─ y (file)
└─ c/
   └─ d/

Here’s a listing of which files get included when different path expressions get coerced to file sets:

  • ./. as a file set contains both a/x and a/b/y (c/ does not contain any files and is therefore omitted).

  • ./a as a file set contains both a/x and a/b/y.

  • ./a/x as a file set contains only a/x.

  • ./a/b as a file set contains only a/b/y.

  • ./c as a file set is empty, since neither c nor c/d contain any files.

Module System

Table of Contents

Introduction
lib.evalModules

Introduction

The module system is a language for handling configuration, implemented as a Nix library.

Compared to plain Nix, it adds documentation, type checking and composition or extensibility.

lib.evalModules

Evaluate a set of modules. This function is typically only used once per application (e.g. once in NixOS, once in Home Manager, …).

Parameters

modules

A list of modules. These are merged together to form the final configuration.

specialArgs

An attribute set of module arguments that can be used in imports.

This is in contrast to config._module.args, which is only available after all imports have been resolved.

class

If the class attribute is set and non-null, the module system will reject imports with a different _class declaration.

The class value should be a string in lower camel case.

If applicable, the class should match the “prefix” of the attributes used in (experimental) flakes. Some examples are:

  • nixos as in flake.nixosModules

  • nixosTest: modules that constitute a NixOS VM test

prefix

A list of strings representing the location at or below which all options are evaluated. This is used by types.submodule to improve error reporting and find the implicit name module argument.

Return value

The result is an attribute set with the following attributes:

options

The nested attribute set of all option declarations.

config

The nested attribute set of all option values.

type

A module system type. This type is an instance of types.submoduleWith containing the current modules.

The option definitions that are typed with this type will extend the current set of modules, like extendModules.

However, the value returned from the type is just the config, like any submodule.

If you’re familiar with prototype inheritance, you can think of this evalModules invocation as the prototype, and usages of this type as the instances.

This type is also available to the modules as the module argument moduleType.

extendModules

A function similar to evalModules but building on top of the already passed modules. Its arguments, modules and specialArgs are added to the existing values.

If you’re familiar with prototype inheritance, you can think of the current, actual evalModules invocation as the prototype, and the return value of extendModules as the instance.

This functionality is also available to modules as the extendModules module argument.

_module

A portion of the configuration tree which is elided from config.

_type

A nominal type marker, always "configuration".

class

The class argument.

The Standard Environment

The standard build environment in the Nix Packages collection provides an environment for building Unix packages that does a lot of common build tasks automatically. In fact, for Unix packages that use the standard ./configure; make; make install build interface, you don’t need to write a build script at all; the standard environment does everything automatically. If stdenv doesn’t do what you need automatically, you can easily customise or override the various build phases.

Using stdenv

To build a package with the standard environment, you use the function stdenv.mkDerivation, instead of the primitive built-in function derivation, e.g.

stdenv.mkDerivation {
  name = "libfoo-1.2.3";
  src = fetchurl {
    url = "http://example.org/libfoo-1.2.3.tar.bz2";
    hash = "sha256-tWxU/LANbQE32my+9AXyt3nCT7NBVfJ45CX757EMT3Q=";
  };
}

(stdenv needs to be in scope, so if you write this in a separate Nix expression from pkgs/all-packages.nix, you need to pass it as a function argument.) Specifying a name and a src is the absolute minimum Nix requires. For convenience, you can also use pname and version attributes and mkDerivation will automatically set name to "${pname}-${version}" by default. Since RFC 0035, this is preferred for packages in Nixpkgs, as it allows us to reuse the version easily:

stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
  pname = "libfoo";
  version = "1.2.3";
  src = fetchurl {
    url = "http://example.org/libfoo-source-${version}.tar.bz2";
    hash = "sha256-tWxU/LANbQE32my+9AXyt3nCT7NBVfJ45CX757EMT3Q=";
  };
}

Many packages have dependencies that are not provided in the standard environment. It’s usually sufficient to specify those dependencies in the buildInputs attribute:

stdenv.mkDerivation {
  pname = "libfoo";
  version = "1.2.3";
  ...
  buildInputs = [libbar perl ncurses];
}

This attribute ensures that the bin subdirectories of these packages appear in the PATH environment variable during the build, that their include subdirectories are searched by the C compiler, and so on. (See the section called “Package setup hooks” for details.)

Often it is necessary to override or modify some aspect of the build. To make this easier, the standard environment breaks the package build into a number of phases, all of which can be overridden or modified individually: unpacking the sources, applying patches, configuring, building, and installing. (There are some others; see the section called “Phases”.) For instance, a package that doesn’t supply a makefile but instead has to be compiled “manually” could be handled like this:

stdenv.mkDerivation {
  pname = "fnord";
  version = "4.5";
  ...
  buildPhase = ''
    gcc foo.c -o foo
  '';
  installPhase = ''
    mkdir -p $out/bin
    cp foo $out/bin
  '';
}

(Note the use of ''-style string literals, which are very convenient for large multi-line script fragments because they don’t need escaping of " and \, and because indentation is intelligently removed.)

There are many other attributes to customise the build. These are listed in the section called “Attributes”.

While the standard environment provides a generic builder, you can still supply your own build script:

stdenv.mkDerivation {
  pname = "libfoo";
  version = "1.2.3";
  ...
  builder = ./builder.sh;
}

where the builder can do anything it wants, but typically starts with

source $stdenv/setup

to let stdenv set up the environment (e.g. by resetting PATH and populating it from build inputs). If you want, you can still use stdenv’s generic builder:

source $stdenv/setup

buildPhase() {
  echo "... this is my custom build phase ..."
  gcc foo.c -o foo
}

installPhase() {
  mkdir -p $out/bin
  cp foo $out/bin
}

genericBuild

Building a stdenv package in nix-shell

To build a stdenv package in a nix-shell, use

nix-shell '<nixpkgs>' -A some_package
eval "${unpackPhase:-unpackPhase}"
cd $sourceRoot
eval "${patchPhase:-patchPhase}"
eval "${configurePhase:-configurePhase}"
eval "${buildPhase:-buildPhase}"

To modify a phase, first print it with

type buildPhase

then change it in a text editor, and paste it back to the terminal.

Tools provided by stdenv

The standard environment provides the following packages:

  • The GNU C Compiler, configured with C and C++ support.

  • GNU coreutils (contains a few dozen standard Unix commands).

  • GNU findutils (contains find).

  • GNU diffutils (contains diff, cmp).

  • GNU sed.

  • GNU grep.

  • GNU awk.

  • GNU tar.

  • gzip, bzip2 and xz.

  • GNU Make.

  • Bash. This is the shell used for all builders in the Nix Packages collection. Not using /bin/sh removes a large source of portability problems.

  • The patch command.

On Linux, stdenv also includes the patchelf utility.

Specifying dependencies

Build systems often require more dependencies than just what stdenv provides. This section describes attributes accepted by stdenv.mkDerivation that can be used to make these dependencies available to the build system.

Overview

A full reference of the different kinds of dependencies is provided in the section called “Reference”, but here is an overview of the most common ones. It should cover most use cases.

Add dependencies to nativeBuildInputs if they are executed during the build:

  • those which are needed on $PATH during the build, for example cmake and pkg-config

  • setup hooks, for example makeWrapper

  • interpreters needed by patchShebangs for build scripts (with the --build flag), which can be the case for e.g. perl

Add dependencies to buildInputs if they will end up copied or linked into the final output or otherwise used at runtime:

  • libraries used by compilers, for example zlib,

  • interpreters needed by patchShebangs for scripts which are installed, which can be the case for e.g. perl

Dependencies needed only to run tests are similarly classified between native (executed during build) and non-native (executed at runtime):

  • nativeCheckInputs for test tools needed on $PATH (such as ctest) and setup hooks (for example pytestCheckHook)

  • checkInputs for libraries linked into test executables (for example the qcheck OCaml package)

These dependencies are only injected when doCheck is set to true.

Example

Consider for example this simplified derivation for solo5, a sandboxing tool:

stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
  pname = "solo5";
  version = "0.7.5";

  src = fetchurl {
    url = "https://github.com/Solo5/solo5/releases/download/v${version}/solo5-v${version}.tar.gz";
    hash = "sha256-viwrS9lnaU8sTGuzK/+L/PlMM/xRRtgVuK5pixVeDEw=";
  };

  nativeBuildInputs = [ makeWrapper pkg-config ];
  buildInputs = [ libseccomp ];

  postInstall = ''
    substituteInPlace $out/bin/solo5-virtio-mkimage \
      --replace "/usr/lib/syslinux" "${syslinux}/share/syslinux" \
      --replace "/usr/share/syslinux" "${syslinux}/share/syslinux" \
      --replace "cp " "cp --no-preserve=mode "

    wrapProgram $out/bin/solo5-virtio-mkimage \
      --prefix PATH : ${lib.makeBinPath [ dosfstools mtools parted syslinux ]}
  '';

  doCheck = true;
  nativeCheckInputs = [ util-linux qemu ];
  checkPhase = '' [elided] '';
}
  • makeWrapper is a setup hook, i.e., a shell script sourced by the generic builder of stdenv. It is thus executed during the build and must be added to nativeBuildInputs.

  • pkg-config is a build tool which the configure script of solo5 expects to be on $PATH during the build: therefore, it must be added to nativeBuildInputs.

  • libseccomp is a library linked into $out/bin/solo5-elftool. As it is used at runtime, it must be added to buildInputs.

  • Tests need qemu and getopt (from util-linux) on $PATH, these must be added to nativeCheckInputs.

  • Some dependencies are injected directly in the shell code of phases: syslinux, dosfstools, mtools, and parted. In this specific case, they will end up in the output of the derivation ($out here). As Nix marks dependencies whose absolute path is present in the output as runtime dependencies, adding them to buildInputs is not required.

For more complex cases, like libraries linked into an executable which is then executed as part of the build system, see the section called “Reference”.

Reference

As described in the Nix manual, almost any *.drv store path in a derivation’s attribute set will induce a dependency on that derivation. mkDerivation, however, takes a few attributes intended to include all the dependencies of a package. This is done both for structure and consistency, but also so that certain other setup can take place. For example, certain dependencies need their bin directories added to the PATH. That is built-in, but other setup is done via a pluggable mechanism that works in conjunction with these dependency attributes. See the section called “Package setup hooks” for details.

Dependencies can be broken down along three axes: their host and target platforms relative to the new derivation’s, and whether they are propagated. The platform distinctions are motivated by cross compilation; see Cross-compilation for exactly what each platform means. [1] But even if one is not cross compiling, the platforms imply whether or not the dependency is needed at run-time or build-time, a concept that makes perfect sense outside of cross compilation. By default, the run-time/build-time distinction is just a hint for mental clarity, but with strictDeps set it is mostly enforced even in the native case.

The extension of PATH with dependencies, alluded to above, proceeds according to the relative platforms alone. The process is carried out only for dependencies whose host platform matches the new derivation’s build platform i.e. dependencies which run on the platform where the new derivation will be built. [2] For each dependency <dep> of those dependencies, dep/bin, if present, is added to the PATH environment variable.

A dependency is said to be propagated when some of its other-transitive (non-immediate) downstream dependencies also need it as an immediate dependency. [3]

It is important to note that dependencies are not necessarily propagated as the same sort of dependency that they were before, but rather as the corresponding sort so that the platform rules still line up. To determine the exact rules for dependency propagation, we start by assigning to each dependency a couple of ternary numbers (-1 for build, 0 for host, and 1 for target) representing its dependency type, which captures how its host and target platforms are each “offset” from the depending derivation’s host and target platforms. The following table summarize the different combinations that can be obtained:

host → targetattribute nameoffset
build --> builddepsBuildBuild-1, -1
build --> hostnativeBuildInputs-1, 0
build --> targetdepsBuildTarget-1, 1
host --> hostdepsHostHost0, 0
host --> targetbuildInputs0, 1
target --> targetdepsTargetTarget1, 1

Algorithmically, we traverse propagated inputs, accumulating every propagated dependency’s propagated dependencies and adjusting them to account for the “shift in perspective” described by the current dependency’s platform offsets. This results is sort of a transitive closure of the dependency relation, with the offsets being approximately summed when two dependency links are combined. We also prune transitive dependencies whose combined offsets go out-of-bounds, which can be viewed as a filter over that transitive closure removing dependencies that are blatantly absurd.

We can define the process precisely with Natural Deduction using the inference rules. This probably seems a bit obtuse, but so is the bash code that actually implements it! [4] They’re confusing in very different ways so… hopefully if something doesn’t make sense in one presentation, it will in the other!

let mapOffset(h, t, i) = i + (if i <= 0 then h else t - 1)

propagated-dep(h0, t0, A, B)
propagated-dep(h1, t1, B, C)
h0 + h1 in {-1, 0, 1}
h0 + t1 in {-1, 0, 1}
-------------------------------------- Transitive property
propagated-dep(mapOffset(h0, t0, h1),
               mapOffset(h0, t0, t1),
               A, C)
let mapOffset(h, t, i) = i + (if i <= 0 then h else t - 1)

dep(h0, t0, A, B)
propagated-dep(h1, t1, B, C)
h0 + h1 in {-1, 0, 1}
h0 + t1 in {-1, 0, -1}
----------------------------- Take immediate dependencies' propagated dependencies
propagated-dep(mapOffset(h0, t0, h1),
               mapOffset(h0, t0, t1),
               A, C)
propagated-dep(h, t, A, B)
----------------------------- Propagated dependencies count as dependencies
dep(h, t, A, B)

Some explanation of this monstrosity is in order. In the common case, the target offset of a dependency is the successor to the target offset: t = h + 1. That means that:

let f(h, t, i) = i + (if i <= 0 then h else t - 1)
let f(h, h + 1, i) = i + (if i <= 0 then h else (h + 1) - 1)
let f(h, h + 1, i) = i + (if i <= 0 then h else h)
let f(h, h + 1, i) = i + h

This is where “sum-like” comes in from above: We can just sum all of the host offsets to get the host offset of the transitive dependency. The target offset is the transitive dependency is simply the host offset + 1, just as it was with the dependencies composed to make this transitive one; it can be ignored as it doesn’t add any new information.

Because of the bounds checks, the uncommon cases are h = t and h + 2 = t. In the former case, the motivation for mapOffset is that since its host and target platforms are the same, no transitive dependency of it should be able to “discover” an offset greater than its reduced target offsets. mapOffset effectively “squashes” all its transitive dependencies’ offsets so that none will ever be greater than the target offset of the original h = t package. In the other case, h + 1 is skipped over between the host and target offsets. Instead of squashing the offsets, we need to “rip” them apart so no transitive dependencies’ offset is that one.

Overall, the unifying theme here is that propagation shouldn’t be introducing transitive dependencies involving platforms the depending package is unaware of. [One can imagine the depending package asking for dependencies with the platforms it knows about; other platforms it doesn’t know how to ask for. The platform description in that scenario is a kind of unforgeable capability.] The offset bounds checking and definition of mapOffset together ensure that this is the case. Discovering a new offset is discovering a new platform, and since those platforms weren’t in the derivation “spec” of the needing package, they cannot be relevant. From a capability perspective, we can imagine that the host and target platforms of a package are the capabilities a package requires, and the depending package must provide the capability to the dependency.

Variables specifying dependencies

depsBuildBuild

A list of dependencies whose host and target platforms are the new derivation’s build platform. These are programs and libraries used at build time that produce programs and libraries also used at build time. If the dependency doesn’t care about the target platform (i.e. isn’t a compiler or similar tool), put it in nativeBuildInputs instead. The most common use of this buildPackages.stdenv.cc, the default C compiler for this role. That example crops up more than one might think in old commonly used C libraries.

Since these packages are able to be run at build-time, they are always added to the PATH, as described above. But since these packages are only guaranteed to be able to run then, they shouldn’t persist as run-time dependencies. This isn’t currently enforced, but could be in the future.

nativeBuildInputs

A list of dependencies whose host platform is the new derivation’s build platform, and target platform is the new derivation’s host platform. These are programs and libraries used at build-time that, if they are a compiler or similar tool, produce code to run at run-time—i.e. tools used to build the new derivation. If the dependency doesn’t care about the target platform (i.e. isn’t a compiler or similar tool), put it here, rather than in depsBuildBuild or depsBuildTarget. This could be called depsBuildHost but nativeBuildInputs is used for historical continuity.

Since these packages are able to be run at build-time, they are added to the PATH, as described above. But since these packages are only guaranteed to be able to run then, they shouldn’t persist as run-time dependencies. This isn’t currently enforced, but could be in the future.

depsBuildTarget

A list of dependencies whose host platform is the new derivation’s build platform, and target platform is the new derivation’s target platform. These are programs used at build time that produce code to run with code produced by the depending package. Most commonly, these are tools used to build the runtime or standard library that the currently-being-built compiler will inject into any code it compiles. In many cases, the currently-being-built-compiler is itself employed for that task, but when that compiler won’t run (i.e. its build and host platform differ) this is not possible. Other times, the compiler relies on some other tool, like binutils, that is always built separately so that the dependency is unconditional.

This is a somewhat confusing concept to wrap one’s head around, and for good reason. As the only dependency type where the platform offsets, -1 and 1, are not adjacent integers, it requires thinking of a bootstrapping stage two away from the current one. It and its use-case go hand in hand and are both considered poor form: try to not need this sort of dependency, and try to avoid building standard libraries and runtimes in the same derivation as the compiler produces code using them. Instead strive to build those like a normal library, using the newly-built compiler just as a normal library would. In short, do not use this attribute unless you are packaging a compiler and are sure it is needed.

Since these packages are able to run at build time, they are added to the PATH, as described above. But since these packages are only guaranteed to be able to run then, they shouldn’t persist as run-time dependencies. This isn’t currently enforced, but could be in the future.

depsHostHost

A list of dependencies whose host and target platforms match the new derivation’s host platform. In practice, this would usually be tools used by compilers for macros or a metaprogramming system, or libraries used by the macros or metaprogramming code itself. It’s always preferable to use a depsBuildBuild dependency in the derivation being built over a depsHostHost on the tool doing the building for this purpose.

buildInputs

A list of dependencies whose host platform and target platform match the new derivation’s. This would be called depsHostTarget but for historical continuity. If the dependency doesn’t care about the target platform (i.e. isn’t a compiler or similar tool), put it here, rather than in depsBuildBuild.

These are often programs and libraries used by the new derivation at run-time, but that isn’t always the case. For example, the machine code in a statically-linked library is only used at run-time, but the derivation containing the library is only needed at build-time. Even in the dynamic case, the library may also be needed at build-time to appease the linker.

depsTargetTarget

A list of dependencies whose host platform matches the new derivation’s target platform. These are packages that run on the target platform, e.g. the standard library or run-time deps of standard library that a compiler insists on knowing about. It’s poor form in almost all cases for a package to depend on another from a future stage [future stage corresponding to positive offset]. Do not use this attribute unless you are packaging a compiler and are sure it is needed.

depsBuildBuildPropagated

The propagated equivalent of depsBuildBuild. This perhaps never ought to be used, but it is included for consistency [see below for the others].

propagatedNativeBuildInputs

The propagated equivalent of nativeBuildInputs. This would be called depsBuildHostPropagated but for historical continuity. For example, if package Y has propagatedNativeBuildInputs = [X], and package Z has buildInputs = [Y], then package Z will be built as if it included package X in its nativeBuildInputs. If instead, package Z has nativeBuildInputs = [Y], then Z will be built as if it included X in the depsBuildBuild of package Z, because of the sum of the two -1 host offsets.

depsBuildTargetPropagated

The propagated equivalent of depsBuildTarget. This is prefixed for the same reason of alerting potential users.

depsHostHostPropagated

The propagated equivalent of depsHostHost.

propagatedBuildInputs

The propagated equivalent of buildInputs. This would be called depsHostTargetPropagated but for historical continuity.

depsTargetTargetPropagated

The propagated equivalent of depsTargetTarget. This is prefixed for the same reason of alerting potential users.

Attributes

Variables affecting stdenv initialisation

NIX_DEBUG

A number between 0 and 7 indicating how much information to log. If set to 1 or higher, stdenv will print moderate debugging information during the build. In particular, the gcc and ld wrapper scripts will print out the complete command line passed to the wrapped tools. If set to 6 or higher, the stdenv setup script will be run with set -x tracing. If set to 7 or higher, the gcc and ld wrapper scripts will also be run with set -x tracing.

Attributes affecting build properties

enableParallelBuilding

If set to true, stdenv will pass specific flags to make and other build tools to enable parallel building with up to build-cores workers.

Unless set to false, some build systems with good support for parallel building including cmake, meson, and qmake will set it to true.

Special variables

passthru

This is an attribute set which can be filled with arbitrary values. For example:

passthru = {
  foo = "bar";
  baz = {
    value1 = 4;
    value2 = 5;
  };
}

Values inside it are not passed to the builder, so you can change them without triggering a rebuild. However, they can be accessed outside of a derivation directly, as if they were set inside a derivation itself, e.g. hello.baz.value1. We don’t specify any usage or schema of passthru - it is meant for values that would be useful outside the derivation in other parts of a Nix expression (e.g. in other derivations). An example would be to convey some specific dependency of your derivation which contains a program with plugins support. Later, others who make derivations with plugins can use passed-through dependency to ensure that their plugin would be binary-compatible with built program.

passthru.updateScript

A script to be run by maintainers/scripts/update.nix when the package is matched. The attribute can contain one of the following:

  • an executable file, either on the file system:

    passthru.updateScript = ./update.sh;
    

    or inside the expression itself:

    passthru.updateScript = writeScript "update-zoom-us" ''
      #!/usr/bin/env nix-shell
      #!nix-shell -i bash -p curl pcre common-updater-scripts
    
      set -eu -o pipefail
    
      version="$(curl -sI https://zoom.us/client/latest/zoom_x86_64.tar.xz | grep -Fi 'Location:' | pcregrep -o1 '/(([0-9]\.?)+)/')"
      update-source-version zoom-us "$version"
    '';
    
  • a list, a script followed by arguments to be passed to it:

    passthru.updateScript = [ ../../update.sh pname "--requested-release=unstable" ];
    
  • an attribute set containing:

    • command – a string or list in the format expected by passthru.updateScript.

    • attrPath (optional) – a string containing the canonical attribute path for the package. If present, it will be passed to the update script instead of the attribute path on which the package was discovered during Nixpkgs traversal.

    • supportedFeatures (optional) – a list of the extra features the script supports.

    passthru.updateScript = {
      command = [ ../../update.sh pname ];
      attrPath = pname;
      supportedFeatures = [ … ];
    };
    
How update scripts are executed?

Update scripts are to be invoked by maintainers/scripts/update.nix script. You can run nix-shell maintainers/scripts/update.nix in the root of Nixpkgs repository for information on how to use it. update.nix offers several modes for selecting packages to update (e.g. select by attribute path, traverse Nixpkgs and filter by maintainer, etc.), and it will execute update scripts for all matched packages that have an updateScript attribute.

Each update script will be passed the following environment variables:

  • UPDATE_NIX_NAME – content of the name attribute of the updated package.

  • UPDATE_NIX_PNAME – content of the pname attribute of the updated package.

  • UPDATE_NIX_OLD_VERSION – content of the version attribute of the updated package.

  • UPDATE_NIX_ATTR_PATH – attribute path the update.nix discovered the package on (or the canonical attrPath when available). Example: pantheon.elementary-terminal

Supported features
commit

This feature allows update scripts to ask update.nix to create Git commits.

When support of this feature is declared, whenever the update script exits with 0 return status, it is expected to print a JSON list containing an object described below for each updated attribute to standard output.

When update.nix is run with --argstr commit true arguments, it will create a separate commit for each of the objects. An empty list can be returned when the script did not update any files, for example, when the package is already at the latest version.

The commit object contains the following values:

  • attrPath – a string containing attribute path.

  • oldVersion – a string containing old version.

  • newVersion – a string containing new version.

  • files – a non-empty list of file paths (as strings) to add to the commit.

  • commitBody (optional) – a string with extra content to be appended to the default commit message (useful for adding changelog links).

  • commitMessage (optional) – a string to use instead of the default commit message.

If the returned array contains exactly one object (e.g. [{}]), all values are optional and will be determined automatically.

Example 202. Standard output of an update script using commit feature

[
  {
    "attrPath": "volume_key",
    "oldVersion": "0.3.11",
    "newVersion": "0.3.12",
    "files": [
      "/path/to/nixpkgs/pkgs/development/libraries/volume-key/default.nix"
    ]
  }
]


Recursive attributes in mkDerivation

If you pass a function to mkDerivation, it will receive as its argument the final arguments, including the overrides when reinvoked via overrideAttrs. For example:

mkDerivation (finalAttrs: {
  pname = "hello";
  withFeature = true;
  configureFlags =
    lib.optionals finalAttrs.withFeature ["--with-feature"];
})

Note that this does not use the rec keyword to reuse withFeature in configureFlags. The rec keyword works at the syntax level and is unaware of overriding.

Instead, the definition references finalAttrs, allowing users to change withFeature consistently with overrideAttrs.

finalAttrs also contains the attribute finalPackage, which includes the output paths, etc.

Let’s look at a more elaborate example to understand the differences between various bindings:

# `pkg` is the _original_ definition (for illustration purposes)
let pkg =
  mkDerivation (finalAttrs: {
    # ...

    # An example attribute
    packages = [];

    # `passthru.tests` is a commonly defined attribute.
    passthru.tests.simple = f finalAttrs.finalPackage;

    # An example of an attribute containing a function
    passthru.appendPackages = packages':
      finalAttrs.finalPackage.overrideAttrs (newSelf: super: {
        packages = super.packages ++ packages';
      });

    # For illustration purposes; referenced as
    # `(pkg.overrideAttrs(x)).finalAttrs` etc in the text below.
    passthru.finalAttrs = finalAttrs;
    passthru.original = pkg;
  });
in pkg

Unlike the pkg binding in the above example, the finalAttrs parameter always references the final attributes. For instance (pkg.overrideAttrs(x)).finalAttrs.finalPackage is identical to pkg.overrideAttrs(x), whereas (pkg.overrideAttrs(x)).original is the same as the original pkg.

See also the section about passthru.tests.

Phases

stdenv.mkDerivation sets the Nix derivation’s builder to a script that loads the stdenv setup.sh bash library and calls genericBuild. Most packaging functions rely on this default builder.

This generic command invokes a number of phases. Package builds are split into phases to make it easier to override specific parts of the build (e.g., unpacking the sources or installing the binaries).

Each phase can be overridden in its entirety either by setting the environment variable namePhase to a string containing some shell commands to be executed, or by redefining the shell function namePhase. The former is convenient to override a phase from the derivation, while the latter is convenient from a build script. However, typically one only wants to add some commands to a phase, e.g. by defining postInstall or preFixup, as skipping some of the default actions may have unexpected consequences. The default script for each phase is defined in the file pkgs/stdenv/generic/setup.sh.

When overriding a phase, for example installPhase, it is important to start with runHook preInstall and end it with runHook postInstall, otherwise preInstall and postInstall will not be run. Even if you don’t use them directly, it is good practice to do so anyways for downstream users who would want to add a postInstall by overriding your derivation.

While inside an interactive nix-shell, if you wanted to run all phases in the order they would be run in an actual build, you can invoke genericBuild yourself.

Controlling phases

There are a number of variables that control what phases are executed and in what order:

Variables affecting phase control

phases

Specifies the phases. You can change the order in which phases are executed, or add new phases, by setting this variable. If it’s not set, the default value is used, which is $prePhases unpackPhase patchPhase $preConfigurePhases configurePhase $preBuildPhases buildPhase checkPhase $preInstallPhases installPhase fixupPhase installCheckPhase $preDistPhases distPhase $postPhases.

It is discouraged to set this variable, as it is easy to miss some important functionality hidden in some of the less obviously needed phases (like fixupPhase which patches the shebang of scripts). Usually, if you just want to add a few phases, it’s more convenient to set one of the variables below (such as preInstallPhases).

prePhases

Additional phases executed before any of the default phases.

preConfigurePhases

Additional phases executed just before the configure phase.

preBuildPhases

Additional phases executed just before the build phase.

preInstallPhases

Additional phases executed just before the install phase.

preFixupPhases

Additional phases executed just before the fixup phase.

preDistPhases

Additional phases executed just before the distribution phase.

postPhases

Additional phases executed after any of the default phases.

The unpack phase

The unpack phase is responsible for unpacking the source code of the package. The default implementation of unpackPhase unpacks the source files listed in the src environment variable to the current directory. It supports the following files by default:

Tar files

These can optionally be compressed using gzip (.tar.gz, .tgz or .tar.Z), bzip2 (.tar.bz2, .tbz2 or .tbz) or xz (.tar.xz, .tar.lzma or .txz).

Zip files

Zip files are unpacked using unzip. However, unzip is not in the standard environment, so you should add it to nativeBuildInputs yourself.

Directories in the Nix store

These are simply copied to the current directory. The hash part of the file name is stripped, e.g. /nix/store/1wydxgby13cz...-my-sources would be copied to my-sources.

Additional file types can be supported by setting the unpackCmd variable (see below).

Variables controlling the unpack phase

srcs / src

The list of source files or directories to be unpacked or copied. One of these must be set. Note that if you use srcs, you should also set sourceRoot or setSourceRoot.

sourceRoot

After unpacking all of src and srcs, if neither of sourceRoot and setSourceRoot are set, unpackPhase of the generic builder checks that the unpacking produced a single directory and moves the current working directory into it.

If unpackPhase produces multiple source directories, you should set sourceRoot to the name of the intended directory. You can also set sourceRoot = "."; if you want to control it yourself in a later phase.

For example, if your want your build to start in a sub-directory inside your sources, and you are using fetchzip-derived src (like fetchFromGitHub or similar), you need to set sourceRoot = "${src.name}/my-sub-directory".

setSourceRoot

Alternatively to setting sourceRoot, you can set setSourceRoot to a shell command to be evaluated by the unpack phase after the sources have been unpacked. This command must set sourceRoot.

For example, if you are using fetchurl on an archive file that gets unpacked into a single directory the name of which changes between package versions, and you want your build to start in its sub-directory, you need to set setSourceRoot = "sourceRoot=$(echo */my-sub-directory)";, or in the case of multiple sources, you could use something more specific, like setSourceRoot = "sourceRoot=$(echo ${pname}-*/my-sub-directory)";.

preUnpack

Hook executed at the start of the unpack phase.

postUnpack

Hook executed at the end of the unpack phase.

dontUnpack

Set to true to skip the unpack phase.

dontMakeSourcesWritable

If set to 1, the unpacked sources are not made writable. By default, they are made writable to prevent problems with read-only sources. For example, copied store directories would be read-only without this.

unpackCmd

The unpack phase evaluates the string $unpackCmd for any unrecognised file. The path to the current source file is contained in the curSrc variable.

The patch phase

The patch phase applies the list of patches defined in the patches variable.

Variables controlling the patch phase

dontPatch

Set to true to skip the patch phase.

patches

The list of patches. They must be in the format accepted by the patch command, and may optionally be compressed using gzip (.gz), bzip2 (.bz2) or xz (.xz).

patchFlags

Flags to be passed to patch. If not set, the argument -p1 is used, which causes the leading directory component to be stripped from the file names in each patch.

prePatch

Hook executed at the start of the patch phase.

postPatch

Hook executed at the end of the patch phase.

The configure phase

The configure phase prepares the source tree for building. The default configurePhase runs ./configure (typically an Autoconf-generated script) if it exists.

Variables controlling the configure phase

configureScript

The name of the configure script. It defaults to ./configure if it exists; otherwise, the configure phase is skipped. This can actually be a command (like perl ./Configure.pl).

configureFlags

A list of strings passed as additional arguments to the configure script.

dontConfigure

Set to true to skip the configure phase.

configureFlagsArray

A shell array containing additional arguments passed to the configure script. You must use this instead of configureFlags if the arguments contain spaces.

dontAddPrefix

By default, the flag --prefix=$prefix is added to the configure flags. If this is undesirable, set this variable to true.

prefix

The prefix under which the package must be installed, passed via the --prefix option to the configure script. It defaults to $out.

prefixKey

The key to use when specifying the prefix. By default, this is set to --prefix= as that is used by the majority of packages.

dontAddStaticConfigureFlags

By default, when building statically, stdenv will try to add build system appropriate configure flags to try to enable static builds.

If this is undesirable, set this variable to true.

dontAddDisableDepTrack

By default, the flag --disable-dependency-tracking is added to the configure flags to speed up Automake-based builds. If this is undesirable, set this variable to true.

dontFixLibtool

By default, the configure phase applies some special hackery to all files called ltmain.sh before running the configure script in order to improve the purity of Libtool-based packages [5] . If this is undesirable, set this variable to true.

dontDisableStatic

By default, when the configure script has --enable-static, the option --disable-static is added to the configure flags.

If this is undesirable, set this variable to true. It is automatically set to true when building statically, for example through pkgsStatic.

configurePlatforms

By default, when cross compiling, the configure script has --build=... and --host=... passed. Packages can instead pass [ "build" "host" "target" ] or a subset to control exactly which platform flags are passed. Compilers and other tools can use this to also pass the target platform. [6]

preConfigure

Hook executed at the start of the configure phase.

postConfigure

Hook executed at the end of the configure phase.

The build phase

The build phase is responsible for actually building the package (e.g. compiling it). The default buildPhase simply calls make if a file named Makefile, makefile or GNUmakefile exists in the current directory (or the makefile is explicitly set); otherwise it does nothing.

Variables controlling the build phase

dontBuild

Set to true to skip the build phase.

makefile

The file name of the Makefile.

makeFlags

A list of strings passed as additional flags to make. These flags are also used by the default install and check phase. For setting make flags specific to the build phase, use buildFlags (see below).

makeFlags = [ "PREFIX=$(out)" ];
makeFlagsArray

A shell array containing additional arguments passed to make. You must use this instead of makeFlags if the arguments contain spaces, e.g.

preBuild = ''
  makeFlagsArray+=(CFLAGS="-O0 -g" LDFLAGS="-lfoo -lbar")
'';

Note that shell arrays cannot be passed through environment variables, so you cannot set makeFlagsArray in a derivation attribute (because those are passed through environment variables): you have to define them in shell code.

buildFlags / buildFlagsArray

A list of strings passed as additional flags to make. Like makeFlags and makeFlagsArray, but only used by the build phase.

preBuild

Hook executed at the start of the build phase.

postBuild

Hook executed at the end of the build phase.

You can set flags for make through the makeFlags variable.

Before and after running make, the hooks preBuild and postBuild are called, respectively.

The check phase

The check phase checks whether the package was built correctly by running its test suite. The default checkPhase calls make $checkTarget, but only if the doCheck variable is enabled.

Variables controlling the check phase

doCheck

Controls whether the check phase is executed. By default it is skipped, but if doCheck is set to true, the check phase is usually executed. Thus you should set

doCheck = true;

in the derivation to enable checks. The exception is cross compilation. Cross compiled builds never run tests, no matter how doCheck is set, as the newly-built program won’t run on the platform used to build it.

makeFlags / makeFlagsArray / makefile

See the build phase for details.

checkTarget

The make target that runs the tests. If unset, use check if it exists, otherwise test; if neither is found, do nothing.

checkFlags / checkFlagsArray

A list of strings passed as additional flags to make. Like makeFlags and makeFlagsArray, but only used by the check phase.

checkInputs

A list of host dependencies used by the phase, usually libraries linked into executables built during tests. This gets included in buildInputs when doCheck is set.

nativeCheckInputs

A list of native dependencies used by the phase, notably tools needed on $PATH. This gets included in nativeBuildInputs when doCheck is set.

preCheck

Hook executed at the start of the check phase.

postCheck

Hook executed at the end of the check phase.

The install phase

The install phase is responsible for installing the package in the Nix store under out. The default installPhase creates the directory $out and calls make install.

Variables controlling the install phase

dontInstall

Set to true to skip the install phase.

makeFlags / makeFlagsArray / makefile

See the build phase for details.

installTargets

The make targets that perform the installation. Defaults to install. Example:

installTargets = "install-bin install-doc";
installFlags / installFlagsArray

A list of strings passed as additional flags to make. Like makeFlags and makeFlagsArray, but only used by the install phase.

preInstall

Hook executed at the start of the install phase.

postInstall

Hook executed at the end of the install phase.

The fixup phase

The fixup phase performs (Nix-specific) post-processing actions on the files installed under $out by the install phase. The default fixupPhase does the following:

  • It moves the man/, doc/ and info/ subdirectories of $out to share/.

  • It strips libraries and executables of debug information.

  • On Linux, it applies the patchelf command to ELF executables and libraries to remove unused directories from the RPATH in order to prevent unnecessary runtime dependencies.

  • It rewrites the interpreter paths of shell scripts to paths found in PATH. E.g., /usr/bin/perl will be rewritten to /nix/store/some-perl/bin/perl found in PATH. See the section called “patch-shebangs.sh for details.

Variables controlling the fixup phase

dontFixup

Set to true to skip the fixup phase.

dontStrip

If set, libraries and executables are not stripped. By default, they are.

dontStripHost

Like dontStrip, but only affects the strip command targeting the package’s host platform. Useful when supporting cross compilation, but otherwise feel free to ignore.

dontStripTarget

Like dontStrip, but only affects the strip command targeting the packages’ target platform. Useful when supporting cross compilation, but otherwise feel free to ignore.

dontMoveSbin

If set, files in $out/sbin are not moved to $out/bin. By default, they are.

stripAllList

List of directories to search for libraries and executables from which all symbols should be stripped. By default, it’s empty. Stripping all symbols is risky, since it may remove not just debug symbols but also ELF information necessary for normal execution.

stripAllListTarget

Like stripAllList, but only applies to packages’ target platform. By default, it’s empty. Useful when supporting cross compilation.

stripAllFlags

Flags passed to the strip command applied to the files in the directories listed in stripAllList. Defaults to -s (i.e. --strip-all).

stripDebugList

List of directories to search for libraries and executables from which only debugging-related symbols should be stripped. It defaults to lib lib32 lib64 libexec bin sbin.

stripDebugListTarget

Like stripDebugList, but only applies to packages’ target platform. By default, it’s empty. Useful when supporting cross compilation.

stripDebugFlags

Flags passed to the strip command applied to the files in the directories listed in stripDebugList. Defaults to -S (i.e. --strip-debug).

stripExclude

A list of filenames or path patterns to avoid stripping. A file is excluded if its name or path (from the derivation root) matches.

This example prevents all *.rlib files from being stripped:

stdenv.mkDerivation {
  # ...
  stripExclude = [ "*.rlib" ]
}

This example prevents files within certain paths from being stripped:

stdenv.mkDerivation {
  # ...
  stripExclude = [ "lib/modules/*/build/* ]
}
dontPatchELF

If set, the patchelf command is not used to remove unnecessary RPATH entries. Only applies to Linux.

dontPatchShebangs

If set, scripts starting with #! do not have their interpreter paths rewritten to paths in the Nix store. See the section called “patch-shebangs.sh on how patching shebangs works.

dontPruneLibtoolFiles

If set, libtool .la files associated with shared libraries won’t have their dependency_libs field cleared.

forceShare

The list of directories that must be moved from $out to $out/share. Defaults to man doc info.

setupHook

A package can export a setup hook by setting this variable. The setup hook, if defined, is copied to $out/nix-support/setup-hook. Environment variables are then substituted in it using substituteAll.

preFixup

Hook executed at the start of the fixup phase.

postFixup

Hook executed at the end of the fixup phase.

separateDebugInfo

If set to true, the standard environment will enable debug information in C/C++ builds. After installation, the debug information will be separated from the executables and stored in the output named debug. (This output is enabled automatically; you don’t need to set the outputs attribute explicitly.) To be precise, the debug information is stored in debug/lib/debug/.build-id/XX/YYYY…, where <XXYYYY…> is the <build ID> of the binary — a SHA-1 hash of the contents of the binary. Debuggers like GDB use the build ID to look up the separated debug information.

For example, with GDB, you can add

set debug-file-directory ~/.nix-profile/lib/debug

to ~/.gdbinit. GDB will then be able to find debug information installed via nix-env -i.

The installCheck phase

The installCheck phase checks whether the package was installed correctly by running its test suite against the installed directories. The default installCheck calls make installcheck.

It is often better to add tests that are not part of the source distribution to passthru.tests (see the section called “tests). This avoids adding overhead to every build and enables us to run them independently.

Variables controlling the installCheck phase

doInstallCheck

Controls whether the installCheck phase is executed. By default it is skipped, but if doInstallCheck is set to true, the installCheck phase is usually executed. Thus you should set

doInstallCheck = true;

in the derivation to enable install checks. The exception is cross compilation. Cross compiled builds never run tests, no matter how doInstallCheck is set, as the newly-built program won’t run on the platform used to build it.

installCheckTarget

The make target that runs the install tests. Defaults to installcheck.

installCheckFlags / installCheckFlagsArray

A list of strings passed as additional flags to make. Like makeFlags and makeFlagsArray, but only used by the installCheck phase.

installCheckInputs

A list of host dependencies used by the phase, usually libraries linked into executables built during tests. This gets included in buildInputs when doInstallCheck is set.

nativeInstallCheckInputs

A list of native dependencies used by the phase, notably tools needed on $PATH. This gets included in nativeBuildInputs when doInstallCheck is set.

preInstallCheck

Hook executed at the start of the installCheck phase.

postInstallCheck

Hook executed at the end of the installCheck phase.

The distribution phase

The distribution phase is intended to produce a source distribution of the package. The default distPhase first calls make dist, then it copies the resulting source tarballs to $out/tarballs/. This phase is only executed if the attribute doDist is set.

Variables controlling the distribution phase

doDist

If set, the distribution phase is executed.

distTarget

The make target that produces the distribution. Defaults to dist.

distFlags / distFlagsArray

Additional flags passed to make.

tarballs

The names of the source distribution files to be copied to $out/tarballs/. It can contain shell wildcards. The default is *.tar.gz.

dontCopyDist

If set, no files are copied to $out/tarballs/.

preDist

Hook executed at the start of the distribution phase.

postDist

Hook executed at the end of the distribution phase.

Shell functions and utilities

The standard environment provides a number of useful functions.

makeWrapper <executable> <wrapperfile> <args>

Constructs a wrapper for a program with various possible arguments. It is defined as part of 2 setup-hooks named makeWrapper and makeBinaryWrapper that implement the same bash functions. Hence, to use it you have to add makeWrapper to your nativeBuildInputs. Here’s an example usage:

# adds `FOOBAR=baz` to `$out/bin/foo`’s environment
makeWrapper $out/bin/foo $wrapperfile --set FOOBAR baz

# Prefixes the binary paths of `hello` and `git`
# and suffixes the binary path of `xdg-utils`.
# Be advised that paths often should be patched in directly
# (via string replacements or in `configurePhase`).
makeWrapper $out/bin/foo $wrapperfile \
  --prefix PATH : ${lib.makeBinPath [ hello git ]} \
  --suffix PATH : ${lib.makeBinPath [ xdg-utils ]}

Packages may expect or require other utilities to be available at runtime. makeWrapper can be used to add packages to a PATH environment variable local to a wrapper.

Use --prefix to explicitly set dependencies in PATH.

If dependencies should be resolved at runtime, use --suffix to append fallback values to PATH.

There’s many more kinds of arguments, they are documented in nixpkgs/pkgs/build-support/setup-hooks/make-wrapper.sh for the makeWrapper implementation and in nixpkgs/pkgs/build-support/setup-hooks/make-binary-wrapper/make-binary-wrapper.sh for the makeBinaryWrapper implementation.

wrapProgram is a convenience function you probably want to use most of the time, implemented by both makeWrapper and makeBinaryWrapper.

Using the makeBinaryWrapper implementation is usually preferred, as it creates a tiny compiled wrapper executable, that can be used as a shebang interpreter. This is needed mostly on Darwin, where shebangs cannot point to scripts, due to a limitation with the execve-syscall. Compiled wrappers generated by makeBinaryWrapper can be inspected with less <path-to-wrapper> - by scrolling past the binary data you should be able to see the shell command that generated the executable and there see the environment variables that were injected into the wrapper.

remove-references-to -t <storepath> [ -t <storepath> … ] <file> …

Removes the references of the specified files to the specified store files. This is done without changing the size of the file by replacing the hash by eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, and should work on compiled executables. This is meant to be used to remove the dependency of the output on inputs that are known to be unnecessary at runtime. Of course, reckless usage will break the patched programs. To use this, add removeReferencesTo to nativeBuildInputs.

As remove-references-to is an actual executable and not a shell function, it can be used with find. Example removing all references to the compiler in the output:

postInstall = ''
  find "$out" -type f -exec remove-references-to -t ${stdenv.cc} '{}' +
'';

substitute <infile> <outfile> <subs>

Performs string substitution on the contents of <infile>, writing the result to <outfile>. The substitutions in <subs> are of the following form:

--replace <s1> <s2>

Replace every occurrence of the string <s1> by <s2>.

--subst-var <varName>

Replace every occurrence of @varName@ by the contents of the environment variable <varName>. This is useful for generating files from templates, using @...@ in the template as placeholders.

--subst-var-by <varName> <s>

Replace every occurrence of @varName@ by the string <s>.

Example:

substitute ./foo.in ./foo.out \
    --replace /usr/bin/bar $bar/bin/bar \
    --replace "a string containing spaces" "some other text" \
    --subst-var someVar

substituteInPlace <multiple files> <subs>

Like substitute, but performs the substitutions in place on the files passed.

substituteAll <infile> <outfile>

Replaces every occurrence of @varName@, where <varName> is any environment variable, in <infile>, writing the result to <outfile>. For instance, if <infile> has the contents

#! @bash@/bin/sh
PATH=@coreutils@/bin
echo @foo@

and the environment contains bash=/nix/store/bmwp0q28cf21...-bash-3.2-p39 and coreutils=/nix/store/68afga4khv0w...-coreutils-6.12, but does not contain the variable foo, then the output will be

#! /nix/store/bmwp0q28cf21...-bash-3.2-p39/bin/sh
PATH=/nix/store/68afga4khv0w...-coreutils-6.12/bin
echo @foo@

That is, no substitution is performed for undefined variables.

Environment variables that start with an uppercase letter or an underscore are filtered out, to prevent global variables (like HOME) or private variables (like __ETC_PROFILE_DONE) from accidentally getting substituted. The variables also have to be valid bash “names”, as defined in the bash manpage (alphanumeric or _, must not start with a number).

substituteAllInPlace <file>

Like substituteAll, but performs the substitutions in place on the file <file>.

stripHash <path>

Strips the directory and hash part of a store path, outputting the name part to stdout. For example:

# prints coreutils-8.24
stripHash "/nix/store/9s9r019176g7cvn2nvcw41gsp862y6b4-coreutils-8.24"

If you wish to store the result in another variable, then the following idiom may be useful:

name="/nix/store/9s9r019176g7cvn2nvcw41gsp862y6b4-coreutils-8.24"
someVar=$(stripHash $name)

wrapProgram <executable> <makeWrapperArgs>

Convenience function for makeWrapper that replaces <executable> with a wrapper that executes the original program. It takes all the same arguments as makeWrapper, except for --inherit-argv0 (used by the makeBinaryWrapper implementation) and --argv0 (used by both makeWrapper and makeBinaryWrapper wrapper implementations).

If you will apply it multiple times, it will overwrite the wrapper file and you will end up with double wrapping, which should be avoided.

prependToVar <variableName> <elements…>

Prepend elements to a variable.

Example:

$ configureFlags="--disable-static"
$ prependToVar configureFlags --disable-dependency-tracking --enable-foo
$ echo $configureFlags
--disable-dependency-tracking --enable-foo --disable-static

appendToVar <variableName> <elements…>

Append elements to a variable.

Example:

$ configureFlags="--disable-static"
$ appendToVar configureFlags --disable-dependency-tracking --enable-foo
$ echo $configureFlags
--disable-static --disable-dependency-tracking --enable-foo

Package setup hooks

Nix itself considers a build-time dependency as merely something that should previously be built and accessible at build time—packages themselves are on their own to perform any additional setup. In most cases, that is fine, and the downstream derivation can deal with its own dependencies. But for a few common tasks, that would result in almost every package doing the same sort of setup work—depending not on the package itself, but entirely on which dependencies were used.

In order to alleviate this burden, the setup hook mechanism was written, where any package can include a shell script that [by convention rather than enforcement by Nix], any downstream reverse-dependency will source as part of its build process. That allows the downstream dependency to merely specify its dependencies, and lets those dependencies effectively initialize themselves. No boilerplate mirroring the list of dependencies is needed.

The setup hook mechanism is a bit of a sledgehammer though: a powerful feature with a broad and indiscriminate area of effect. The combination of its power and implicit use may be expedient, but isn’t without costs. Nix itself is unchanged, but the spirit of added dependencies being effect-free is violated even if the latter isn’t. For example, if a derivation path is mentioned more than once, Nix itself doesn’t care and simply makes sure the dependency derivation is already built just the same—depending is just needing something to exist, and needing is idempotent. However, a dependency specified twice will have its setup hook run twice, and that could easily change the build environment (though a well-written setup hook will therefore strive to be idempotent so this is in fact not observable). More broadly, setup hooks are anti-modular in that multiple dependencies, whether the same or different, should not interfere and yet their setup hooks may well do so.

The most typical use of the setup hook is actually to add other hooks which are then run (i.e. after all the setup hooks) on each dependency. For example, the C compiler wrapper’s setup hook feeds itself flags for each dependency that contains relevant libraries and headers. This is done by defining a bash function, and appending its name to one of envBuildBuildHooks, envBuildHostHooks, envBuildTargetHooks, envHostHostHooks, envHostTargetHooks, or envTargetTargetHooks. These 6 bash variables correspond to the 6 sorts of dependencies by platform (there’s 12 total but we ignore the propagated/non-propagated axis).

Packages adding a hook should not hard code a specific hook, but rather choose a variable relative to how they are included. Returning to the C compiler wrapper example, if the wrapper itself is an n dependency, then it only wants to accumulate flags from n + 1 dependencies, as only those ones match the compiler’s target platform. The hostOffset variable is defined with the current dependency’s host offset targetOffset with its target offset, before its setup hook is sourced. Additionally, since most environment hooks don’t care about the target platform, that means the setup hook can append to the right bash array by doing something like

addEnvHooks "$hostOffset" myBashFunction

The existence of setups hooks has long been documented and packages inside Nixpkgs are free to use this mechanism. Other packages, however, should not rely on these mechanisms not changing between Nixpkgs versions. Because of the existing issues with this system, there’s little benefit from mandating it be stable for any period of time.

First, let’s cover some setup hooks that are part of Nixpkgs default stdenv. This means that they are run for every package built using stdenv.mkDerivation or when using a custom builder that has source $stdenv/setup. Some of these are platform specific, so they may run on Linux but not Darwin or vice-versa.

move-docs.sh

This setup hook moves any installed documentation to the /share subdirectory directory. This includes the man, doc and info directories. This is needed for legacy programs that do not know how to use the share subdirectory.

compress-man-pages.sh

This setup hook compresses any man pages that have been installed. The compression is done using the gzip program. This helps to reduce the installed size of packages.

strip.sh

This runs the strip command on installed binaries and libraries. This removes unnecessary information like debug symbols when they are not needed. This also helps to reduce the installed size of packages.

patch-shebangs.sh

This setup hook patches installed scripts to add Nix store paths to their shebang interpreter as found in the build environment. The shebang line tells a Unix-like operating system which interpreter to use to execute the script’s contents.

Invocation

Multiple paths can be specified.

patchShebangs [--build | --host] PATH...
Flags
--build

Look up commands available at build time

--host

Look up commands available at run time

Examples
patchShebangs --host /nix/store/<hash>-hello-1.0/bin
patchShebangs --build configure

#!/bin/sh will be rewritten to #!/nix/store/<hash>-some-bash/bin/sh.

#!/usr/bin/env gets special treatment: #!/usr/bin/env python is rewritten to /nix/store/<hash>/bin/python.

Interpreter paths that point to a valid Nix store location are not changed.

This mechanism ensures that the interpreter for a given script is always found and is exactly the one specified by the build.

It can be disabled by setting dontPatchShebangs:

stdenv.mkDerivation {
  # ...
  dontPatchShebangs = true;
  # ...
}

The file patch-shebangs.sh defines the patchShebangs function. It is used to implement patchShebangsAuto, the setup hook that is registered to run during the fixup phase by default.

If you need to run patchShebangs at build time, it must be called explicitly within one of the build phases.

audit-tmpdir.sh

This verifies that no references are left from the install binaries to the directory used to build those binaries. This ensures that the binaries do not need things outside the Nix store. This is currently supported in Linux only.

multiple-outputs.sh

This setup hook adds configure flags that tell packages to install files into any one of the proper outputs listed in outputs. This behavior can be turned off by setting setOutputFlags to false in the derivation environment. See Multiple-output packages for more information.

move-sbin.sh

This setup hook moves any binaries installed in the sbin/ subdirectory into bin/. In addition, a link is provided from sbin/ to bin/ for compatibility.

move-lib64.sh

This setup hook moves any libraries installed in the lib64/ subdirectory into lib/. In addition, a link is provided from lib64/ to lib/ for compatibility.

move-systemd-user-units.sh

This setup hook moves any systemd user units installed in the lib/ subdirectory into share/. In addition, a link is provided from share/ to lib/ for compatibility. This is needed for systemd to find user services when installed into the user profile.

This hook only runs when compiling for Linux.

set-source-date-epoch-to-latest.sh

This sets SOURCE_DATE_EPOCH to the modification time of the most recent file.

Bintools Wrapper and hook

The Bintools Wrapper wraps the binary utilities for a bunch of miscellaneous purposes. These are GNU Binutils when targeting Linux, and a mix of cctools and GNU binutils for Darwin. [The “Bintools” name is supposed to be a compromise between “Binutils” and “cctools” not denoting any specific implementation.] Specifically, the underlying bintools package, and a C standard library (glibc or Darwin’s libSystem, just for the dynamic loader) are all fed in, and dependency finding, hardening (see below), and purity checks for each are handled by the Bintools Wrapper. Packages typically depend on CC Wrapper, which in turn (at run time) depends on the Bintools Wrapper.

The Bintools Wrapper was only just recently split off from CC Wrapper, so the division of labor is still being worked out. For example, it shouldn’t care about the C standard library, but just take a derivation with the dynamic loader (which happens to be the glibc on linux). Dependency finding however is a task both wrappers will continue to need to share, and probably the most important to understand. It is currently accomplished by collecting directories of host-platform dependencies (i.e. buildInputs and nativeBuildInputs) in environment variables. The Bintools Wrapper’s setup hook causes any lib and lib64 subdirectories to be added to NIX_LDFLAGS. Since the CC Wrapper and the Bintools Wrapper use the same strategy, most of the Bintools Wrapper code is sparsely commented and refers to the CC Wrapper. But the CC Wrapper’s code, by contrast, has quite lengthy comments. The Bintools Wrapper merely cites those, rather than repeating them, to avoid falling out of sync.

A final task of the setup hook is defining a number of standard environment variables to tell build systems which executables fulfill which purpose. They are defined to just be the base name of the tools, under the assumption that the Bintools Wrapper’s binaries will be on the path. Firstly, this helps poorly-written packages, e.g. ones that look for just gcc when CC isn’t defined yet clang is to be used. Secondly, this helps packages not get confused when cross-compiling, in which case multiple Bintools Wrappers may simultaneously be in use. [7] BUILD_- and TARGET_-prefixed versions of the normal environment variable are defined for additional Bintools Wrappers, properly disambiguating them.

A problem with this final task is that the Bintools Wrapper is honest and defines LD as ld. Most packages, however, firstly use the C compiler for linking, secondly use LD anyways, defining it as the C compiler, and thirdly, only so define LD when it is undefined as a fallback. This triple-threat means Bintools Wrapper will break those packages, as LD is already defined as the actual linker which the package won’t override yet doesn’t want to use. The workaround is to define, just for the problematic package, LD as the C compiler. A good way to do this would be preConfigure = "LD=$CC".

CC Wrapper and hook

The CC Wrapper wraps a C toolchain for a bunch of miscellaneous purposes. Specifically, a C compiler (GCC or Clang), wrapped binary tools, and a C standard library (glibc or Darwin’s libSystem, just for the dynamic loader) are all fed in, and dependency finding, hardening (see below), and purity checks for each are handled by the CC Wrapper. Packages typically depend on the CC Wrapper, which in turn (at run-time) depends on the Bintools Wrapper.

Dependency finding is undoubtedly the main task of the CC Wrapper. This works just like the Bintools Wrapper, except that any include subdirectory of any relevant dependency is added to NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE. The setup hook itself contains elaborate comments describing the exact mechanism by which this is accomplished.

Similarly, the CC Wrapper follows the Bintools Wrapper in defining standard environment variables with the names of the tools it wraps, for the same reasons described above. Importantly, while it includes a cc symlink to the c compiler for portability, the CC will be defined using the compiler’s “real name” (i.e. gcc or clang). This helps lousy build systems that inspect on the name of the compiler rather than run it.

Here are some more packages that provide a setup hook. Since the list of hooks is extensible, this is not an exhaustive list. The mechanism is only to be used as a last resort, so it might cover most uses.

Other hooks

Many other packages provide hooks, that are not part of stdenv. You can find these in the Hooks Reference.

Compiler and Linker wrapper hooks

If the file ${cc}/nix-support/cc-wrapper-hook exists, it will be run at the end of the compiler wrapper. If the file ${binutils}/nix-support/post-link-hook exists, it will be run at the end of the linker wrapper. These hooks allow a user to inject code into the wrappers. As an example, these hooks can be used to extract extraBefore, params and extraAfter which store all the command line arguments passed to the compiler and linker respectively.

Purity in Nixpkgs

Measures taken to prevent dependencies on packages outside the store, and what you can do to prevent them.

GCC doesn’t search in locations such as /usr/include. In fact, attempts to add such directories through the -I flag are filtered out. Likewise, the linker (from GNU binutils) doesn’t search in standard locations such as /usr/lib. Programs built on Linux are linked against a GNU C Library that likewise doesn’t search in the default system locations.

Hardening in Nixpkgs

There are flags available to harden packages at compile or link-time. These can be toggled using the stdenv.mkDerivation parameters hardeningDisable and hardeningEnable.

Both parameters take a list of flags as strings. The special "all" flag can be passed to hardeningDisable to turn off all hardening. These flags can also be used as environment variables for testing or development purposes.

For more in-depth information on these hardening flags and hardening in general, refer to the Debian Wiki, Ubuntu Wiki, Gentoo Wiki, and the Arch Wiki.

Hardening flags enabled by default

The following flags are enabled by default and might require disabling with hardeningDisable if the program to package is incompatible.

format

Adds the -Wformat -Wformat-security -Werror=format-security compiler options. At present, this warns about calls to printf and scanf functions where the format string is not a string literal and there are no format arguments, as in printf(foo);. This may be a security hole if the format string came from untrusted input and contains %n.

This needs to be turned off or fixed for errors similar to:

/tmp/nix-build-zynaddsubfx-2.5.2.drv-0/zynaddsubfx-2.5.2/src/UI/guimain.cpp:571:28: error: format not a string literal and no format arguments [-Werror=format-security]
         printf(help_message);
                            ^
cc1plus: some warnings being treated as errors

stackprotector

Adds the -fstack-protector-strong --param ssp-buffer-size=4 compiler options. This adds safety checks against stack overwrites rendering many potential code injection attacks into aborting situations. In the best case this turns code injection vulnerabilities into denial of service or into non-issues (depending on the application).

This needs to be turned off or fixed for errors similar to:

bin/blib.a(bios_console.o): In function `bios_handle_cup':
/tmp/nix-build-ipxe-20141124-5cbdc41.drv-0/ipxe-5cbdc41/src/arch/i386/firmware/pcbios/bios_console.c:86: undefined reference to `__stack_chk_fail'

fortify

Adds the -O2 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 compiler options. During code generation the compiler knows a great deal of information about buffer sizes (where possible), and attempts to replace insecure unlimited length buffer function calls with length-limited ones. This is especially useful for old, crufty code. Additionally, format strings in writable memory that contain %n are blocked. If an application depends on such a format string, it will need to be worked around.

Additionally, some warnings are enabled which might trigger build failures if compiler warnings are treated as errors in the package build. In this case, set env.NIX_CFLAGS_COMPILE to -Wno-error=warning-type.

This needs to be turned off or fixed for errors similar to:

malloc.c:404:15: error: return type is an incomplete type
malloc.c:410:19: error: storage size of 'ms' isn't known

strdup.h:22:1: error: expected identifier or '(' before '__extension__'

strsep.c:65:23: error: register name not specified for 'delim'

installwatch.c:3751:5: error: conflicting types for '__open_2'

fcntl2.h:50:4: error: call to '__open_missing_mode' declared with attribute error: open with O_CREAT or O_TMPFILE in second argument needs 3 arguments

pic

Adds the -fPIC compiler options. This options adds support for position independent code in shared libraries and thus making ASLR possible.

Most notably, the Linux kernel, kernel modules and other code not running in an operating system environment like boot loaders won’t build with PIC enabled. The compiler will is most cases complain that PIC is not supported for a specific build.

This needs to be turned off or fixed for assembler errors similar to:

ccbLfRgg.s: Assembler messages:
ccbLfRgg.s:33: Error: missing or invalid displacement expression `private_key_len@GOTOFF'

strictoverflow

Signed integer overflow is undefined behaviour according to the C standard. If it happens, it is an error in the program as it should check for overflow before it can happen, not afterwards. GCC provides built-in functions to perform arithmetic with overflow checking, which are correct and faster than any custom implementation. As a workaround, the option -fno-strict-overflow makes gcc behave as if signed integer overflows were defined.

This flag should not trigger any build or runtime errors.

relro

Adds the -z relro linker option. During program load, several ELF memory sections need to be written to by the linker, but can be turned read-only before turning over control to the program. This prevents some GOT (and .dtors) overwrite attacks, but at least the part of the GOT used by the dynamic linker (.got.plt) is still vulnerable.

This flag can break dynamic shared object loading. For instance, the module systems of Xorg and OpenCV are incompatible with this flag. In almost all cases the bindnow flag must also be disabled and incompatible programs typically fail with similar errors at runtime.

bindnow

Adds the -z bindnow linker option. During program load, all dynamic symbols are resolved, allowing for the complete GOT to be marked read-only (due to relro). This prevents GOT overwrite attacks. For very large applications, this can incur some performance loss during initial load while symbols are resolved, but this shouldn’t be an issue for daemons.

This flag can break dynamic shared object loading. For instance, the module systems of Xorg and PHP are incompatible with this flag. Programs incompatible with this flag often fail at runtime due to missing symbols, like:

intel_drv.so: undefined symbol: vgaHWFreeHWRec

Hardening flags disabled by default

The following flags are disabled by default and should be enabled with hardeningEnable for packages that take untrusted input like network services.

pie

This flag is disabled by default for normal glibc based NixOS package builds, but enabled by default for musl based package builds.

Adds the -fPIE compiler and -pie linker options. Position Independent Executables are needed to take advantage of Address Space Layout Randomization, supported by modern kernel versions. While ASLR can already be enforced for data areas in the stack and heap (brk and mmap), the code areas must be compiled as position-independent. Shared libraries already do this with the pic flag, so they gain ASLR automatically, but binary .text regions need to be build with pie to gain ASLR. When this happens, ROP attacks are much harder since there are no static locations to bounce off of during a memory corruption attack.

Static libraries need to be compiled with -fPIE so that executables can link them in with the -pie linker option. If the libraries lack -fPIE, you will get the error recompile with -fPIE.




The build platform is ignored because it is a mere implementation detail of the package satisfying the dependency: As a general programming principle, dependencies are always specified as interfaces, not concrete implementation.[1]

Currently, this means for native builds all dependencies are put on the PATH. But in the future that may not be the case for sake of matching cross: the platforms would be assumed to be unique for native and cross builds alike, so only the depsBuild* and nativeBuildInputs would be added to the PATH.[2]

Nix itself already takes a package’s transitive dependencies into account, but this propagation ensures nixpkgs-specific infrastructure like setup hooks also are run as if it were a propagated dependency.[3]

The findInputs function, currently residing in pkgs/stdenv/generic/setup.sh, implements the propagation logic.[4]

It clears the sys_lib_*search_path variables in the Libtool script to prevent Libtool from using libraries in /usr/lib and such.[5]

Eventually these will be passed building natively as well, to improve determinism: build-time guessing, as is done today, is a risk of impurity.[6]

Each wrapper targets a single platform, so if binaries for multiple platforms are needed, the underlying binaries must be wrapped multiple times. As this is a property of the wrapper itself, the multiple wrappings are needed whether or not the same underlying binaries can target multiple platforms.[7]

Meta-attributes

Nix packages can declare meta-attributes that contain information about a package such as a description, its homepage, its license, and so on. For instance, the GNU Hello package has a meta declaration like this:

meta = with lib; {
  description = "A program that produces a familiar, friendly greeting";
  longDescription = ''
    GNU Hello is a program that prints "Hello, world!" when you run it.
    It is fully customizable.
  '';
  homepage = "https://www.gnu.org/software/hello/manual/";
  license = licenses.gpl3Plus;
  maintainers = with maintainers; [ eelco ];
  platforms = platforms.all;
};

Meta-attributes are not passed to the builder of the package. Thus, a change to a meta-attribute doesn’t trigger a recompilation of the package.

Standard meta-attributes

It is expected that each meta-attribute is one of the following:

description

A short (one-line) description of the package. This is displayed on search.nixos.org.

Don’t include a period at the end. Don’t include newline characters. Capitalise the first character. For brevity, don’t repeat the name of package — just describe what it does.

Wrong: "libpng is a library that allows you to decode PNG images."

Right: "A library for decoding PNG images"

longDescription

An arbitrarily long description of the package in CommonMark Markdown.

branch

Release branch. Used to specify that a package is not going to receive updates that are not in this branch; for example, Linux kernel 3.0 is supposed to be updated to 3.0.X, not 3.1.

homepage

The package’s homepage. Example: https://www.gnu.org/software/hello/manual/

downloadPage

The page where a link to the current version can be found. Example: https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/hello/

changelog

A link or a list of links to the location of Changelog for a package. A link may use expansion to refer to the correct changelog version. Example: "https://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/hello.git/plain/NEWS?h=v${version}"

license

The license, or licenses, for the package. One from the attribute set defined in nixpkgs/lib/licenses.nix. At this moment using both a list of licenses and a single license is valid. If the license field is in the form of a list representation, then it means that parts of the package are licensed differently. Each license should preferably be referenced by their attribute. The non-list attribute value can also be a space delimited string representation of the contained attribute shortNames or spdxIds. The following are all valid examples:

  • Single license referenced by attribute (preferred) lib.licenses.gpl3Only.

  • Single license referenced by its attribute shortName (frowned upon) "gpl3Only".

  • Single license referenced by its attribute spdxId (frowned upon) "GPL-3.0-only".

  • Multiple licenses referenced by attribute (preferred) with lib.licenses; [ asl20 free ofl ].

  • Multiple licenses referenced as a space delimited string of attribute shortNames (frowned upon) "asl20 free ofl".

For details, see Licenses.

maintainers

A list of the maintainers of this Nix expression. Maintainers are defined in nixpkgs/maintainers/maintainer-list.nix. There is no restriction to becoming a maintainer, just add yourself to that list in a separate commit titled “maintainers: add alice” in the same pull request, and reference maintainers with maintainers = with lib.maintainers; [ alice bob ].

mainProgram

The name of the main binary for the package. This affects the binary nix run executes. Example: "rg"

priority

The priority of the package, used by nix-env to resolve file name conflicts between packages. See the manual page for nix-env for details. Example: "10" (a low-priority package).

platforms

The list of Nix platform types on which the package is supported. Hydra builds packages according to the platform specified. If no platform is specified, the package does not have prebuilt binaries. An example is:

meta.platforms = lib.platforms.linux;

Attribute Set lib.platforms defines various common lists of platforms types.

badPlatforms

The list of Nix platform types on which the package is known not to be buildable. Hydra will never create prebuilt binaries for these platform types, even if they are in meta.platforms. In general it is preferable to set meta.platforms = lib.platforms.all and then exclude any platforms on which the package is known not to build. For example, a package which requires dynamic linking and cannot be linked statically could use this:

meta.platforms = lib.platforms.all;
meta.badPlatforms = [ lib.systems.inspect.patterns.isStatic ];

The lib.meta.availableOn function can be used to test whether or not a package is available (i.e. buildable) on a given platform. Some packages use this to automatically detect the maximum set of features with which they can be built. For example, systemd requires dynamic linking, and has a meta.badPlatforms setting similar to the one above. Packages which can be built with or without systemd support will use lib.meta.availableOn to detect whether or not systemd is available on the hostPlatform for which they are being built; if it is not available (e.g. due to a statically-linked host platform like pkgsStatic) this support will be disabled by default.

tests

An attribute set with tests as values. A test is a derivation that builds when the test passes and fails to build otherwise.

You can run these tests with:

$ cd path/to/nixpkgs
$ nix-build -A your-package.tests

Package tests

Tests that are part of the source package are often executed in the installCheckPhase.

Prefer passthru.tests for tests that are introduced in nixpkgs because:

  • passthru.tests tests the ‘real’ package, independently from the environment in which it was built

  • we can run passthru.tests independently

  • installCheckPhase adds overhead to each build

For more on how to write and run package tests, see the section called “Package tests”.

NixOS tests

The NixOS tests are available as nixosTests in parameters of derivations. For instance, the OpenSMTPD derivation includes lines similar to:

{ /* ... */, nixosTests }:
{
  # ...
  passthru.tests = {
    basic-functionality-and-dovecot-integration = nixosTests.opensmtpd;
  };
}

NixOS tests run in a VM, so they are slower than regular package tests. For more information see NixOS module tests.

Alternatively, you can specify other derivations as tests. You can make use of the optional parameter to inject the correct package without relying on non-local definitions, even in the presence of overrideAttrs. Here that’s finalAttrs.finalPackage, but you could choose a different name if finalAttrs already exists in your scope.

(mypkg.overrideAttrs f).passthru.tests will be as expected, as long as the definition of tests does not rely on the original mypkg or overrides it in all places.

# my-package/default.nix
{ stdenv, callPackage }:
stdenv.mkDerivation (finalAttrs: {
  # ...
  passthru.tests.example = callPackage ./example.nix { my-package = finalAttrs.finalPackage; };
})
# my-package/example.nix
{ runCommand, lib, my-package, ... }:
runCommand "my-package-test" {
  nativeBuildInputs = [ my-package ];
  src = lib.sources.sourcesByRegex ./. [ ".*.in" ".*.expected" ];
} ''
  my-package --help
  my-package <example.in >example.actual
  diff -U3 --color=auto example.expected example.actual
  mkdir $out
''

timeout

A timeout (in seconds) for building the derivation. If the derivation takes longer than this time to build, Hydra will fail it due to breaking the timeout. However, all computers do not have the same computing power, hence some builders may decide to apply a multiplicative factor to this value. When filling this value in, try to keep it approximately consistent with other values already present in nixpkgs.

meta attributes are not stored in the instantiated derivation. Therefore, this setting may be lost when the package is used as a dependency. To be effective, it must be presented directly to an evaluation process that handles the meta.timeout attribute.

hydraPlatforms

The list of Nix platform types for which the Hydra instance at hydra.nixos.org will build the package. (Hydra is the Nix-based continuous build system.) It defaults to the value of meta.platforms. Thus, the only reason to set meta.hydraPlatforms is if you want hydra.nixos.org to build the package on a subset of meta.platforms, or not at all, e.g.

meta.platforms = lib.platforms.linux;
meta.hydraPlatforms = [];

broken

If set to true, the package is marked as “broken”, meaning that it won’t show up in search.nixos.org, and cannot be built or installed unless the environment variable NIXPKGS_ALLOW_BROKEN is set. Such unconditionally-broken packages should be removed from Nixpkgs eventually unless they are fixed.

The value of this attribute can depend on a package’s arguments, including stdenv. This means that broken can be used to express constraints, for example:

  • Does not cross compile

     meta.broken = !(stdenv.buildPlatform.canExecute stdenv.hostPlatform)
    
  • Broken if all of a certain set of its dependencies are broken

    meta.broken = lib.all (map (p: p.meta.broken) [ glibc musl ])
    

This makes broken strictly more powerful than meta.badPlatforms. However meta.availableOn currently examines only meta.platforms and meta.badPlatforms, so meta.broken does not influence the default values for optional dependencies.

Licenses

The meta.license attribute should preferably contain a value from lib.licenses defined in nixpkgs/lib/licenses.nix, or in-place license description of the same format if the license is unlikely to be useful in another expression.

Although it’s typically better to indicate the specific license, a few generic options are available:

lib.licenses.free, "free"

Catch-all for free software licenses not listed above.

lib.licenses.unfreeRedistributable, "unfree-redistributable"

Unfree package that can be redistributed in binary form. That is, it’s legal to redistribute the output of the derivation. This means that the package can be included in the Nixpkgs channel.

Sometimes proprietary software can only be redistributed unmodified. Make sure the builder doesn’t actually modify the original binaries; otherwise we’re breaking the license. For instance, the NVIDIA X11 drivers can be redistributed unmodified, but our builder applies patchelf to make them work. Thus, its license is "unfree" and it cannot be included in the Nixpkgs channel.

lib.licenses.unfree, "unfree"

Unfree package that cannot be redistributed. You can build it yourself, but you cannot redistribute the output of the derivation. Thus it cannot be included in the Nixpkgs channel.

lib.licenses.unfreeRedistributableFirmware, "unfree-redistributable-firmware"

This package supplies unfree, redistributable firmware. This is a separate value from unfree-redistributable because not everybody cares whether firmware is free.

Source provenance

The value of a package’s meta.sourceProvenance attribute specifies the provenance of the package’s derivation outputs.

If a package contains elements that are not built from the original source by a nixpkgs derivation, the meta.sourceProvenance attribute should be a list containing one or more value from lib.sourceTypes defined in nixpkgs/lib/source-types.nix.

Adding this information helps users who have needs related to build transparency and supply-chain security to gain some visibility into their installed software or set policy to allow or disallow installation based on source provenance.

The presence of a particular sourceType in a package’s meta.sourceProvenance list indicates that the package contains some components falling into that category, though the absence of that sourceType does not guarantee the absence of that category of sourceType in the package’s contents. A package with no meta.sourceProvenance set implies it has no known sourceTypes other than fromSource.

The meaning of the meta.sourceProvenance attribute does not depend on the value of the meta.license attribute.

lib.sourceTypes.fromSource

Package elements which are produced by a nixpkgs derivation which builds them from source code.

lib.sourceTypes.binaryNativeCode

Native code to be executed on the target system’s CPU, built by a third party. This includes packages which wrap a downloaded AppImage or Debian package.

lib.sourceTypes.binaryFirmware

Code to be executed on a peripheral device or embedded controller, built by a third party.

lib.sourceTypes.binaryBytecode

Code to run on a VM interpreter or JIT compiled into bytecode by a third party. This includes packages which download Java .jar files from another source.

Multiple-output packages

Introduction

The Nix language allows a derivation to produce multiple outputs, which is similar to what is utilized by other Linux distribution packaging systems. The outputs reside in separate Nix store paths, so they can be mostly handled independently of each other, including passing to build inputs, garbage collection or binary substitution. The exception is that building from source always produces all the outputs.

The main motivation is to save disk space by reducing runtime closure sizes; consequently also sizes of substituted binaries get reduced. Splitting can be used to have more granular runtime dependencies, for example the typical reduction is to split away development-only files, as those are typically not needed during runtime. As a result, closure sizes of many packages can get reduced to a half or even much less.

A number of attributes can be used to work with a derivation with multiple outputs. The attribute outputs is a list of strings, which are the names of the outputs. For each of these names, an identically named attribute is created, corresponding to that output. The attribute meta.outputsToInstall is used to determine the default set of outputs to install when using the derivation name unqualified.

Installing a split package

When installing a package with multiple outputs, the package’s meta.outputsToInstall attribute determines which outputs are actually installed. meta.outputsToInstall is a list whose default installs binaries and the associated man pages. The following sections describe ways to install different outputs.

Selecting outputs to install via NixOS

NixOS provides two ways to select the outputs to install for packages listed in environment.systemPackages:

  • The configuration option environment.extraOutputsToInstall is appended to each package’s meta.outputsToInstall attribute to determine the outputs to install. It can for example be used to install info documentation or debug symbols for all packages.

  • The outputs can be listed as packages in environment.systemPackages. For example, the "out" and "info" outputs for the coreutils package can be installed by including coreutils and coreutils.info in environment.systemPackages.

Selecting outputs to install via nix-env

nix-env lacks an easy way to select the outputs to install. When installing a package, nix-env always installs the outputs listed in meta.outputsToInstall, even when the user explicitly selects an output.

The only recourse to select an output with nix-env is to override the package’s meta.outputsToInstall, using the functions described in Overriding. For example, the following overlay adds the "info" output for the coreutils package:

self: super:
{
  coreutils = super.coreutils.overrideAttrs (oldAttrs: {
    meta = oldAttrs.meta // { outputsToInstall = oldAttrs.meta.outputsToInstall or [ "out" ] ++ [ "info" ]; };
  });
}

Using a split package

In the Nix language the individual outputs can be reached explicitly as attributes, e.g. coreutils.info, but the typical case is just using packages as build inputs.

When a multiple-output derivation gets into a build input of another derivation, the dev output is added if it exists, otherwise the first output is added. In addition to that, propagatedBuildOutputs of that package which by default contain $outputBin and $outputLib are also added. (See the section called “File type groups”.)

In some cases it may be desirable to combine different outputs under a single store path. A function symlinkJoin can be used to do this. (Note that it may negate some closure size benefits of using a multiple-output package.)

Writing a split derivation

Here you find how to write a derivation that produces multiple outputs.

In nixpkgs there is a framework supporting multiple-output derivations. It tries to cover most cases by default behavior. You can find the source separated in <nixpkgs/pkgs/build-support/setup-hooks/multiple-outputs.sh>; it’s relatively well-readable. The whole machinery is triggered by defining the outputs attribute to contain the list of desired output names (strings).

outputs = [ "bin" "dev" "out" "doc" ];

Often such a single line is enough. For each output an equally named environment variable is passed to the builder and contains the path in nix store for that output. Typically you also want to have the main out output, as it catches any files that didn’t get elsewhere.

“Binaries first”

A commonly adopted convention in nixpkgs is that executables provided by the package are contained within its first output. This convention allows the dependent packages to reference the executables provided by packages in a uniform manner. For instance, provided with the knowledge that the perl package contains a perl executable it can be referenced as ${pkgs.perl}/bin/perl within a Nix derivation that needs to execute a Perl script.

The glibc package is a deliberate single exception to the “binaries first” convention. The glibc has libs as its first output allowing the libraries provided by glibc to be referenced directly (e.g. ${glibc}/lib/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2). The executables provided by glibc can be accessed via its bin attribute (e.g. ${lib.getBin stdenv.cc.libc}/bin/ldd).

The reason for why glibc deviates from the convention is because referencing a library provided by glibc is a very common operation among Nix packages. For instance, third-party executables packaged by Nix are typically patched and relinked with the relevant version of glibc libraries from Nix packages (please see the documentation on patchelf for more details).

File type groups

The support code currently recognizes some particular kinds of outputs and either instructs the build system of the package to put files into their desired outputs or it moves the files during the fixup phase. Each group of file types has an outputFoo variable specifying the output name where they should go. If that variable isn’t defined by the derivation writer, it is guessed – a default output name is defined, falling back to other possibilities if the output isn’t defined.

$outputDev

is for development-only files. These include C(++) headers (include/), pkg-config (lib/pkgconfig/), cmake (lib/cmake/) and aclocal files (share/aclocal/). They go to dev or out by default.

$outputBin

is meant for user-facing binaries, typically residing in bin/. They go to bin or out by default.

$outputLib

is meant for libraries, typically residing in lib/ and libexec/. They go to lib or out by default.

$outputDoc

is for user documentation, typically residing in share/doc/. It goes to doc or out by default.

$outputDevdoc

is for developer documentation. Currently we count gtk-doc and devhelp books, typically residing in share/gtk-doc/ and share/devhelp/, in there. It goes to devdoc or is removed (!) by default. This is because e.g. gtk-doc tends to be rather large and completely unused by nixpkgs users.

$outputMan

is for man pages (except for section 3), typically residing in share/man/man[0-9]/. They go to man or $outputBin by default.

$outputDevman

is for section 3 man pages, typically residing in share/man/man[0-9]/. They go to devman or $outputMan by default.

$outputInfo

is for info pages, typically residing in share/info/. They go to info or $outputBin by default.

Common caveats

  • Some configure scripts don’t like some of the parameters passed by default by the framework, e.g. --docdir=/foo/bar. You can disable this by setting setOutputFlags = false;.

  • The outputs of a single derivation can retain references to each other, but note that circular references are not allowed. (And each strongly-connected component would act as a single output anyway.)

  • Most of split packages contain their core functionality in libraries. These libraries tend to refer to various kind of data that typically gets into out, e.g. locale strings, so there is often no advantage in separating the libraries into lib, as keeping them in out is easier.

  • Some packages have hidden assumptions on install paths, which complicates splitting.

Cross-compilation

Introduction

“Cross-compilation” means compiling a program on one machine for another type of machine. For example, a typical use of cross-compilation is to compile programs for embedded devices. These devices often don’t have the computing power and memory to compile their own programs. One might think that cross-compilation is a fairly niche concern. However, there are significant advantages to rigorously distinguishing between build-time and run-time environments! Significant, because the benefits apply even when one is developing and deploying on the same machine. Nixpkgs is increasingly adopting the opinion that packages should be written with cross-compilation in mind, and Nixpkgs should evaluate in a similar way (by minimizing cross-compilation-specific special cases) whether or not one is cross-compiling.

This chapter will be organized in three parts. First, it will describe the basics of how to package software in a way that supports cross-compilation. Second, it will describe how to use Nixpkgs when cross-compiling. Third, it will describe the internal infrastructure supporting cross-compilation.

Packaging in a cross-friendly manner

Platform parameters

Nixpkgs follows the conventions of GNU autoconf. We distinguish between 3 types of platforms when building a derivation: build, host, and target. In summary, build is the platform on which a package is being built, host is the platform on which it will run. The third attribute, target, is relevant only for certain specific compilers and build tools.

In Nixpkgs, these three platforms are defined as attribute sets under the names buildPlatform, hostPlatform, and targetPlatform. They are always defined as attributes in the standard environment. That means one can access them like:

{ stdenv, fooDep, barDep, ... }: ...stdenv.buildPlatform...
buildPlatform

The “build platform” is the platform on which a package is built. Once someone has a built package, or pre-built binary package, the build platform should not matter and can be ignored.

hostPlatform

The “host platform” is the platform on which a package will be run. This is the simplest platform to understand, but also the one with the worst name.

targetPlatform

The “target platform” attribute is, unlike the other two attributes, not actually fundamental to the process of building software. Instead, it is only relevant for compatibility with building certain specific compilers and build tools. It can be safely ignored for all other packages.

The build process of certain compilers is written in such a way that the compiler resulting from a single build can itself only produce binaries for a single platform. The task of specifying this single “target platform” is thus pushed to build time of the compiler. The root cause of this is that the compiler (which will be run on the host) and the standard library/runtime (which will be run on the target) are built by a single build process.

There is no fundamental need to think about a single target ahead of time like this. If the tool supports modular or pluggable backends, both the need to specify the target at build time and the constraint of having only a single target disappear. An example of such a tool is LLVM.

Although the existence of a “target platform” is arguably a historical mistake, it is a common one: examples of tools that suffer from it are GCC, Binutils, GHC and Autoconf. Nixpkgs tries to avoid sharing in the mistake where possible. Still, because the concept of a target platform is so ingrained, it is best to support it as is.

The exact schema these fields follow is a bit ill-defined due to a long and convoluted evolution, but this is slowly being cleaned up. You can see examples of ones used in practice in lib.systems.examples; note how they are not all very consistent. For now, here are few fields can count on them containing:

system

This is a two-component shorthand for the platform. Examples of this would be “x86_64-darwin” and “i686-linux”; see lib.systems.doubles for more. The first component corresponds to the CPU architecture of the platform and the second to the operating system of the platform ([cpu]-[os]). This format has built-in support in Nix, such as the builtins.currentSystem impure string.

config

This is a 3- or 4- component shorthand for the platform. Examples of this would be x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu and aarch64-apple-darwin14. This is a standard format called the “LLVM target triple”, as they are pioneered by LLVM. In the 4-part form, this corresponds to [cpu]-[vendor]-[os]-[abi]. This format is strictly more informative than the “Nix host double”, as the previous format could analogously be termed. This needs a better name than config!

parsed

This is a Nix representation of a parsed LLVM target triple with white-listed components. This can be specified directly, or actually parsed from the config. See lib.systems.parse for the exact representation.

libc

This is a string identifying the standard C library used. Valid identifiers include “glibc” for GNU libc, “libSystem” for Darwin’s Libsystem, and “uclibc” for µClibc. It should probably be refactored to use the module system, like parse.

is*

These predicates are defined in lib.systems.inspect, and slapped onto every platform. They are superior to the ones in stdenv as they force the user to be explicit about which platform they are inspecting. Please use these instead of those.

platform

This is, quite frankly, a dumping ground of ad-hoc settings (it’s an attribute set). See lib.systems.platforms for examples—there’s hopefully one in there that will work verbatim for each platform that is working. Please help us triage these flags and give them better homes!

Theory of dependency categorization

In this section we explore the relationship between both runtime and build-time dependencies and the 3 Autoconf platforms.

A run time dependency between two packages requires that their host platforms match. This is directly implied by the meaning of “host platform” and “runtime dependency”: The package dependency exists while both packages are running on a single host platform.

A build time dependency, however, has a shift in platforms between the depending package and the depended-on package. “build time dependency” means that to build the depending package we need to be able to run the depended-on’s package. The depending package’s build platform is therefore equal to the depended-on package’s host platform.

If both the dependency and depending packages aren’t compilers or other machine-code-producing tools, we’re done. And indeed buildInputs and nativeBuildInputs have covered these simpler cases for many years. But if the dependency does produce machine code, we might need to worry about its target platform too. In principle, that target platform might be any of the depending package’s build, host, or target platforms, but we prohibit dependencies from a “later” platform to an earlier platform to limit confusion because we’ve never seen a legitimate use for them.

Finally, if the depending package is a compiler or other machine-code-producing tool, it might need dependencies that run at “emit time”. This is for compilers that (regrettably) insist on being built together with their source languages’ standard libraries. Assuming build != host != target, a run-time dependency of the standard library cannot be run at the compiler’s build time or run time, but only at the run time of code emitted by the compiler.

Putting this all together, that means that we have dependency types of the form “X→ E”, which means that the dependency executes on X and emits code for E; each of X and E can be build, host, or target, and E can be * to indicate that the dependency is not a compiler-like package.

Dependency types describe the relationships that a package has with each of its transitive dependencies. You could think of attaching one or more dependency types to each of the formal parameters at the top of a package’s .nix file, as well as to all of their formal parameters, and so on. Triples like (foo, bar, baz), on the other hand, are a property of an instantiated derivation – you could would attach a triple (mips-linux, mips-linux, sparc-solaris) to a .drv file in /nix/store.

Only nine dependency types matter in practice:

Possible dependency types

Dependency typeDependency’s host platformDependency’s target platform
build → *build(none)
build → buildbuildbuild
build → hostbuildhost
build → targetbuildtarget
host → *host(none)
host → hosthosthost
host → targethosttarget
target → *target(none)
target → targettargettarget

Let’s use g++ as an example to make this table clearer. g++ is a C++ compiler written in C. Suppose we are building g++ with a (build, host, target) platform triple of (foo, bar, baz). This means we are using a foo-machine to build a copy of g++ which will run on a bar-machine and emit binaries for the baz-machine.

  • g++ links against the host platform’s glibc C library, which is a “host→ *” dependency with a triple of (bar, bar, *). Since it is a library, not a compiler, it has no “target”.

  • Since g++ is written in C, the gcc compiler used to compile it is a “build→ host” dependency of g++ with a triple of (foo, foo, bar). This compiler runs on the build platform and emits code for the host platform.

  • gcc links against the build platform’s glibc C library, which is a “build→ *” dependency with a triple of (foo, foo, *). Since it is a library, not a compiler, it has no “target”.

  • This gcc is itself compiled by an earlier copy of gcc. This earlier copy of gcc is a “build→ build” dependency of g++ with a triple of (foo, foo, foo). This “early gcc” runs on the build platform and emits code for the build platform.

  • g++ is bundled with libgcc, which includes a collection of target-machine routines for exception handling and software floating point emulation. libgcc would be a “target→ *” dependency with triple (foo, baz, *), because it consists of machine code which gets linked against the output of the compiler that we are building. It is a library, not a compiler, so it has no target of its own.

  • libgcc is written in C and compiled with gcc. The gcc that compiles it will be a “build→ target” dependency with triple (foo, foo, baz). It gets compiled and run at g++-build-time (on platform foo), but must emit code for the baz-platform.

  • g++ allows inline assembler code, so it depends on access to a copy of the gas assembler. This would be a “host→ target” dependency with triple (foo, bar, baz).

  • g++ (and gcc) include a library libgccjit.so, which wrap the compiler in a library to create a just-in-time compiler. In nixpkgs, this library is in the libgccjit package; if C++ required that programs have access to a JIT, g++ would need to add a “target→ target” dependency for libgccjit with triple (foo, baz, baz). This would ensure that the compiler ships with a copy of libgccjit which both executes on and generates code for the baz-platform.

  • If g++ itself linked against libgccjit.so (for example, to allow compile-time-evaluated C++ expressions), then the libgccjit package used to provide this functionality would be a “host→ host” dependency of g++: it is code which runs on the host and emits code for execution on the host.

Cross packaging cookbook

Some frequently encountered problems when packaging for cross-compilation should be answered here. Ideally, the information above is exhaustive, so this section cannot provide any new information, but it is ludicrous and cruel to expect everyone to spend effort working through the interaction of many features just to figure out the same answer to the same common problem. Feel free to add to this list!

My package fails to find a binutils command (cc/ar/ld etc.)

Many packages assume that an unprefixed binutils (cc/ar/ld etc.) is available, but Nix doesn’t provide one. It only provides a prefixed one, just as it only does for all the other binutils programs. It may be necessary to patch the package to fix the build system to use a prefix. For instance, instead of cc, use ${stdenv.cc.targetPrefix}cc.

makeFlags = [ "CC=${stdenv.cc.targetPrefix}cc" ];

How do I avoid compiling a GCC cross-compiler from source?

On less powerful machines, it can be inconvenient to cross-compile a package only to find out that GCC has to be compiled from source, which could take up to several hours. Nixpkgs maintains a limited cross-related jobset on Hydra, which tests cross-compilation to various platforms from build platforms “x86_64-darwin”, “x86_64-linux”, and “aarch64-linux”. See pkgs/top-level/release-cross.nix for the full list of target platforms and packages. For instance, the following invocation fetches the pre-built cross-compiled GCC for armv6l-unknown-linux-gnueabihf and builds GNU Hello from source.

$ nix-build '<nixpkgs>' -A pkgsCross.raspberryPi.hello

What if my package’s build system needs to build a C program to be run under the build environment?

Add the following to your mkDerivation invocation.

depsBuildBuild = [ buildPackages.stdenv.cc ];

My package’s testsuite needs to run host platform code.

Add the following to your mkDerivation invocation.

doCheck = stdenv.buildPlatform.canExecute stdenv.hostPlatform;

Package using Meson needs to run binaries for the host platform during build.

Add mesonEmulatorHook to nativeBuildInputs conditionally on if the target binaries can be executed.

e.g.

nativeBuildInputs = [
  meson
] ++ lib.optionals (!stdenv.buildPlatform.canExecute stdenv.hostPlatform) [
  mesonEmulatorHook
];

Example of an error which this fixes.

[Errno 8] Exec format error: './gdk3-scan'

Cross-building packages

Nixpkgs can be instantiated with localSystem alone, in which case there is no cross-compiling and everything is built by and for that system, or also with crossSystem, in which case packages run on the latter, but all building happens on the former. Both parameters take the same schema as the 3 (build, host, and target) platforms defined in the previous section. As mentioned above, lib.systems.examples has some platforms which are used as arguments for these parameters in practice. You can use them programmatically, or on the command line:

$ nix-build '<nixpkgs>' --arg crossSystem '(import <nixpkgs/lib>).systems.examples.fooBarBaz' -A whatever

While one is free to pass both parameters in full, there’s a lot of logic to fill in missing fields. As discussed in the previous section, only one of system, config, and parsed is needed to infer the other two. Additionally, libc will be inferred from parse. Finally, localSystem.system is also impurely inferred based on the platform evaluation occurs. This means it is often not necessary to pass localSystem at all, as in the command-line example in the previous paragraph.

One would think that localSystem and crossSystem overlap horribly with the three *Platforms (buildPlatform, hostPlatform, and targetPlatform; see stage.nix or the manual). Actually, those identifiers are purposefully not used here to draw a subtle but important distinction: While the granularity of having 3 platforms is necessary to properly build packages, it is overkill for specifying the user’s intent when making a build plan or package set. A simple “build vs deploy” dichotomy is adequate: the sliding window principle described in the previous section shows how to interpolate between the these two “end points” to get the 3 platform triple for each bootstrapping stage. That means for any package a given package set, even those not bound on the top level but only reachable via dependencies or buildPackages, the three platforms will be defined as one of localSystem or crossSystem, with the former replacing the latter as one traverses build-time dependencies. A last simple difference is that crossSystem should be null when one doesn’t want to cross-compile, while the *Platforms are always non-null. localSystem is always non-null.

Cross-compilation infrastructure

Implementation of dependencies

The categories of dependencies developed in the section called “Theory of dependency categorization” are specified as lists of derivations given to mkDerivation, as documented in the section called “Specifying dependencies”. In short, each list of dependencies for “host → target” is called deps<host><target> (where host, and target values are either build, host, or target), with exceptions for backwards compatibility that depsBuildHost is instead called nativeBuildInputs and depsHostTarget is instead called buildInputs. Nixpkgs is now structured so that each deps<host><target> is automatically taken from pkgs<host><target>. (These pkgs<host><target>s are quite new, so there is no special case for nativeBuildInputs and buildInputs.) For example, pkgsBuildHost.gcc should be used at build-time, while pkgsHostTarget.gcc should be used at run-time.

Now, for most of Nixpkgs’s history, there were no pkgs<host><target> attributes, and most packages have not been refactored to use it explicitly. Prior to those, there were just buildPackages, pkgs, and targetPackages. Those are now redefined as aliases to pkgsBuildHost, pkgsHostTarget, and pkgsTargetTarget. It is acceptable, even recommended, to use them for libraries to show that the host platform is irrelevant.

But before that, there was just pkgs, even though both buildInputs and nativeBuildInputs existed. [Cross barely worked, and those were implemented with some hacks on mkDerivation to override dependencies.] What this means is the vast majority of packages do not use any explicit package set to populate their dependencies, just using whatever callPackage gives them even if they do correctly sort their dependencies into the multiple lists described above. And indeed, asking that users both sort their dependencies, and take them from the right attribute set, is both too onerous and redundant, so the recommended approach (for now) is to continue just categorizing by list and not using an explicit package set.

To make this work, we “splice” together the six pkgsFooBar package sets and have callPackage actually take its arguments from that. This is currently implemented in pkgs/top-level/splice.nix. mkDerivation then, for each dependency attribute, pulls the right derivation out from the splice. This splicing can be skipped when not cross-compiling as the package sets are the same, but still is a bit slow for cross-compiling. We’d like to do something better, but haven’t come up with anything yet.

Bootstrapping

Each of the package sets described above come from a single bootstrapping stage. While pkgs/top-level/default.nix, coordinates the composition of stages at a high level, pkgs/top-level/stage.nix “ties the knot” (creates the fixed point) of each stage. The package sets are defined per-stage however, so they can be thought of as edges between stages (the nodes) in a graph. Compositions like pkgsBuildTarget.targetPackages can be thought of as paths to this graph.

While there are many package sets, and thus many edges, the stages can also be arranged in a linear chain. In other words, many of the edges are redundant as far as connectivity is concerned. This hinges on the type of bootstrapping we do. Currently for cross it is:

  1. (native, native, native)

  2. (native, native, foreign)

  3. (native, foreign, foreign)

In each stage, pkgsBuildHost refers to the previous stage, pkgsBuildBuild refers to the one before that, and pkgsHostTarget refers to the current one, and pkgsTargetTarget refers to the next one. When there is no previous or next stage, they instead refer to the current stage. Note how all the invariants regarding the mapping between dependency and depending packages’ build host and target platforms are preserved. pkgsBuildTarget and pkgsHostHost are more complex in that the stage fitting the requirements isn’t always a fixed chain of “prevs” and “nexts” away (modulo the “saturating” self-references at the ends). We just special case each instead. All the primary edges are implemented is in pkgs/stdenv/booter.nix, and secondarily aliases in pkgs/top-level/stage.nix.

If one looks at the 3 platform triples, one can see that they overlap such that one could put them together into a chain like:

(native, native, native, foreign, foreign)

If one imagines the saturating self references at the end being replaced with infinite stages, and then overlays those platform triples, one ends up with the infinite tuple:

(native..., native, native, native, foreign, foreign, foreign...)

One can then imagine any sequence of platforms such that there are bootstrap stages with their 3 platforms determined by “sliding a window” that is the 3 tuple through the sequence. This was the original model for bootstrapping. Without a target platform (assume a better world where all compilers are multi-target and all standard libraries are built in their own derivation), this is sufficient. Conversely if one wishes to cross compile “faster”, with a “Canadian Cross” bootstrapping stage where build != host != target, more bootstrapping stages are needed since no sliding window provides the pesky pkgsBuildTarget package set since it skips the Canadian cross stage’s “host”.

Platform Notes

Table of Contents

Darwin (macOS)

Darwin (macOS)

Some common issues when packaging software for Darwin:

  • The Darwin stdenv uses clang instead of gcc. When referring to the compiler $CC or cc will work in both cases. Some builds hardcode gcc/g++ in their build scripts, that can usually be fixed with using something like makeFlags = [ "CC=cc" ]; or by patching the build scripts.

    stdenv.mkDerivation {
      name = "libfoo-1.2.3";
      # ...
      buildPhase = ''
        $CC -o hello hello.c
      '';
    }
    
  • On Darwin, libraries are linked using absolute paths, libraries are resolved by their install_name at link time. Sometimes packages won’t set this correctly causing the library lookups to fail at runtime. This can be fixed by adding extra linker flags or by running install_name_tool -id during the fixupPhase.

    stdenv.mkDerivation {
      name = "libfoo-1.2.3";
      # ...
      makeFlags = lib.optional stdenv.isDarwin "LDFLAGS=-Wl,-install_name,$(out)/lib/libfoo.dylib";
    }
    
  • Even if the libraries are linked using absolute paths and resolved via their install_name correctly, tests can sometimes fail to run binaries. This happens because the checkPhase runs before the libraries are installed.

    This can usually be solved by running the tests after the installPhase or alternatively by using DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH. More information about this variable can be found in the dyld(1) manpage.

    dyld: Library not loaded: /nix/store/7hnmbscpayxzxrixrgxvvlifzlxdsdir-jq-1.5-lib/lib/libjq.1.dylib
    Referenced from: /private/tmp/nix-build-jq-1.5.drv-0/jq-1.5/tests/../jq
    Reason: image not found
    ./tests/jqtest: line 5: 75779 Abort trap: 6
    
    stdenv.mkDerivation {
      name = "libfoo-1.2.3";
      # ...
      doInstallCheck = true;
      installCheckTarget = "check";
    }
    
  • Some packages assume xcode is available and use xcrun to resolve build tools like clang, etc. This causes errors like xcode-select: error: no developer tools were found at '/Applications/Xcode.app' while the build doesn’t actually depend on xcode.

    stdenv.mkDerivation {
      name = "libfoo-1.2.3";
      # ...
      prePatch = ''
        substituteInPlace Makefile \
            --replace '/usr/bin/xcrun clang' clang
      '';
    }
    

    The package xcbuild can be used to build projects that really depend on Xcode. However, this replacement is not 100% compatible with Xcode and can occasionally cause issues.

  • x86_64-darwin uses the 10.12 SDK by default, but some software is not compatible with that version of the SDK. In that case, the 11.0 SDK used by aarch64-darwin is available for use on x86_64-darwin. To use it, reference apple_sdk_11_0 instead of apple_sdk in your derivation and use pkgs.darwin.apple_sdk_11_0.callPackage instead of pkgs.callPackage. On Linux, this will have the same effect as pkgs.callPackage, so you can use pkgs.darwin.apple_sdk_11_0.callPackage regardless of platform.

Fetchers

Building software with Nix often requires downloading source code and other files from the internet. nixpkgs provides fetchers for different protocols and services. Fetchers are functions that simplify downloading files.

Caveats

Fetchers create fixed output derivations from downloaded files. Nix can reuse the downloaded files via the hash of the resulting derivation.

The fact that the hash belongs to the Nix derivation output and not the file itself can lead to confusion. For example, consider the following fetcher:

fetchurl {
  url = "http://www.example.org/hello-1.0.tar.gz";
  hash = "sha256-lTeyxzJNQeMdu1IVdovNMtgn77jRIhSybLdMbTkf2Ww=";
};

A common mistake is to update a fetcher’s URL, or a version parameter, without updating the hash.

fetchurl {
  url = "http://www.example.org/hello-1.1.tar.gz";
  hash = "sha256-lTeyxzJNQeMdu1IVdovNMtgn77jRIhSybLdMbTkf2Ww=";
};

This will reuse the old contents. Remember to invalidate the hash argument, in this case by setting the hash attribute to an empty string.

fetchurl {
  url = "http://www.example.org/hello-1.1.tar.gz";
  hash = "";
};

Use the resulting error message to determine the correct hash.

error: hash mismatch in fixed-output derivation '/path/to/my.drv':
         specified: sha256-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=
            got:    sha256-lTeyxzJNQeMdu1IVdovNMtgn77jRIhSybLdMbTkf2Ww=

A similar problem arises while testing changes to a fetcher’s implementation. If the output of the derivation already exists in the Nix store, test failures can go undetected. The invalidateFetcherByDrvHash function helps prevent reusing cached derivations.

fetchurl and fetchzip

Two basic fetchers are fetchurl and fetchzip. Both of these have two required arguments, a URL and a hash. The hash is typically hash, although many more hash algorithms are supported. Nixpkgs contributors are currently recommended to use hash. This hash will be used by Nix to identify your source. A typical usage of fetchurl is provided below.

{ stdenv, fetchurl }:

stdenv.mkDerivation {
  name = "hello";
  src = fetchurl {
    url = "http://www.example.org/hello.tar.gz";
    hash = "sha256-BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB=";
  };
}

The main difference between fetchurl and fetchzip is in how they store the contents. fetchurl will store the unaltered contents of the URL within the Nix store. fetchzip on the other hand, will decompress the archive for you, making files and directories directly accessible in the future. fetchzip can only be used with archives. Despite the name, fetchzip is not limited to .zip files and can also be used with any tarball.

fetchpatch

fetchpatch works very similarly to fetchurl with the same arguments expected. It expects patch files as a source and performs normalization on them before computing the checksum. For example, it will remove comments or other unstable parts that are sometimes added by version control systems and can change over time.

  • relative: Similar to using git-diff’s --relative flag, only keep changes inside the specified directory, making paths relative to it.

  • stripLen: Remove the first stripLen components of pathnames in the patch.

  • decode: Pipe the downloaded data through this command before processing it as a patch.

  • extraPrefix: Prefix pathnames by this string.

  • excludes: Exclude files matching these patterns (applies after the above arguments).

  • includes: Include only files matching these patterns (applies after the above arguments).

  • revert: Revert the patch.

Note that because the checksum is computed after applying these effects, using or modifying these arguments will have no effect unless the hash argument is changed as well.

Most other fetchers return a directory rather than a single file.

fetchDebianPatch

A wrapper around fetchpatch, which takes:

  • patch and hash: the patch’s filename, and its hash after normalization by fetchpatch ;

  • pname: the Debian source package’s name ;

  • version: the upstream version number ;

  • debianRevision: the Debian revision number if applicable ;

  • the area of the Debian archive: main (default), contrib, or non-free.

Here is an example of fetchDebianPatch in action:

{ lib
, fetchDebianPatch
, buildPythonPackage
}:

buildPythonPackage rec {
  pname = "pysimplesoap";
  version = "1.16.2";
  src = ...;

  patches = [
    (fetchDebianPatch {
      inherit pname version;
      debianRevision = "5";
      name = "Add-quotes-to-SOAPAction-header-in-SoapClient.patch";
      hash = "sha256-xA8Wnrpr31H8wy3zHSNfezFNjUJt1HbSXn3qUMzeKc0=";
    })
  ];

  ...
}

Patches are fetched from sources.debian.org, and so must come from a package version that was uploaded to the Debian archive. Packages may be removed from there once that specific version isn’t in any suite anymore (stable, testing, unstable, etc.), so maintainers should use copy-tarballs.pl to archive the patch if it needs to be available longer-term.

fetchsvn

Used with Subversion. Expects url to a Subversion directory, rev, and hash.

fetchgit

Used with Git. Expects url to a Git repo, rev, and hash. rev in this case can be full the git commit id (SHA1 hash) or a tag name like refs/tags/v1.0.

Additionally, the following optional arguments can be given: fetchSubmodules = true makes fetchgit also fetch the submodules of a repository. If deepClone is set to true, the entire repository is cloned as opposing to just creating a shallow clone. deepClone = true also implies leaveDotGit = true which means that the .git directory of the clone won’t be removed after checkout.

If only parts of the repository are needed, sparseCheckout can be used. This will prevent git from fetching unnecessary blobs from server, see git sparse-checkout for more information:

{ stdenv, fetchgit }:

stdenv.mkDerivation {
  name = "hello";
  src = fetchgit {
    url = "https://...";
    sparseCheckout = [
      "directory/to/be/included"
      "another/directory"
    ];
    hash = "sha256-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=";
  };
}

fetchfossil

Used with Fossil. Expects url to a Fossil archive, rev, and hash.

fetchcvs

Used with CVS. Expects cvsRoot, tag, and hash.

fetchhg

Used with Mercurial. Expects url, rev, and hash.

A number of fetcher functions wrap part of fetchurl and fetchzip. They are mainly convenience functions intended for commonly used destinations of source code in Nixpkgs. These wrapper fetchers are listed below.

fetchFromGitea

fetchFromGitea expects five arguments. domain is the gitea server name. owner is a string corresponding to the Gitea user or organization that controls this repository. repo corresponds to the name of the software repository. These are located at the top of every Gitea HTML page as owner/repo. rev corresponds to the Git commit hash or tag (e.g v1.0) that will be downloaded from Git. Finally, hash corresponds to the hash of the extracted directory. Again, other hash algorithms are also available but hash is currently preferred.

fetchFromGitHub

fetchFromGitHub expects four arguments. owner is a string corresponding to the GitHub user or organization that controls this repository. repo corresponds to the name of the software repository. These are located at the top of every GitHub HTML page as owner/repo. rev corresponds to the Git commit hash or tag (e.g v1.0) that will be downloaded from Git. Finally, hash corresponds to the hash of the extracted directory. Again, other hash algorithms are also available, but hash is currently preferred.

To use a different GitHub instance, use githubBase (defaults to "github.com").

fetchFromGitHub uses fetchzip to download the source archive generated by GitHub for the specified revision. If leaveDotGit, deepClone or fetchSubmodules are set to true, fetchFromGitHub will use fetchgit instead. Refer to its section for documentation of these options.

fetchFromGitLab

This is used with GitLab repositories. It behaves similarly to fetchFromGitHub, and expects owner, repo, rev, and hash.

To use a specific GitLab instance, use domain (defaults to "gitlab.com").

fetchFromGitiles

This is used with Gitiles repositories. The arguments expected are similar to fetchgit.

fetchFromBitbucket

This is used with BitBucket repositories. The arguments expected are very similar to fetchFromGitHub above.

fetchFromSavannah

This is used with Savannah repositories. The arguments expected are very similar to fetchFromGitHub above.

fetchFromRepoOrCz

This is used with repo.or.cz repositories. The arguments expected are very similar to fetchFromGitHub above.

fetchFromSourcehut

This is used with sourcehut repositories. Similar to fetchFromGitHub above, it expects owner, repo, rev and hash, but don’t forget the tilde (~) in front of the username! Expected arguments also include vc (“git” (default) or “hg”), domain and fetchSubmodules.

If fetchSubmodules is true, fetchFromSourcehut uses fetchgit or fetchhg with fetchSubmodules or fetchSubrepos set to true, respectively. Otherwise, the fetcher uses fetchzip.

requireFile

requireFile allows requesting files that cannot be fetched automatically, but whose content is known. This is a useful last-resort workaround for license restrictions that prohibit redistribution, or for downloads that are only accessible after authenticating interactively in a browser. If the requested file is present in the Nix store, the resulting derivation will not be built, because its expected output is already available. Otherwise, the builder will run, but fail with a message explaining to the user how to provide the file. The following code, for example:

requireFile {
  name = "jdk-${version}_linux-x64_bin.tar.gz";
  url = "https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase-jdk11-downloads.html";
  hash = "sha256-lL00+F7jjT71nlKJ7HRQuUQ7kkxVYlZh//5msD8sjeI=";
}

results in this error message:

***
Unfortunately, we cannot download file jdk-11.0.10_linux-x64_bin.tar.gz automatically.
Please go to https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase-jdk11-downloads.html to download it yourself, and add it to the Nix store
using either
  nix-store --add-fixed sha256 jdk-11.0.10_linux-x64_bin.tar.gz
or
  nix-prefetch-url --type sha256 file:///path/to/jdk-11.0.10_linux-x64_bin.tar.gz

***

Trivial builders

Nixpkgs provides a couple of functions that help with building derivations. The most important one, stdenv.mkDerivation, has already been documented above. The following functions wrap stdenv.mkDerivation, making it easier to use in certain cases.

runCommand

runCommand :: String -> AttrSet -> String -> Derivation

runCommand name drvAttrs buildCommand returns a derivation that is built by running the specified shell commands.

name :: String

The name that Nix will append to the store path in the same way that stdenv.mkDerivation uses its name attribute.

drvAttr :: AttrSet

Attributes to pass to the underlying call to stdenv.mkDerivation.

buildCommand :: String

Shell commands to run in the derivation builder.

Example 203. Invocation of runCommand

(import <nixpkgs> {}).runCommand "my-example" {} ''
  echo My example command is running

  mkdir $out

  echo I can write data to the Nix store > $out/message

  echo I can also run basic commands like:

  echo ls
  ls

  echo whoami
  whoami

  echo date
  date
''


runCommandCC

This works just like runCommand. The only difference is that it also provides a C compiler in buildCommand’s environment. To minimize your dependencies, you should only use this if you are sure you will need a C compiler as part of running your command.

runCommandLocal

Variant of runCommand that forces the derivation to be built locally, it is not substituted. This is intended for very cheap commands (<1s execution time). It saves on the network round-trip and can speed up a build.

writeTextFile, writeText, writeTextDir, writeScript, writeScriptBin

These functions write text to the Nix store. This is useful for creating scripts from Nix expressions. writeTextFile takes an attribute set and expects two arguments, name and text. name corresponds to the name used in the Nix store path. text will be the contents of the file. You can also set executable to true to make this file have the executable bit set.

Many more commands wrap writeTextFile including writeText, writeTextDir, writeScript, and writeScriptBin. These are convenience functions over writeTextFile.

Here are a few examples:

# Writes my-file to /nix/store/<store path>
writeTextFile {
  name = "my-file";
  text = ''
    Contents of File
  '';
}
# See also the `writeText` helper function below.

# Writes executable my-file to /nix/store/<store path>/bin/my-file
writeTextFile {
  name = "my-file";
  text = ''
    Contents of File
  '';
  executable = true;
  destination = "/bin/my-file";
}
# Writes contents of file to /nix/store/<store path>
writeText "my-file"
  ''
  Contents of File
  '';
# Writes contents of file to /nix/store/<store path>/share/my-file
writeTextDir "share/my-file"
  ''
  Contents of File
  '';
# Writes my-file to /nix/store/<store path> and makes executable
writeScript "my-file"
  ''
  Contents of File
  '';
# Writes my-file to /nix/store/<store path>/bin/my-file and makes executable.
writeScriptBin "my-file"
  ''
  Contents of File
  '';
# Writes my-file to /nix/store/<store path> and makes executable.
writeShellScript "my-file"
  ''
  Contents of File
  '';
# Writes my-file to /nix/store/<store path>/bin/my-file and makes executable.
writeShellScriptBin "my-file"
  ''
  Contents of File
  '';

concatTextFile, concatText, concatScript

These functions concatenate files to the Nix store in a single file. This is useful for configuration files structured in lines of text. concatTextFile takes an attribute set and expects two arguments, name and files. name corresponds to the name used in the Nix store path. files will be the files to be concatenated. You can also set executable to true to make this file have the executable bit set. concatText andconcatScript are simple wrappers over concatTextFile.

Here are a few examples:


# Writes my-file to /nix/store/<store path>
concatTextFile {
  name = "my-file";
  files = [ drv1 "${drv2}/path/to/file" ];
}
# See also the `concatText` helper function below.

# Writes executable my-file to /nix/store/<store path>/bin/my-file
concatTextFile {
  name = "my-file";
  files = [ drv1 "${drv2}/path/to/file" ];
  executable = true;
  destination = "/bin/my-file";
}
# Writes contents of files to /nix/store/<store path>
concatText "my-file" [ file1 file2 ]

# Writes contents of files to /nix/store/<store path>
concatScript "my-file" [ file1 file2 ]

writeShellApplication

This can be used to easily produce a shell script that has some dependencies (runtimeInputs). It automatically sets the PATH of the script to contain all of the listed inputs, sets some sanity shellopts (errexit, nounset, pipefail), and checks the resulting script with shellcheck.

For example, look at the following code:

writeShellApplication {
  name = "show-nixos-org";

  runtimeInputs = [ curl w3m ];

  text = ''
    curl -s 'https://nixos.org' | w3m -dump -T text/html
  '';
}

Unlike with normal writeShellScriptBin, there is no need to manually write out ${curl}/bin/curl, setting the PATH was handled by writeShellApplication. Moreover, the script is being checked with shellcheck for more strict validation.

symlinkJoin

This can be used to put many derivations into the same directory structure. It works by creating a new derivation and adding symlinks to each of the paths listed. It expects two arguments, name, and paths. name is the name used in the Nix store path for the created derivation. paths is a list of paths that will be symlinked. These paths can be to Nix store derivations or any other subdirectory contained within. Here is an example:

# adds symlinks of hello and stack to current build and prints "links added"
symlinkJoin { name = "myexample"; paths = [ pkgs.hello pkgs.stack ]; postBuild = "echo links added"; }

This creates a derivation with a directory structure like the following:

/nix/store/sglsr5g079a5235hy29da3mq3hv8sjmm-myexample
|-- bin
|   |-- hello -> /nix/store/qy93dp4a3rqyn2mz63fbxjg228hffwyw-hello-2.10/bin/hello
|   `-- stack -> /nix/store/6lzdpxshx78281vy056lbk553ijsdr44-stack-2.1.3.1/bin/stack
`-- share
    |-- bash-completion
    |   `-- completions
    |       `-- stack -> /nix/store/6lzdpxshx78281vy056lbk553ijsdr44-stack-2.1.3.1/share/bash-completion/completions/stack
    |-- fish
    |   `-- vendor_completions.d
    |       `-- stack.fish -> /nix/store/6lzdpxshx78281vy056lbk553ijsdr44-stack-2.1.3.1/share/fish/vendor_completions.d/stack.fish
...

writeReferencesToFile

Writes the closure of transitive dependencies to a file.

This produces the equivalent of nix-store -q --requisites.

For example,

writeReferencesToFile (writeScriptBin "hi" ''${hello}/bin/hello'')

produces an output path /nix/store/<hash>-runtime-deps containing

/nix/store/<hash>-hello-2.10
/nix/store/<hash>-hi
/nix/store/<hash>-libidn2-2.3.0
/nix/store/<hash>-libunistring-0.9.10
/nix/store/<hash>-glibc-2.32-40

You can see that this includes hi, the original input path, hello, which is a direct reference, but also the other paths that are indirectly required to run hello.

writeDirectReferencesToFile

Writes the set of references to the output file, that is, their immediate dependencies.

This produces the equivalent of nix-store -q --references.

For example,

writeDirectReferencesToFile (writeScriptBin "hi" ''${hello}/bin/hello'')

produces an output path /nix/store/<hash>-runtime-references containing

/nix/store/<hash>-hello-2.10

but none of hello’s dependencies because those are not referenced directly by hi’s output.

Testers

This chapter describes several testing builders which are available in the testers namespace.

hasPkgConfigModules

Checks whether a package exposes a given list of pkg-config modules. If the moduleNames argument is omitted, hasPkgConfigModules will use meta.pkgConfigModules.

Example:

passthru.tests.pkg-config = testers.hasPkgConfigModules {
  package = finalAttrs.finalPackage;
  moduleNames = [ "libfoo" ];
};

If the package in question has meta.pkgConfigModules set, it is even simpler:

passthru.tests.pkg-config = testers.hasPkgConfigModules {
  package = finalAttrs.finalPackage;
};

meta.pkgConfigModules = [ "libfoo" ];

testVersion

Checks the command output contains the specified version

Although simplistic, this test assures that the main program can run. While there’s no substitute for a real test case, it does catch dynamic linking errors and such. It also provides some protection against accidentally building the wrong version, for example when using an ‘old’ hash in a fixed-output derivation.

Examples:

passthru.tests.version = testers.testVersion { package = hello; };

passthru.tests.version = testers.testVersion {
  package = seaweedfs;
  command = "weed version";
};

passthru.tests.version = testers.testVersion {
  package = key;
  command = "KeY --help";
  # Wrong '2.5' version in the code. Drop on next version.
  version = "2.5";
};

passthru.tests.version = testers.testVersion {
  package = ghr;
  # The output needs to contain the 'version' string without any prefix or suffix.
  version = "v${version}";
};

testBuildFailure

Make sure that a build does not succeed. This is useful for testing testers.

This returns a derivation with an override on the builder, with the following effects:

  • Fail the build when the original builder succeeds

  • Move $out to $out/result, if it exists (assuming out is the default output)

  • Save the build log to $out/testBuildFailure.log (same)

Example:

runCommand "example" {
  failed = testers.testBuildFailure (runCommand "fail" {} ''
    echo ok-ish >$out
    echo failing though
    exit 3
  '');
} ''
  grep -F 'ok-ish' $failed/result
  grep -F 'failing though' $failed/testBuildFailure.log
  [[ 3 = $(cat $failed/testBuildFailure.exit) ]]
  touch $out
'';

While testBuildFailure is designed to keep changes to the original builder’s environment to a minimum, some small changes are inevitable.

  • The file $TMPDIR/testBuildFailure.log is present. It should not be deleted.

  • stdout and stderr are a pipe instead of a tty. This could be improved.

  • One or two extra processes are present in the sandbox during the original builder’s execution.

  • The derivation and output hashes are different, but not unusual.

  • The derivation includes a dependency on buildPackages.bash and expect-failure.sh, which is built to include a transitive dependency on buildPackages.coreutils and possibly more. These are not added to PATH or any other environment variable, so they should be hard to observe.

testEqualContents

Check that two paths have the same contents.

Example:

testers.testEqualContents {
  assertion = "sed -e performs replacement";
  expected = writeText "expected" ''
    foo baz baz
  '';
  actual = runCommand "actual" {
    # not really necessary for a package that's in stdenv
    nativeBuildInputs = [ gnused ];
    base = writeText "base" ''
      foo bar baz
    '';
  } ''
    sed -e 's/bar/baz/g' $base >$out
  '';
}

testEqualDerivation

Checks that two packages produce the exact same build instructions.

This can be used to make sure that a certain difference of configuration, such as the presence of an overlay does not cause a cache miss.

When the derivations are equal, the return value is an empty file. Otherwise, the build log explains the difference via nix-diff.

Example:

testers.testEqualDerivation
  "The hello package must stay the same when enabling checks."
  hello
  (hello.overrideAttrs(o: { doCheck = true; }))

invalidateFetcherByDrvHash

Use the derivation hash to invalidate the output via name, for testing.

Type: (a@{ name, ... } -> Derivation) -> a -> Derivation

Normally, fixed output derivations can and should be cached by their output hash only, but for testing we want to re-fetch everytime the fetcher changes.

Changes to the fetcher become apparent in the drvPath, which is a hash of how to fetch, rather than a fixed store path. By inserting this hash into the name, we can make sure to re-run the fetcher every time the fetcher changes.

This relies on the assumption that Nix isn’t clever enough to reuse its database of local store contents to optimize fetching.

You might notice that the “salted” name derives from the normal invocation, not the final derivation. invalidateFetcherByDrvHash has to invoke the fetcher function twice: once to get a derivation hash, and again to produce the final fixed output derivation.

Example:

tests.fetchgit = testers.invalidateFetcherByDrvHash fetchgit {
  name = "nix-source";
  url = "https://github.com/NixOS/nix";
  rev = "9d9dbe6ed05854e03811c361a3380e09183f4f4a";
  hash = "sha256-7DszvbCNTjpzGRmpIVAWXk20P0/XTrWZ79KSOGLrUWY=";
};

runNixOSTest

A helper function that behaves exactly like the NixOS runTest, except it also assigns this Nixpkgs package set as the pkgs of the test and makes the nixpkgs.* options read-only.

If your test is part of the Nixpkgs repository, or if you need a more general entrypoint, see “Calling a test” in the NixOS manual.

Example:

pkgs.testers.runNixOSTest ({ lib, ... }: {
  name = "hello";
  nodes.machine = { pkgs, ... }: {
    environment.systemPackages = [ pkgs.hello ];
  };
  testScript = ''
    machine.succeed("hello")
  '';
})

nixosTest

Run a NixOS VM network test using this evaluation of Nixpkgs.

NOTE: This function is primarily for external use. NixOS itself uses make-test-python.nix directly. Packages defined in Nixpkgs reuse NixOS tests via nixosTests, plural.

It is mostly equivalent to the function import ./make-test-python.nix from the NixOS manual, except that the current application of Nixpkgs (pkgs) will be used, instead of letting NixOS invoke Nixpkgs anew.

If a test machine needs to set NixOS options under nixpkgs, it must set only the nixpkgs.pkgs option.

Parameter

A NixOS VM test network, or path to it. Example:

{
  name = "my-test";
  nodes = {
    machine1 = { lib, pkgs, nodes, ... }: {
      environment.systemPackages = [ pkgs.hello ];
      services.foo.enable = true;
    };
    # machine2 = ...;
  };
  testScript = ''
    start_all()
    machine1.wait_for_unit("foo.service")
    machine1.succeed("hello | foo-send")
  '';
}

Result

A derivation that runs the VM test.

Notable attributes:

  • nodes: the evaluated NixOS configurations. Useful for debugging and exploring the configuration.

  • driverInteractive: a script that launches an interactive Python session in the context of the testScript.

Special builders

This chapter describes several special builders.

buildFHSEnv

buildFHSEnv provides a way to build and run FHS-compatible lightweight sandboxes. It creates an isolated root filesystem with the host’s /nix/store, so its footprint in terms of disk space is quite small. This allows you to run software which is hard or unfeasible to patch for NixOS; 3rd-party source trees with FHS assumptions, games distributed as tarballs, software with integrity checking and/or external self-updated binaries for instance. It uses Linux’ namespaces feature to create temporary lightweight environments which are destroyed after all child processes exit, without requiring elevated privileges. It works similar to containerisation technology such as Docker or FlatPak but provides no security-relevant separation from the host system.

Accepted arguments are:

  • name The name of the environment and the wrapper executable.

  • targetPkgs Packages to be installed for the main host’s architecture (i.e. x86_64 on x86_64 installations). Along with libraries binaries are also installed.

  • multiPkgs Packages to be installed for all architectures supported by a host (i.e. i686 and x86_64 on x86_64 installations). Only libraries are installed by default.

  • multiArch Whether to install 32bit multiPkgs into the FHSEnv in 64bit environments

  • extraBuildCommands Additional commands to be executed for finalizing the directory structure.

  • extraBuildCommandsMulti Like extraBuildCommands, but executed only on multilib architectures.

  • extraOutputsToInstall Additional derivation outputs to be linked for both target and multi-architecture packages.

  • extraInstallCommands Additional commands to be executed for finalizing the derivation with runner script.

  • runScript A shell command to be executed inside the sandbox. It defaults to bash. Command line arguments passed to the resulting wrapper are appended to this command by default. This command must be escaped; i.e. "foo app" --do-stuff --with "some file". See lib.escapeShellArgs.

  • profile Optional script for /etc/profile within the sandbox.

You can create a simple environment using a shell.nix like this:

{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:

(pkgs.buildFHSEnv {
  name = "simple-x11-env";
  targetPkgs = pkgs: (with pkgs; [
    udev
    alsa-lib
  ]) ++ (with pkgs.xorg; [
    libX11
    libXcursor
    libXrandr
  ]);
  multiPkgs = pkgs: (with pkgs; [
    udev
    alsa-lib
  ]);
  runScript = "bash";
}).env

Running nix-shell on it would drop you into a shell inside an FHS env where those libraries and binaries are available in FHS-compliant paths. Applications that expect an FHS structure (i.e. proprietary binaries) can run inside this environment without modification. You can build a wrapper by running your binary in runScript, e.g. ./bin/start.sh. Relative paths work as expected.

Additionally, the FHS builder links all relocated gsettings-schemas (the glib setup-hook moves them to share/gsettings-schemas/${name}/glib-2.0/schemas) to their standard FHS location. This means you don’t need to wrap binaries with wrapGAppsHook.

pkgs.makeSetupHook

pkgs.makeSetupHook is a builder that produces hooks that go in to nativeBuildInputs

Usage

pkgs.makeSetupHook {
  name = "something-hook";
  propagatedBuildInputs = [ pkgs.commandsomething ];
  depsTargetTargetPropagated = [ pkgs.libsomething ];
} ./script.sh

setup hook that depends on the hello package and runs hello and @shell@ is substituted with path to bash

pkgs.makeSetupHook {
    name = "run-hello-hook";
    propagatedBuildInputs = [ pkgs.hello ];
    substitutions = { shell = "${pkgs.bash}/bin/bash"; };
    passthru.tests.greeting = callPackage ./test { };
    meta.platforms = lib.platforms.linux;
} (writeScript "run-hello-hook.sh" ''
    #!@shell@
    hello
'')

Attributes

  • name Set the name of the hook.

  • propagatedBuildInputs Runtime dependencies (such as binaries) of the hook.

  • depsTargetTargetPropagated Non-binary dependencies.

  • meta

  • passthru

  • substitutions Variables for substituteAll

pkgs.mkShell

pkgs.mkShell is a specialized stdenv.mkDerivation that removes some repetition when using it with nix-shell (or nix develop).

Usage

Here is a common usage example:

{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:
pkgs.mkShell {
  packages = [ pkgs.gnumake ];

  inputsFrom = [ pkgs.hello pkgs.gnutar ];

  shellHook = ''
    export DEBUG=1
  '';
}

Attributes

  • name (default: nix-shell). Set the name of the derivation.

  • packages (default: []). Add executable packages to the nix-shell environment.

  • inputsFrom (default: []). Add build dependencies of the listed derivations to the nix-shell environment.

  • shellHook (default: ""). Bash statements that are executed by nix-shell.

… all the attributes of stdenv.mkDerivation.

Building the shell

This derivation output will contain a text file that contains a reference to all the build inputs. This is useful in CI where we want to make sure that every derivation, and its dependencies, build properly. Or when creating a GC root so that the build dependencies don’t get garbage-collected.

darwin.linux-builder

darwin.linux-builder provides a way to bootstrap a Linux builder on a macOS machine.

This requires macOS version 12.4 or later.

The builder runs on host port 31022 by default. You can change it by overriding virtualisation.darwin-builder.hostPort. See the example.

You will also need to be a trusted user for your Nix installation. In other words, your /etc/nix/nix.conf should have something like:

extra-trusted-users = <your username goes here>

To launch the builder, run the following flake:

$ nix run nixpkgs#darwin.linux-builder

That will prompt you to enter your sudo password:

+ sudo --reset-timestamp /nix/store/…-install-credentials.sh ./keys
Password:

… so that it can install a private key used to ssh into the build server. After that the script will launch the virtual machine and automatically log you in as the builder user:

<<< Welcome to NixOS 22.11.20220901.1bd8d11 (aarch64) - ttyAMA0 >>>

Run 'nixos-help' for the NixOS manual.

nixos login: builder (automatic login)


[builder@nixos:~]$

Note: When you need to stop the VM, run shutdown now as the builder user.

To delegate builds to the remote builder, add the following options to your nix.conf file:

# - Replace ${ARCH} with either aarch64 or x86_64 to match your host machine
# - Replace ${MAX_JOBS} with the maximum number of builds (pick 4 if you're not sure)
builders = ssh-ng://builder@linux-builder ${ARCH}-linux /etc/nix/builder_ed25519 ${MAX_JOBS} - - - c3NoLWVkMjU1MTkgQUFBQUMzTnphQzFsWkRJMU5URTVBQUFBSUpCV2N4Yi9CbGFxdDFhdU90RStGOFFVV3JVb3RpQzVxQkorVXVFV2RWQ2Igcm9vdEBuaXhvcwo=

# Not strictly necessary, but this will reduce your disk utilization
builders-use-substitutes = true

To allow Nix to connect to a builder not running on port 22, you will also need to create a new file at /etc/ssh/ssh_config.d/100-linux-builder.conf:

Host linux-builder
  Hostname localhost
  HostKeyAlias linux-builder
  Port 31022

… and then restart your Nix daemon to apply the change:

$ sudo launchctl kickstart -k system/org.nixos.nix-daemon

Example flake usage

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:nixos/nixpkgs/nixpkgs-22.11-darwin";
    darwin.url = "github:lnl7/nix-darwin/master";
    darwin.inputs.nixpkgs.follows = "nixpkgs";
  };

  outputs = { self, darwin, nixpkgs, ... }@inputs:
  let

    inherit (darwin.lib) darwinSystem;
    system = "aarch64-darwin";
    pkgs = nixpkgs.legacyPackages."${system}";
    linuxSystem = builtins.replaceStrings [ "darwin" ] [ "linux" ] system;

    darwin-builder = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
      system = linuxSystem;
      modules = [
        "${nixpkgs}/nixos/modules/profiles/macos-builder.nix"
        { virtualisation.host.pkgs = pkgs; }
      ];
    };
  in {

    darwinConfigurations = {
      machine1 = darwinSystem {
        inherit system;
        modules = [
          {
            nix.distributedBuilds = true;
            nix.buildMachines = [{
              hostName = "ssh://builder@localhost";
              system = linuxSystem;
              maxJobs = 4;
              supportedFeatures = [ "kvm" "benchmark" "big-parallel" ];
            }];

            launchd.daemons.darwin-builder = {
              command = "${darwin-builder.config.system.build.macos-builder-installer}/bin/create-builder";
              serviceConfig = {
                KeepAlive = true;
                RunAtLoad = true;
                StandardOutPath = "/var/log/darwin-builder.log";
                StandardErrorPath = "/var/log/darwin-builder.log";
              };
            };
          }
        ];
      };
    };

  };
}

Reconfiguring the builder

Initially you should not change the builder configuration else you will not be able to use the binary cache. However, after you have the builder running locally you may use it to build a modified builder with additional storage or memory.

To do this, you just need to set the virtualisation.darwin-builder.* parameters as in the example below and rebuild.

    darwin-builder = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
      system = linuxSystem;
      modules = [
        "${nixpkgs}/nixos/modules/profiles/macos-builder.nix"
        {
          virtualisation.host.pkgs = pkgs;
          virtualisation.darwin-builder.diskSize = 5120;
          virtualisation.darwin-builder.memorySize = 1024;
          virtualisation.darwin-builder.hostPort = 33022;
          virtualisation.darwin-builder.workingDirectory = "/var/lib/darwin-builder";
        }
      ];

You may make any other changes to your VM in this attribute set. For example, you could enable Docker or X11 forwarding to your Darwin host.

vmTools

A set of VM related utilities, that help in building some packages in more advanced scenarios.

vmTools.createEmptyImage

A bash script fragment that produces a disk image at destination.

Attributes

  • size. The disk size, in MiB.

  • fullName. Name that will be written to ${destination}/nix-support/full-name.

  • destination (optional, default $out). Where to write the image files.

vmTools.runInLinuxVM

Run a derivation in a Linux virtual machine (using Qemu/KVM). By default, there is no disk image; the root filesystem is a tmpfs, and the Nix store is shared with the host (via the 9P protocol). Thus, any pure Nix derivation should run unmodified.

If the build fails and Nix is run with the -K/--keep-failed option, a script run-vm will be left behind in the temporary build directory that allows you to boot into the VM and debug it interactively.

Attributes

  • preVM (optional). Shell command to be evaluated before the VM is started (i.e., on the host).

  • memSize (optional, default 512). The memory size of the VM in MiB.

  • diskImage (optional). A file system image to be attached to /dev/sda. Note that currently we expect the image to contain a filesystem, not a full disk image with a partition table etc.

Examples

Build the derivation hello inside a VM:

{ pkgs }: with pkgs; with vmTools;
runInLinuxVM hello

Build inside a VM with extra memory:

{ pkgs }: with pkgs; with vmTools;
runInLinuxVM (hello.overrideAttrs (_: { memSize = 1024; }))

Use VM with a disk image (implicitly sets diskImage, see vmTools.createEmptyImage):

{ pkgs }: with pkgs; with vmTools;
runInLinuxVM (hello.overrideAttrs (_: {
  preVM = createEmptyImage {
    size = 1024;
    fullName = "vm-image";
  };
}))

vmTools.extractFs

Takes a file, such as an ISO, and extracts its contents into the store.

Attributes

  • file. Path to the file to be extracted. Note that currently we expect the image to contain a filesystem, not a full disk image with a partition table etc.

  • fs (optional). Filesystem of the contents of the file.

Examples

Extract the contents of an ISO file:

{ pkgs }: with pkgs; with vmTools;
extractFs { file = ./image.iso; }

vmTools.extractMTDfs

Like the section called “vmTools.extractFs, but it makes use of a Memory Technology Device (MTD).

vmTools.runInLinuxImage

Like the section called “vmTools.runInLinuxVM, but instead of using stdenv from the Nix store, run the build using the tools provided by /bin, /usr/bin, etc. from the specified filesystem image, which typically is a filesystem containing a FHS-based Linux distribution.

vmTools.makeImageTestScript

Generate a script that can be used to run an interactive session in the given image.

Examples

Create a script for running a Fedora 27 VM:

{ pkgs }: with pkgs; with vmTools;
makeImageTestScript diskImages.fedora27x86_64

Create a script for running an Ubuntu 20.04 VM:

{ pkgs }: with pkgs; with vmTools;
makeImageTestScript diskImages.ubuntu2004x86_64

vmTools.diskImageFuns

A set of functions that build a predefined set of minimal Linux distributions images.

Images

  • Fedora

    • fedora26x86_64

    • fedora27x86_64

  • CentOS

    • centos6i386

    • centos6x86_64

    • centos7x86_64

  • Ubuntu

    • ubuntu1404i386

    • ubuntu1404x86_64

    • ubuntu1604i386

    • ubuntu1604x86_64

    • ubuntu1804i386

    • ubuntu1804x86_64

    • ubuntu2004i386

    • ubuntu2004x86_64

    • ubuntu2204i386

    • ubuntu2204x86_64

  • Debian

    • debian10i386

    • debian10x86_64

    • debian11i386

    • debian11x86_64

Attributes

  • size (optional, defaults to 4096). The size of the image, in MiB.

  • extraPackages (optional). A list names of additional packages from the distribution that should be included in the image.

Examples

8GiB image containing Firefox in addition to the default packages:

{ pkgs }: with pkgs; with vmTools;
diskImageFuns.ubuntu2004x86_64 { extraPackages = [ "firefox" ]; size = 8192; }

vmTools.diskImageExtraFuns

Shorthand for vmTools.diskImageFuns.<attr> { extraPackages = ... }.

vmTools.diskImages

Shorthand for vmTools.diskImageFuns.<attr> { }.

Images

This chapter describes tools for creating various types of images.

pkgs.appimageTools

pkgs.appimageTools is a set of functions for extracting and wrapping AppImage files. They are meant to be used if traditional packaging from source is infeasible, or it would take too long. To quickly run an AppImage file, pkgs.appimage-run can be used as well.

AppImage formats

There are different formats for AppImages, see the specification for details.

  • Type 1 images are ISO 9660 files that are also ELF executables.

  • Type 2 images are ELF executables with an appended filesystem.

They can be told apart with file -k:

$ file -k type1.AppImage
type1.AppImage: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV) ISO 9660 CD-ROM filesystem data 'AppImage' (Lepton 3.x), scale 0-0,
spot sensor temperature 0.000000, unit celsius, color scheme 0, calibration: offset 0.000000, slope 0.000000, dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, for GNU/Linux 2.6.18, BuildID[sha1]=d629f6099d2344ad82818172add1d38c5e11bc6d, stripped\012- data

$ file -k type2.AppImage
type2.AppImage: ELF 64-bit LSB executable, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV) (Lepton 3.x), scale 232-60668, spot sensor temperature -4.187500, color scheme 15, show scale bar, calibration: offset -0.000000, slope 0.000000 (Lepton 2.x), scale 4111-45000, spot sensor temperature 412442.250000, color scheme 3, minimum point enabled, calibration: offset -75402534979642766821519867692934234112.000000, slope 5815371847733706829839455140374904832.000000, dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, for GNU/Linux 2.6.18, BuildID[sha1]=79dcc4e55a61c293c5e19edbd8d65b202842579f, stripped\012- data

Note how the type 1 AppImage is described as an ISO 9660 CD-ROM filesystem, and the type 2 AppImage is not.

Wrapping

Depending on the type of AppImage you’re wrapping, you’ll have to use wrapType1 or wrapType2.

appimageTools.wrapType2 { # or wrapType1
  name = "patchwork";
  src = fetchurl {
    url = "https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork/releases/download/v3.11.4/Patchwork-3.11.4-linux-x86_64.AppImage";
    hash = "sha256-OqTitCeZ6xmWbqYTXp8sDrmVgTNjPZNW0hzUPW++mq4=";
  };
  extraPkgs = pkgs: with pkgs; [ ];
}
  • name specifies the name of the resulting image.

  • src specifies the AppImage file to extract.

  • extraPkgs allows you to pass a function to include additional packages inside the FHS environment your AppImage is going to run in. There are a few ways to learn which dependencies an application needs:

    • Looking through the extracted AppImage files, reading its scripts and running patchelf and ldd on its executables. This can also be done in appimage-run, by setting APPIMAGE_DEBUG_EXEC=bash.

    • Running strace -vfefile on the wrapped executable, looking for libraries that can’t be found.

pkgs.dockerTools

pkgs.dockerTools is a set of functions for creating and manipulating Docker images according to the Docker Image Specification v1.2.0. Docker itself is not used to perform any of the operations done by these functions.

buildImage

This function is analogous to the docker build command, in that it can be used to build a Docker-compatible repository tarball containing a single image with one or multiple layers. As such, the result is suitable for being loaded in Docker with docker load.

The parameters of buildImage with relative example values are described below:

buildImage {
  name = "redis";
  tag = "latest";

  fromImage = someBaseImage;
  fromImageName = null;
  fromImageTag = "latest";

  copyToRoot = pkgs.buildEnv {
    name = "image-root";
    paths = [ pkgs.redis ];
    pathsToLink = [ "/bin" ];
  };

  runAsRoot = ''
    #!${pkgs.runtimeShell}
    mkdir -p /data
  '';

  config = {
    Cmd = [ "/bin/redis-server" ];
    WorkingDir = "/data";
    Volumes = { "/data" = { }; };
  };

  diskSize = 1024;
  buildVMMemorySize = 512;
}

The above example will build a Docker image redis/latest from the given base image. Loading and running this image in Docker results in redis-server being started automatically.

  • name specifies the name of the resulting image. This is the only required argument for buildImage.

  • tag specifies the tag of the resulting image. By default it’s null, which indicates that the nix output hash will be used as tag.

  • fromImage is the repository tarball containing the base image. It must be a valid Docker image, such as exported by docker save. By default it’s null, which can be seen as equivalent to FROM scratch of a Dockerfile.

  • fromImageName can be used to further specify the base image within the repository, in case it contains multiple images. By default it’s null, in which case buildImage will peek the first image available in the repository.

  • fromImageTag can be used to further specify the tag of the base image within the repository, in case an image contains multiple tags. By default it’s null, in which case buildImage will peek the first tag available for the base image.

  • copyToRoot is a derivation that will be copied in the new layer of the resulting image. This can be similarly seen as ADD contents/ / in a Dockerfile. By default it’s null.

  • runAsRoot is a bash script that will run as root in an environment that overlays the existing layers of the base image with the new resulting layer, including the previously copied contents derivation. This can be similarly seen as RUN ... in a Dockerfile.

NOTE: Using this parameter requires the kvm device to be available.

  • config is used to specify the configuration of the containers that will be started off the built image in Docker. The available options are listed in the Docker Image Specification v1.2.0.

  • architecture is optional and used to specify the image architecture, this is useful for multi-architecture builds that don’t need cross compiling. If not specified it will default to hostPlatform.

  • diskSize is used to specify the disk size of the VM used to build the image in megabytes. By default it’s 1024 MiB.

  • buildVMMemorySize is used to specify the memory size of the VM to build the image in megabytes. By default it’s 512 MiB.

After the new layer has been created, its closure (to which contents, config and runAsRoot contribute) will be copied in the layer itself. Only new dependencies that are not already in the existing layers will be copied.

At the end of the process, only one new single layer will be produced and added to the resulting image.

The resulting repository will only list the single image image/tag. In the case of the buildImage example, it would be redis/latest.

It is possible to inspect the arguments with which an image was built using its buildArgs attribute.

NOTE: If you see errors similar to getProtocolByName: does not exist (no such protocol name: tcp) you may need to add pkgs.iana-etc to contents.

NOTE: If you see errors similar to Error_Protocol ("certificate has unknown CA",True,UnknownCa) you may need to add pkgs.cacert to contents.

By default buildImage will use a static date of one second past the UNIX Epoch. This allows buildImage to produce binary reproducible images. When listing images with docker images, the newly created images will be listed like this:

$ docker images
REPOSITORY   TAG      IMAGE ID       CREATED        SIZE
hello        latest   08c791c7846e   48 years ago   25.2MB

You can break binary reproducibility but have a sorted, meaningful CREATED column by setting created to now.

pkgs.dockerTools.buildImage {
  name = "hello";
  tag = "latest";
  created = "now";
  copyToRoot = pkgs.buildEnv {
    name = "image-root";
    paths = [ pkgs.hello ];
    pathsToLink = [ "/bin" ];
  };

  config.Cmd = [ "/bin/hello" ];
}

Now the Docker CLI will display a reasonable date and sort the images as expected:

$ docker images
REPOSITORY   TAG      IMAGE ID       CREATED              SIZE
hello        latest   de2bf4786de6   About a minute ago   25.2MB

However, the produced images will not be binary reproducible.

buildLayeredImage

Create a Docker image with many of the store paths being on their own layer to improve sharing between images. The image is realized into the Nix store as a gzipped tarball. Depending on the intended usage, many users might prefer to use streamLayeredImage instead, which this function uses internally.

name

The name of the resulting image.

tag optional

Tag of the generated image.

Default: the output path’s hash

fromImage optional

The repository tarball containing the base image. It must be a valid Docker image, such as one exported by docker save.

Default: null, which can be seen as equivalent to FROM scratch of a Dockerfile.

contents optional

Top-level paths in the container. Either a single derivation, or a list of derivations.

Default: []

config optional

architecture is optional and used to specify the image architecture, this is useful for multi-architecture builds that don’t need cross compiling. If not specified it will default to hostPlatform.

Run-time configuration of the container. A full list of the options available is in the Docker Image Specification v1.2.0.

Default: {}

created optional

Date and time the layers were created. Follows the same now exception supported by buildImage.

Default: 1970-01-01T00:00:01Z

maxLayers optional

Maximum number of layers to create.

Default: 100

Maximum: 125

extraCommands optional

Shell commands to run while building the final layer, without access to most of the layer contents. Changes to this layer are “on top” of all the other layers, so can create additional directories and files.

fakeRootCommands optional

Shell commands to run while creating the archive for the final layer in a fakeroot environment. Unlike extraCommands, you can run chown to change the owners of the files in the archive, changing fakeroot’s state instead of the real filesystem. The latter would require privileges that the build user does not have. Static binaries do not interact with the fakeroot environment. By default all files in the archive will be owned by root.

enableFakechroot optional

Whether to run in fakeRootCommands in fakechroot, making programs behave as though / is the root of the image being created, while files in the Nix store are available as usual. This allows scripts that perform installation in / to work as expected. Considering that fakechroot is implemented via the same mechanism as fakeroot, the same caveats apply.

Default: false

Behavior of contents in the final image

Each path directly listed in contents will have a symlink in the root of the image.

For example:

pkgs.dockerTools.buildLayeredImage {
  name = "hello";
  contents = [ pkgs.hello ];
}

will create symlinks for all the paths in the hello package:

/bin/hello -> /nix/store/h1zb1padqbbb7jicsvkmrym3r6snphxg-hello-2.10/bin/hello
/share/info/hello.info -> /nix/store/h1zb1padqbbb7jicsvkmrym3r6snphxg-hello-2.10/share/info/hello.info
/share/locale/bg/LC_MESSAGES/hello.mo -> /nix/store/h1zb1padqbbb7jicsvkmrym3r6snphxg-hello-2.10/share/locale/bg/LC_MESSAGES/hello.mo

Automatic inclusion of config references

The closure of config is automatically included in the closure of the final image.

This allows you to make very simple Docker images with very little code. This container will start up and run hello:

pkgs.dockerTools.buildLayeredImage {
  name = "hello";
  config.Cmd = [ "${pkgs.hello}/bin/hello" ];
}

Adjusting maxLayers

Increasing the maxLayers increases the number of layers which have a chance to be shared between different images.

Modern Docker installations support up to 128 layers, but older versions support as few as 42.

If the produced image will not be extended by other Docker builds, it is safe to set maxLayers to 128. However, it will be impossible to extend the image further.

The first (maxLayers-2) most “popular” paths will have their own individual layers, then layer #maxLayers-1 will contain all the remaining “unpopular” paths, and finally layer #maxLayers will contain the Image configuration.

Docker’s Layers are not inherently ordered, they are content-addressable and are not explicitly layered until they are composed in to an Image.

streamLayeredImage

Builds a script which, when run, will stream an uncompressed tarball of a Docker image to stdout. The arguments to this function are as for buildLayeredImage. This method of constructing an image does not realize the image into the Nix store, so it saves on IO and disk/cache space, particularly with large images.

The image produced by running the output script can be piped directly into docker load, to load it into the local docker daemon:

$(nix-build) | docker load

Alternatively, the image be piped via gzip into skopeo, e.g., to copy it into a registry:

$(nix-build) | gzip --fast | skopeo copy docker-archive:/dev/stdin docker://some_docker_registry/myimage:tag

pullImage

This function is analogous to the docker pull command, in that it can be used to pull a Docker image from a Docker registry. By default Docker Hub is used to pull images.

Its parameters are described in the example below:

pullImage {
  imageName = "nixos/nix";
  imageDigest =
    "sha256:473a2b527958665554806aea24d0131bacec46d23af09fef4598eeab331850fa";
  finalImageName = "nix";
  finalImageTag = "2.11.1";
  sha256 = "sha256-qvhj+Hlmviz+KEBVmsyPIzTB3QlVAFzwAY1zDPIBGxc=";
  os = "linux";
  arch = "x86_64";
}
  • imageName specifies the name of the image to be downloaded, which can also include the registry namespace (e.g. nixos). This argument is required.

  • imageDigest specifies the digest of the image to be downloaded. This argument is required.

  • finalImageName, if specified, this is the name of the image to be created. Note it is never used to fetch the image since we prefer to rely on the immutable digest ID. By default it’s equal to imageName.

  • finalImageTag, if specified, this is the tag of the image to be created. Note it is never used to fetch the image since we prefer to rely on the immutable digest ID. By default it’s latest.

  • sha256 is the checksum of the whole fetched image. This argument is required.

  • os, if specified, is the operating system of the fetched image. By default it’s linux.

  • arch, if specified, is the cpu architecture of the fetched image. By default it’s x86_64.

nix-prefetch-docker command can be used to get required image parameters:

$ nix run nixpkgs.nix-prefetch-docker -c nix-prefetch-docker --image-name mysql --image-tag 5

Since a given imageName may transparently refer to a manifest list of images which support multiple architectures and/or operating systems, you can supply the --os and --arch arguments to specify exactly which image you want. By default it will match the OS and architecture of the host the command is run on.

$ nix-prefetch-docker --image-name mysql --image-tag 5 --arch x86_64 --os linux

Desired image name and tag can be set using --final-image-name and --final-image-tag arguments:

$ nix-prefetch-docker --image-name mysql --image-tag 5 --final-image-name eu.gcr.io/my-project/mysql --final-image-tag prod

exportImage

This function is analogous to the docker export command, in that it can be used to flatten a Docker image that contains multiple layers. It is in fact the result of the merge of all the layers of the image. As such, the result is suitable for being imported in Docker with docker import.

NOTE: Using this function requires the kvm device to be available.

The parameters of exportImage are the following:

exportImage {
  fromImage = someLayeredImage;
  fromImageName = null;
  fromImageTag = null;

  name = someLayeredImage.name;
}

The parameters relative to the base image have the same synopsis as described in buildImage, except that fromImage is the only required argument in this case.

The name argument is the name of the derivation output, which defaults to fromImage.name.

Environment Helpers

Some packages expect certain files to be available globally. When building an image from scratch (i.e. without fromImage), these files are missing. pkgs.dockerTools provides some helpers to set up an environment with the necessary files. You can include them in copyToRoot like this:

buildImage {
  name = "environment-example";
  copyToRoot = with pkgs.dockerTools; [
    usrBinEnv
    binSh
    caCertificates
    fakeNss
  ];
}

usrBinEnv

This provides the env utility at /usr/bin/env.

binSh

This provides bashInteractive at /bin/sh.

caCertificates

This sets up /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt.

fakeNss

Provides /etc/passwd and /etc/group that contain root and nobody. Useful when packaging binaries that insist on using nss to look up username/groups (like nginx).

shadowSetup

This constant string is a helper for setting up the base files for managing users and groups, only if such files don’t exist already. It is suitable for being used in a buildImage runAsRoot script for cases like in the example below:

buildImage {
  name = "shadow-basic";

  runAsRoot = ''
    #!${pkgs.runtimeShell}
    ${pkgs.dockerTools.shadowSetup}
    groupadd -r redis
    useradd -r -g redis redis
    mkdir /data
    chown redis:redis /data
  '';
}

Creating base files like /etc/passwd or /etc/login.defs is necessary for shadow-utils to manipulate users and groups.

fakeNss

If your primary goal is providing a basic skeleton for user lookups to work, and/or a lesser privileged user, adding pkgs.fakeNss to the container image root might be the better choice than a custom script running useradd and friends.

It provides a /etc/passwd and /etc/group, containing root and nobody users and groups.

It also provides a /etc/nsswitch.conf, configuring NSS host resolution to first check /etc/hosts, before checking DNS, as the default in the absence of a config file (dns [!UNAVAIL=return] files) is quite unexpected.

You can pair it with binSh, which provides bin/sh as a symlink to bashInteractive (as /bin/sh is configured as a shell).

buildImage {
  name = "shadow-basic";

  copyToRoot = pkgs.buildEnv {
    name = "image-root";
    paths = [ binSh pkgs.fakeNss ];
    pathsToLink = [ "/bin" "/etc" "/var" ];
  };
}

buildNixShellImage

Create a Docker image that sets up an environment similar to that of running nix-shell on a derivation. When run in Docker, this environment somewhat resembles the Nix sandbox typically used by nix-build, with a major difference being that access to the internet is allowed. It additionally also behaves like an interactive nix-shell, running things like shellHook and setting an interactive prompt. If the derivation is fully buildable (i.e. nix-build can be used on it), running buildDerivation inside such a Docker image will build the derivation, with all its outputs being available in the correct /nix/store paths, pointed to by the respective environment variables like $out, etc.

Arguments

drv

The derivation on which to base the Docker image.

Adding packages to the Docker image is possible by e.g. extending the list of nativeBuildInputs of this derivation like

buildNixShellImage {
  drv = someDrv.overrideAttrs (old: {
    nativeBuildInputs = old.nativeBuildInputs or [] ++ [
      somethingExtra
    ];
  });
  # ...
}

Similarly, you can extend the image initialization script by extending shellHook

name optional

The name of the resulting image.

Default: drv.name + "-env"

tag optional

Tag of the generated image.

Default: the resulting image derivation output path’s hash

uid/gid optional

The user/group ID to run the container as. This is like a nixbld build user.

Default: 1000/1000

homeDirectory optional

The home directory of the user the container is running as

Default: /build

shell optional

The path to the bash binary to use as the shell. This shell is started when running the image.

Default: pkgs.bashInteractive + "/bin/bash"

command optional

Run this command in the environment of the derivation, in an interactive shell. See the --command option in the nix-shell documentation.

Default: (none)

run optional

Same as command, but runs the command in a non-interactive shell instead. See the --run option in the nix-shell documentation.

Default: (none)

Example

The following shows how to build the pkgs.hello package inside a Docker container built with buildNixShellImage.

with import <nixpkgs> {};
dockerTools.buildNixShellImage {
  drv = hello;
}

Build the derivation:

nix-build hello.nix
these 8 derivations will be built:
  /nix/store/xmw3a5ln29rdalavcxk1w3m4zb2n7kk6-nix-shell-rc.drv
...
Creating layer 56 from paths: ['/nix/store/crpnj8ssz0va2q0p5ibv9i6k6n52gcya-stdenv-linux']
Creating layer 57 with customisation...
Adding manifests...
Done.
/nix/store/cpyn1lc897ghx0rhr2xy49jvyn52bazv-hello-2.12-env.tar.gz

Load the image:

docker load -i result
0d9f4c4cd109: Loading layer [==================================================>]   2.56MB/2.56MB
...
ab1d897c0697: Loading layer [==================================================>]  10.24kB/10.24kB
Loaded image: hello-2.12-env:pgj9h98nal555415faa43vsydg161bdz

Run the container:

docker run -it hello-2.12-env:pgj9h98nal555415faa43vsydg161bdz
[nix-shell:/build]$

In the running container, run the build:

buildDerivation
unpacking sources
unpacking source archive /nix/store/8nqv6kshb3vs5q5bs2k600xpj5bkavkc-hello-2.12.tar.gz
...
patching script interpreter paths in /nix/store/z5wwy5nagzy15gag42vv61c2agdpz2f2-hello-2.12
checking for references to /build/ in /nix/store/z5wwy5nagzy15gag42vv61c2agdpz2f2-hello-2.12...

Check the build result:

$out/bin/hello
Hello, world!

pkgs.ociTools

pkgs.ociTools is a set of functions for creating containers according to the OCI container specification v1.0.0. Beyond that, it makes no assumptions about the container runner you choose to use to run the created container.

buildContainer

This function creates a simple OCI container that runs a single command inside of it. An OCI container consists of a config.json and a rootfs directory. The nix store of the container will contain all referenced dependencies of the given command.

The parameters of buildContainer with an example value are described below:

buildContainer {
  args = [
    (with pkgs;
      writeScript "run.sh" ''
        #!${bash}/bin/bash
        exec ${bash}/bin/bash
      '').outPath
  ];

  mounts = {
    "/data" = {
      type = "none";
      source = "/var/lib/mydata";
      options = [ "bind" ];
    };
  };

  readonly = false;
}
  • args specifies a set of arguments to run inside the container. This is the only required argument for buildContainer. All referenced packages inside the derivation will be made available inside the container.

  • mounts specifies additional mount points chosen by the user. By default only a minimal set of necessary filesystems are mounted into the container (e.g procfs, cgroupfs)

  • readonly makes the container’s rootfs read-only if it is set to true. The default value is false false.

pkgs.snapTools

pkgs.snapTools is a set of functions for creating Snapcraft images. Snap and Snapcraft is not used to perform these operations.

The makeSnap Function

makeSnap takes a single named argument, meta. This argument mirrors the upstream snap.yaml format exactly.

The base should not be specified, as makeSnap will force set it.

Currently, makeSnap does not support creating GUI stubs.

Build a Hello World Snap

The following expression packages GNU Hello as a Snapcraft snap.

let
  inherit (import <nixpkgs> { }) snapTools hello;
in snapTools.makeSnap {
  meta = {
    name = "hello";
    summary = hello.meta.description;
    description = hello.meta.longDescription;
    architectures = [ "amd64" ];
    confinement = "strict";
    apps.hello.command = "${hello}/bin/hello";
  };
}

nix-build this expression and install it with snap install ./result --dangerous. hello will now be the Snapcraft version of the package.

Build a Graphical Snap

Graphical programs require many more integrations with the host. This example uses Firefox as an example because it is one of the most complicated programs we could package.

let
  inherit (import <nixpkgs> { }) snapTools firefox;
in snapTools.makeSnap {
  meta = {
    name = "nix-example-firefox";
    summary = firefox.meta.description;
    architectures = [ "amd64" ];
    apps.nix-example-firefox = {
      command = "${firefox}/bin/firefox";
      plugs = [
        "pulseaudio"
        "camera"
        "browser-support"
        "avahi-observe"
        "cups-control"
        "desktop"
        "desktop-legacy"
        "gsettings"
        "home"
        "network"
        "mount-observe"
        "removable-media"
        "x11"
      ];
    };
    confinement = "strict";
  };
}

nix-build this expression and install it with snap install ./result --dangerous. nix-example-firefox will now be the Snapcraft version of the Firefox package.

The specific meaning behind plugs can be looked up in the Snapcraft interface documentation.

pkgs.portableService

pkgs.portableService is a function to create portable service images, as read-only, immutable, squashfs archives.

systemd supports a concept of Portable Services. Portable Services are a delivery method for system services that uses two specific features of container management:

  • Applications are bundled. I.e. multiple services, their binaries and all their dependencies are packaged in an image, and are run directly from it.

  • Stricter default security policies, i.e. sandboxing of applications.

This allows using Nix to build images which can be run on many recent Linux distributions.

The primary tool for interacting with Portable Services is portablectl, and they are managed by the systemd-portabled system service.

A very simple example of using portableService is described below:

pkgs.portableService {
  pname = "demo";
  version = "1.0";
  units = [ demo-service demo-socket ];
}

The above example will build an squashfs archive image in result/$pname_$version.raw. The image will contain the file system structure as required by the portable service specification, and a subset of the Nix store with all the dependencies of the two derivations in the units list. units must be a list of derivations, and their names must be prefixed with the service name ("demo" in this case). Otherwise systemd-portabled will ignore them.

Some other options available are:

  • description, homepage

    Are added to the /etc/os-release in the image and are shown by the portable services tooling. Default to empty values, not added to os-release.

  • symlinks

    A list of attribute sets {object, symlink}. Symlinks will be created in the root filesystem of the image to objects in the Nix store. Defaults to an empty list.

  • contents

    A list of additional derivations to be included in the image Nix store, as-is. Defaults to an empty list.

  • squashfsTools

    Defaults to pkgs.squashfsTools, allows you to override the package that provides mksquashfs.

  • squash-compression, squash-block-size

    Options to mksquashfs. Default to "xz -Xdict-size 100%" and "1M" respectively.

A typical usage of symlinks would be:

  symlinks = [
    { object = "${pkgs.cacert}/etc/ssl"; symlink = "/etc/ssl"; }
    { object = "${pkgs.bash}/bin/bash"; symlink = "/bin/sh"; }
    { object = "${pkgs.php}/bin/php"; symlink = "/usr/bin/php"; }
  ];

to create these symlinks for legacy applications that assume them existing globally.

Once the image is created, and deployed on a host in /var/lib/portables/, you can attach the image and run the service. As root run:

portablectl attach demo_1.0.raw
systemctl enable --now demo.socket
systemctl enable --now demo.service

<nixpkgs/nixos/lib/make-disk-image.nix>

<nixpkgs/nixos/lib/make-disk-image.nix> is a function to create disk images in multiple formats: raw, QCOW2 (QEMU), QCOW2-Compressed (compressed version), VDI (VirtualBox), VPC (VirtualPC).

This function can create images in two ways:

  • using cptofs without any virtual machine to create a Nix store disk image,

  • using a virtual machine to create a full NixOS installation.

When testing early-boot or lifecycle parts of NixOS such as a bootloader or multiple generations, it is necessary to opt for a full NixOS system installation. Whereas for many web servers, applications, it is possible to work with a Nix store only disk image and is faster to build.

NixOS tests also use this function when preparing the VM. The cptofs method is used when virtualisation.useBootLoader is false (the default). Otherwise the second method is used.

Features

For reference, read the function signature source code for documentation on arguments: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/lib/make-disk-image.nix. Features are separated in various sections depending on if you opt for a Nix-store only image or a full NixOS image.

Common

  • arbitrary NixOS configuration

  • automatic or bound disk size: diskSize parameter, additionalSpace can be set when diskSize is auto to add a constant of disk space

  • multiple partition table layouts: EFI, legacy, legacy + GPT, hybrid, none through partitionTableType parameter

  • OVMF or EFI firmwares and variables templates can be customized

  • root filesystem fsType can be customized to whatever mkfs.${fsType} exist during operations

  • root filesystem label can be customized, defaults to nix-store if it’s a Nix store image, otherwise nixpkgs/nixos

  • arbitrary code can be executed after disk image was produced with postVM

  • the current nixpkgs can be realized as a channel in the disk image, which will change the hash of the image when the sources are updated

  • additional store paths can be provided through additionalPaths

Full NixOS image

  • arbitrary contents with permissions can be placed in the target filesystem using contents

  • a /etc/nixpkgs/nixos/configuration.nix can be provided through configFile

  • bootloaders are supported

  • EFI variables can be mutated during image production and the result is exposed in $out

  • boot partition size when partition table is efi or hybrid

On bit-to-bit reproducibility

Images are NOT deterministic, please do not hesitate to try to fix this, source of determinisms are (not exhaustive) :

  • bootloader installation have timestamps

  • SQLite Nix store database contain registration times

  • /etc/shadow is in a non-deterministic order

A deterministic flag is available for best efforts determinism.

Usage

To produce a Nix-store only image:

let
  pkgs = import <nixpkgs> {};
  lib = pkgs.lib;
  make-disk-image = import <nixpkgs/nixos/lib/make-disk-image.nix>;
in
  make-disk-image {
    inherit pkgs lib;
    config = {};
    additionalPaths = [ ];
    format = "qcow2";
    onlyNixStore = true;
    partitionTableType = "none";
    installBootLoader = false;
    touchEFIVars = false;
    diskSize = "auto";
    additionalSpace = "0M"; # Defaults to 512M.
    copyChannel = false;
  }

Some arguments can be left out, they are shown explicitly for the sake of the example.

Building this derivation will provide a QCOW2 disk image containing only the Nix store and its registration information.

To produce a NixOS installation image disk with UEFI and bootloader installed:

let
  pkgs = import <nixpkgs> {};
  lib = pkgs.lib;
  make-disk-image = import <nixpkgs/nixos/lib/make-disk-image.nix>;
  evalConfig = import <nixpkgs/nixos/lib/eval-config.nix>;
in
  make-disk-image {
    inherit pkgs lib;
    config = evalConfig {
      modules = [
        {
          fileSystems."/" = { device = "/dev/vda"; fsType = "ext4"; autoFormat = true; };
          boot.grub.device = "/dev/vda";
        }
      ];
    };
    format = "qcow2";
    onlyNixStore = false;
    partitionTableType = "legacy+gpt";
    installBootLoader = true;
    touchEFIVars = true;
    diskSize = "auto";
    additionalSpace = "0M"; # Defaults to 512M.
    copyChannel = false;
    memSize = 2048; # Qemu VM memory size in megabytes. Defaults to 1024M.
  }

pkgs.mkBinaryCache

pkgs.mkBinaryCache is a function for creating Nix flat-file binary caches. Such a cache exists as a directory on disk, and can be used as a Nix substituter by passing --substituter file:///path/to/cache to Nix commands.

Nix packages are most commonly shared between machines using HTTP, SSH, or S3, but a flat-file binary cache can still be useful in some situations. For example, you can copy it directly to another machine, or make it available on a network file system. It can also be a convenient way to make some Nix packages available inside a container via bind-mounting.

Note that this function is meant for advanced use-cases. The more idiomatic way to work with flat-file binary caches is via the nix-copy-closure command. You may also want to consider dockerTools for your containerization needs.

Example

The following derivation will construct a flat-file binary cache containing the closure of hello.

mkBinaryCache {
  rootPaths = [hello];
}
  • rootPaths specifies a list of root derivations. The transitive closure of these derivations’ outputs will be copied into the cache.

Here’s an example of building and using the cache.

Build the cache on one machine, host1:

nix-build -E 'with import <nixpkgs> {}; mkBinaryCache { rootPaths = [hello]; }'
/nix/store/cc0562q828rnjqjyfj23d5q162gb424g-binary-cache

Copy the resulting directory to the other machine, host2:

scp result host2:/tmp/hello-cache

Substitute the derivation using the flat-file binary cache on the other machine, host2:

nix-build -A hello '<nixpkgs>' \
  --option require-sigs false \
  --option trusted-substituters file:///tmp/hello-cache \
  --option substituters file:///tmp/hello-cache
/nix/store/gl5a41azbpsadfkfmbilh9yk40dh5dl0-hello-2.12.1

Hooks reference

Nixpkgs has several hook packages that augment the stdenv phases.

The stdenv built-in hooks are documented in the section called “Package setup hooks”.

Autoconf

The autoreconfHook derivation adds autoreconfPhase, which runs autoreconf, libtoolize and automake, essentially preparing the configure script in autotools-based builds. Most autotools-based packages come with the configure script pre-generated, but this hook is necessary for a few packages and when you need to patch the package’s configure scripts.

Automake

Adds the share/aclocal subdirectory of each build input to the ACLOCAL_PATH environment variable.

autoPatchelfHook

This is a special setup hook which helps in packaging proprietary software in that it automatically tries to find missing shared library dependencies of ELF files based on the given buildInputs and nativeBuildInputs.

You can also specify a runtimeDependencies variable which lists dependencies to be unconditionally added to rpath of all executables. This is useful for programs that use dlopen 3 to load libraries at runtime.

In certain situations you may want to run the main command (autoPatchelf) of the setup hook on a file or a set of directories instead of unconditionally patching all outputs. This can be done by setting the dontAutoPatchelf environment variable to a non-empty value.

By default autoPatchelf will fail as soon as any ELF file requires a dependency which cannot be resolved via the given build inputs. In some situations you might prefer to just leave missing dependencies unpatched and continue to patch the rest. This can be achieved by setting the autoPatchelfIgnoreMissingDeps environment variable to a non-empty value. autoPatchelfIgnoreMissingDeps can be set to a list like autoPatchelfIgnoreMissingDeps = [ "libcuda.so.1" "libcudart.so.1" ]; or to simply [ "*" ] to ignore all missing dependencies.

The autoPatchelf command also recognizes a --no-recurse command line flag, which prevents it from recursing into subdirectories.

bmake

bmake is the portable variant of NetBSD make utility.

In Nixpkgs, bmake comes with a hook that overrides the default build, check, install and dist phases.

breakpointHook

This hook will make a build pause instead of stopping when a failure happens. It prevents nix from cleaning up the build environment immediately and allows the user to attach to a build environment using the cntr command. Upon build error it will print instructions on how to use cntr, which can be used to enter the environment for debugging. Installing cntr and running the command will provide shell access to the build sandbox of failed build. At /var/lib/cntr the sandboxed filesystem is mounted. All commands and files of the system are still accessible within the shell. To execute commands from the sandbox use the cntr exec subcommand. cntr is only supported on Linux-based platforms. To use it first add cntr to your environment.systemPackages on NixOS or alternatively to the root user on non-NixOS systems. Then in the package that is supposed to be inspected, add breakpointHook to nativeBuildInputs.

nativeBuildInputs = [ breakpointHook ];

When a build failure happens there will be an instruction printed that shows how to attach with cntr to the build sandbox.

cmake

Overrides the default configure phase to run the CMake command. By default, we use the Make generator of CMake. In addition, dependencies are added automatically to CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH so that packages are correctly detected by CMake. Some additional flags are passed in to give similar behavior to configure-based packages. You can disable this hook’s behavior by setting configurePhase to a custom value, or by setting dontUseCmakeConfigure. cmakeFlags controls flags passed only to CMake. By default, parallel building is enabled as CMake supports parallel building almost everywhere. When Ninja is also in use, CMake will detect that and use the ninja generator.

gdk-pixbuf

Exports GDK_PIXBUF_MODULE_FILE environment variable to the builder. Add librsvg package to buildInputs to get svg support. See also the setup hook description in GNOME platform docs.

GHC

Creates a temporary package database and registers every Haskell build input in it (TODO: how?).

GNOME platform

Hooks related to GNOME platform and related libraries like GLib, GTK and GStreamer are described in the section called “GNOME”.

installShellFiles

This hook helps with installing manpages and shell completion files. It exposes 2 shell functions installManPage and installShellCompletion that can be used from your postInstall hook.

The installManPage function takes one or more paths to manpages to install. The manpages must have a section suffix, and may optionally be compressed (with .gz suffix). This function will place them into the correct directory.

The installShellCompletion function takes one or more paths to shell completion files. By default it will autodetect the shell type from the completion file extension, but you may also specify it by passing one of --bash, --fish, or --zsh. These flags apply to all paths listed after them (up until another shell flag is given). Each path may also have a custom installation name provided by providing a flag --name NAME before the path. If this flag is not provided, zsh completions will be renamed automatically such that foobar.zsh becomes _foobar. A root name may be provided for all paths using the flag --cmd NAME; this synthesizes the appropriate name depending on the shell (e.g. --cmd foo will synthesize the name foo.bash for bash and _foo for zsh). The path may also be a fifo or named fd (such as produced by <(cmd)), in which case the shell and name must be provided.

nativeBuildInputs = [ installShellFiles ];
postInstall = ''
  installManPage doc/foobar.1 doc/barfoo.3
  # explicit behavior
  installShellCompletion --bash --name foobar.bash share/completions.bash
  installShellCompletion --fish --name foobar.fish share/completions.fish
  installShellCompletion --zsh --name _foobar share/completions.zsh
  # implicit behavior
  installShellCompletion share/completions/foobar.{bash,fish,zsh}
  # using named fd
  installShellCompletion --cmd foobar \
    --bash <($out/bin/foobar --bash-completion) \
    --fish <($out/bin/foobar --fish-completion) \
    --zsh <($out/bin/foobar --zsh-completion)
'';

libiconv, libintl

A few libraries automatically add to NIX_LDFLAGS their library, making their symbols automatically available to the linker. This includes libiconv and libintl (gettext). This is done to provide compatibility between GNU Linux, where libiconv and libintl are bundled in, and other systems where that might not be the case. Sometimes, this behavior is not desired. To disable this behavior, set dontAddExtraLibs.

libxml2

Adds every file named catalog.xml found under the xml/dtd and xml/xsl subdirectories of each build input to the XML_CATALOG_FILES environment variable.

Meson

Overrides the configure phase to run meson to generate Ninja files. To run these files, you should accompany Meson with ninja. By default, enableParallelBuilding is enabled as Meson supports parallel building almost everywhere.

Variables controlling Meson

mesonFlags

Controls the flags passed to meson.

mesonBuildType

Which --buildtype to pass to Meson. We default to plain.

mesonAutoFeatures

What value to set -Dauto_features= to. We default to enabled.

mesonWrapMode

What value to set -Dwrap_mode= to. We default to nodownload as we disallow network access.

dontUseMesonConfigure

Disables using Meson’s configurePhase.

mpiCheckPhaseHook

This hook can be used to setup a check phase that requires running a MPI application. It detects the used present MPI implementaion type and exports the neceesary environment variables to use mpirun and mpiexec in a Nix sandbox.

Example:

  { mpiCheckPhaseHook, mpi, ... }:

  ...

  nativeCheckInputs = [
    openssh
    mpiCheckPhaseHook
  ];

ninja

Overrides the build, install, and check phase to run ninja instead of make. You can disable this behavior with the dontUseNinjaBuild, dontUseNinjaInstall, and dontUseNinjaCheck, respectively. Parallel building is enabled by default in Ninja.

patchRcPath hooks

These hooks provide shell-specific utilities (with the same name as the hook) to patch shell scripts meant to be sourced by software users.

The typical usage is to patch initialisation or rc scripts inside $out/bin or $out/etc. Such scripts, when being sourced, would insert the binary locations of certain commands into PATH, modify other environment variables or run a series of start-up commands. When shipped from the upstream, they sometimes use commands that might not be available in the environment they are getting sourced in.

The compatible shells for each hook are:

  • patchRcPathBash: Bash, ksh, zsh and other shells supporting the Bash-like parameter expansions.

  • patchRcPathCsh: Csh scripts, such as those targeting tcsh.

  • patchRcPathFish: Fish scripts.

  • patchRcPathPosix: POSIX-conformant shells supporting the limited parameter expansions specified by the POSIX standard. Current implementation uses the parameter expansion ${foo-} only.

For each supported shell, it modifies the script with a PATH prefix that is later removed when the script ends. It allows nested patching, which guarantees that a patched script may source another patched script.

Syntax to apply the utility to a script:

patchRcPath<shell> <file> <PATH-prefix>

Example usage:

Given a package foo containing an init script this-foo.fish that depends on coreutils, man and which, patch the init script for users to source without having the above dependencies in their PATH:

{ lib, stdenv, patchRcPathFish}:
stdenv.mkDerivation {

  # ...

  nativeBuildInputs = [
    patchRcPathFish
  ];

  postFixup = ''
    patchRcPathFish $out/bin/this-foo.fish ${lib.makeBinPath [ coreutils man which ]}
  '';
}

Perl

Adds the lib/site_perl subdirectory of each build input to the PERL5LIB environment variable. For instance, if buildInputs contains Perl, then the lib/site_perl subdirectory of each input is added to the PERL5LIB environment variable.

pkg-config

Adds the lib/pkgconfig and share/pkgconfig subdirectories of each build input to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable.

postgresqlTestHook

This hook starts a PostgreSQL server during the checkPhase. Example:

{ stdenv, postgresql, postgresqlTestHook }:
stdenv.mkDerivation {

  # ...

  nativeCheckInputs = [
    postgresql
    postgresqlTestHook
  ];
}

If you use a custom checkPhase, remember to add the runHook calls:

  checkPhase ''
    runHook preCheck

    # ... your tests

    runHook postCheck
  ''

Variables

The hook logic will read a number of variables and set them to a default value if unset or empty.

Exported variables:

  • PGDATA: location of server files.

  • PGHOST: location of UNIX domain socket directory; the default host in a connection string.

  • PGUSER: user to create / log in with, default: test_user.

  • PGDATABASE: database name, default: test_db.

Bash-only variables:

  • postgresqlTestUserOptions: SQL options to use when creating the $PGUSER role, default: "LOGIN". Example: "LOGIN SUPERUSER"

  • postgresqlTestSetupSQL: SQL commands to run as database administrator after startup, default: statements that create $PGUSER and $PGDATABASE.

  • postgresqlTestSetupCommands: bash commands to run after database start, defaults to running $postgresqlTestSetupSQL as database administrator.

  • postgresqlEnableTCP: set to 1 to enable TCP listening. Flaky; not recommended.

  • postgresqlStartCommands: defaults to pg_ctl start.

Hooks

A number of additional hooks are ran in postgresqlTestHook

  • postgresqlTestSetupPost: ran after postgresql has been set up.

TCP and the Nix sandbox

postgresqlEnableTCP relies on network sandboxing, which is not available on macOS and some custom Nix installations, resulting in flaky tests. For this reason, it is disabled by default.

The preferred solution is to make the test suite use a UNIX domain socket connection. This is the default behavior when no host connection parameter is provided. Some test suites hardcode a value for host though, so a patch may be required. If you can upstream the patch, you can make host default to the PGHOST environment variable when set. Otherwise, you can patch it locally to omit the host connection string parameter altogether.

Python

Adds the lib/${python.libPrefix}/site-packages subdirectory of each build input to the PYTHONPATH environment variable.

Qt 4

Sets the QTDIR environment variable to Qt’s path.

scons

Overrides the build, install, and check phases. This uses the scons build system as a replacement for make. scons does not provide a configure phase, so everything is managed at build and install time.

teTeX / TeX Live

Adds the share/texmf-nix subdirectory of each build input to the TEXINPUTS environment variable.

unzip

This setup hook will allow you to unzip .zip files specified in $src. There are many similar packages like unrar, undmg, etc.

validatePkgConfig

The validatePkgConfig hook validates all pkg-config (.pc) files in a package. This helps catching some common errors in pkg-config files, such as undefined variables.

wafHook

Waf is a Python-based software building system.

In Nixpkgs, wafHook overrides the default configure, build, and install phases.

Variables controlling wafHook

wafHook Exclusive Variables

The variables below are exclusive of wafHook.

wafPath

Location of the waf tool. It defaults to ./waf, to honor software projects that include it directly inside their source trees.

If wafPath doesn’t exist, then wafHook will copy the waf provided from Nixpkgs to it.

wafFlags

Controls the flags passed to waf tool during build and install phases. For settings specific to build or install phases, use wafBuildFlags or wafInstallFlags respectively.

dontAddWafCrossFlags

When set to true, don’t add cross compilation flags during configure phase.

dontUseWafConfigure

When set to true, don’t use the predefined wafConfigurePhase.

dontUseWafBuild

When set to true, don’t use the predefined wafBuildPhase.

dontUseWafInstall

When set to true, don’t use the predefined wafInstallPhase.

Similar variables

The following variables are similar to their stdenv.mkDerivation counterparts.

wafHook Variablestdenv.mkDerivation Counterpart
wafConfigureFlagsconfigureFlags
wafConfigureTargetsconfigureTargets
wafBuildFlagsbuildFlags
wafBuildTargetsbuildTargets
wafInstallFlagsinstallFlags
wafInstallTargetsinstallTargets

Honored variables

The following variables commonly used by stdenv.mkDerivation are honored by wafHook.

  • prefixKey

  • enableParallelBuilding

  • enableParallelInstalling

zig.hook

Zig is a general-purpose programming language and toolchain for maintaining robust, optimal and reusable software.

In Nixpkgs, zig.hook overrides the default build, check and install phases.

Example code snippet

{ lib
, stdenv
, zig_0_11
}:

stdenv.mkDerivation {
  # . . .

  nativeBuildInputs = [
    zig_0_11.hook
  ];

  zigBuildFlags = [ "-Dman-pages=true" ];

  dontUseZigCheck = true;

  # . . .
}

Variables controlling zig.hook

zig.hook Exclusive Variables

The variables below are exclusive to zig.hook.

dontUseZigBuild

Disables using zigBuildPhase.

dontUseZigCheck

Disables using zigCheckPhase.

dontUseZigInstall

Disables using zigInstallPhase.

Similar variables

The following variables are similar to their stdenv.mkDerivation counterparts.

zig.hook Variablestdenv.mkDerivation Counterpart
zigBuildFlagsbuildFlags
zigCheckFlagscheckFlags
zigInstallFlagsinstallFlags

Variables honored by zig.hook

The following variables commonly used by stdenv.mkDerivation are honored by zig.hook.

  • prefixKey

  • dontAddPrefix

xcbuildHook

Overrides the build and install phases to run the “xcbuild” command. This hook is needed when a project only comes with build files for the XCode build system. You can disable this behavior by setting buildPhase and configurePhase to a custom value. xcbuildFlags controls flags passed only to xcbuild.

Languages and frameworks

The standard build environment makes it easy to build typical Autotools-based packages with very little code. Any other kind of package can be accommodated by overriding the appropriate phases of stdenv. However, there are specialised functions in Nixpkgs to easily build packages for other programming languages, such as Perl or Haskell. These are described in this chapter.

Agda

How to use Agda

Agda is available as the agda package.

The agda package installs an Agda-wrapper, which calls agda with --library-file set to a generated library-file within the nix store, this means your library-file in $HOME/.agda/libraries will be ignored. By default the agda package installs Agda with no libraries, i.e. the generated library-file is empty. To use Agda with libraries, the agda.withPackages function can be used. This function either takes:

  • A list of packages,

  • or a function which returns a list of packages when given the agdaPackages attribute set,

  • or an attribute set containing a list of packages and a GHC derivation for compilation (see below).

  • or an attribute set containing a function which returns a list of packages when given the agdaPackages attribute set and a GHC derivation for compilation (see below).

For example, suppose we wanted a version of Agda which has access to the standard library. This can be obtained with the expressions:

agda.withPackages [ agdaPackages.standard-library ]

or

agda.withPackages (p: [ p.standard-library ])

or can be called as in the Compiling Agda section.

If you want to use a different version of a library (for instance a development version) override the src attribute of the package to point to your local repository

agda.withPackages (p: [
  (p.standard-library.overrideAttrs (oldAttrs: {
    version = "local version";
    src = /path/to/local/repo/agda-stdlib;
  }))
])

You can also reference a GitHub repository

agda.withPackages (p: [
  (p.standard-library.overrideAttrs (oldAttrs: {
    version = "1.5";
    src =  fetchFromGitHub {
      repo = "agda-stdlib";
      owner = "agda";
      rev = "v1.5";
      hash = "sha256-nEyxYGSWIDNJqBfGpRDLiOAnlHJKEKAOMnIaqfVZzJk=";
    };
  }))
])

If you want to use a library not added to Nixpkgs, you can add a dependency to a local library by calling agdaPackages.mkDerivation.

agda.withPackages (p: [
  (p.mkDerivation {
    pname = "your-agda-lib";
    version = "1.0.0";
    src = /path/to/your-agda-lib;
  })
])

Again you can reference GitHub

agda.withPackages (p: [
  (p.mkDerivation {
    pname = "your-agda-lib";
    version = "1.0.0";
    src = fetchFromGitHub {
      repo = "repo";
      owner = "owner";
      version = "...";
      rev = "...";
      hash = "...";
    };
  })
])

See Building Agda Packages for more information on mkDerivation.

Agda will not by default use these libraries. To tell Agda to use a library we have some options:

  • Call agda with the library flag:

    $ agda -l standard-library -i . MyFile.agda
    
  • Write a my-library.agda-lib file for the project you are working on which may look like:

    name: my-library
    include: .
    depend: standard-library
    
  • Create the file ~/.agda/defaults and add any libraries you want to use by default.

More information can be found in the official Agda documentation on library management.

Compiling Agda

Agda modules can be compiled using the GHC backend with the --compile flag. A version of ghc with ieee754 is made available to the Agda program via the --with-compiler flag. This can be overridden by a different version of ghc as follows:

agda.withPackages {
  pkgs = [ ... ];
  ghc = haskell.compiler.ghcHEAD;
}

Writing Agda packages

To write a nix derivation for an Agda library, first check that the library has a *.agda-lib file.

A derivation can then be written using agdaPackages.mkDerivation. This has similar arguments to stdenv.mkDerivation with the following additions:

  • everythingFile can be used to specify the location of the Everything.agda file, defaulting to ./Everything.agda. If this file does not exist then either it should be patched in or the buildPhase should be overridden (see below).

  • libraryName should be the name that appears in the *.agda-lib file, defaulting to pname.

  • libraryFile should be the file name of the *.agda-lib file, defaulting to ${libraryName}.agda-lib.

Here is an example default.nix

{ nixpkgs ?  <nixpkgs> }:
with (import nixpkgs {});
agdaPackages.mkDerivation {
  version = "1.0";
  pname = "my-agda-lib";
  src = ./.;
  buildInputs = [
    agdaPackages.standard-library
  ];
}

Building Agda packages

The default build phase for agdaPackages.mkDerivation simply runs agda on the Everything.agda file. If something else is needed to build the package (e.g. make) then the buildPhase should be overridden. Additionally, a preBuild or configurePhase can be used if there are steps that need to be done prior to checking the Everything.agda file. agda and the Agda libraries contained in buildInputs are made available during the build phase.

Installing Agda packages

The default install phase copies Agda source files, Agda interface files (*.agdai) and *.agda-lib files to the output directory. This can be overridden.

By default, Agda sources are files ending on .agda, or literate Agda files ending on .lagda, .lagda.tex, .lagda.org, .lagda.md, .lagda.rst. The list of recognised Agda source extensions can be extended by setting the extraExtensions config variable.

Maintaining the Agda package set on Nixpkgs

We are aiming at providing all common Agda libraries as packages on nixpkgs, and keeping them up to date. Contributions and maintenance help is always appreciated, but the maintenance effort is typically low since the Agda ecosystem is quite small.

The nixpkgs Agda package set tries to take up a role similar to that of Stackage in the Haskell world. It is a curated set of libraries that:

  1. Always work together.

  2. Are as up-to-date as possible.

While the Haskell ecosystem is huge, and Stackage is highly automatised, the Agda package set is small and can (still) be maintained by hand.

Adding Agda packages to Nixpkgs

To add an Agda package to nixpkgs, the derivation should be written to pkgs/development/libraries/agda/${library-name}/ and an entry should be added to pkgs/top-level/agda-packages.nix. Here it is called in a scope with access to all other Agda libraries, so the top line of the default.nix can look like:

{ mkDerivation, standard-library, fetchFromGitHub }:

Note that the derivation function is called with mkDerivation set to agdaPackages.mkDerivation, therefore you could use a similar set as in your default.nix from Writing Agda Packages with agdaPackages.mkDerivation replaced with mkDerivation.

Here is an example skeleton derivation for iowa-stdlib:

mkDerivation {
  version = "1.5.0";
  pname = "iowa-stdlib";

  src = ...

  libraryFile = "";
  libraryName = "IAL-1.3";

  buildPhase = ''
    patchShebangs find-deps.sh
    make
  '';
}

This library has a file called .agda-lib, and so we give an empty string to libraryFile as nothing precedes .agda-lib in the filename. This file contains name: IAL-1.3, and so we let libraryName = "IAL-1.3". This library does not use an Everything.agda file and instead has a Makefile, so there is no need to set everythingFile and we set a custom buildPhase.

When writing an Agda package it is essential to make sure that no .agda-lib file gets added to the store as a single file (for example by using writeText). This causes Agda to think that the nix store is a Agda library and it will attempt to write to it whenever it typechecks something. See https://github.com/agda/agda/issues/4613.

In the pull request adding this library, you can test whether it builds correctly by writing in a comment:

@ofborg build agdaPackages.iowa-stdlib

Maintaining Agda packages

As mentioned before, the aim is to have a compatible, and up-to-date package set. These two conditions sometimes exclude each other: For example, if we update agdaPackages.standard-library because there was an upstream release, this will typically break many reverse dependencies, i.e. downstream Agda libraries that depend on the standard library. In nixpkgs we are typically among the first to notice this, since we have build tests in place to check this.

In a pull request updating e.g. the standard library, you should write the following comment:

@ofborg build agdaPackages.standard-library.passthru.tests

This will build all reverse dependencies of the standard library, for example agdaPackages.agda-categories, or agdaPackages.generic.

In some cases it is useful to build all Agda packages. This can be done with the following Github comment:

@ofborg build agda.passthru.tests.allPackages

Sometimes, the builds of the reverse dependencies fail because they have not yet been updated and released. You should drop the maintainers a quick issue notifying them of the breakage, citing the build error (which you can get from the ofborg logs). If you are motivated, you might even send a pull request that fixes it. Usually, the maintainers will answer within a week or two with a new release. Bumping the version of that reverse dependency should be a further commit on your PR.

In the rare case that a new release is not to be expected within an acceptable time, simply mark the broken package as broken by setting meta.broken = true;. This will exclude it from the build test. It can be added later when it is fixed, and does not hinder the advancement of the whole package set in the meantime.

Android

The Android build environment provides three major features and a number of supporting features.

Deploying an Android SDK installation with plugins

The first use case is deploying the SDK with a desired set of plugins or subsets of an SDK.

with import <nixpkgs> {};

let
  androidComposition = androidenv.composeAndroidPackages {
    cmdLineToolsVersion = "8.0";
    toolsVersion = "26.1.1";
    platformToolsVersion = "30.0.5";
    buildToolsVersions = [ "30.0.3" ];
    includeEmulator = false;
    emulatorVersion = "30.3.4";
    platformVersions = [ "28" "29" "30" ];
    includeSources = false;
    includeSystemImages = false;
    systemImageTypes = [ "google_apis_playstore" ];
    abiVersions = [ "armeabi-v7a" "arm64-v8a" ];
    cmakeVersions = [ "3.10.2" ];
    includeNDK = true;
    ndkVersions = ["22.0.7026061"];
    useGoogleAPIs = false;
    useGoogleTVAddOns = false;
    includeExtras = [
      "extras;google;gcm"
    ];
  };
in
androidComposition.androidsdk

The above function invocation states that we want an Android SDK with the above specified plugin versions. By default, most plugins are disabled. Notable exceptions are the tools, platform-tools and build-tools sub packages.

The following parameters are supported:

  • cmdLineToolsVersion , specifies the version of the cmdline-tools package to use

  • toolsVersion, specifies the version of the tools package. Notice tools is obsolete, and currently only 26.1.1 is available, so there’s not a lot of options here, however, you can set it as null if you don’t want it.

  • platformsToolsVersion specifies the version of the platform-tools plugin

  • buildToolsVersions specifies the versions of the build-tools plugins to use.

  • includeEmulator specifies whether to deploy the emulator package (false by default). When enabled, the version of the emulator to deploy can be specified by setting the emulatorVersion parameter.

  • cmakeVersions specifies which CMake versions should be deployed.

  • includeNDK specifies that the Android NDK bundle should be included. Defaults to: false.

  • ndkVersions specifies the NDK versions that we want to use. These are linked under the ndk directory of the SDK root, and the first is linked under the ndk-bundle directory.

  • ndkVersion is equivalent to specifying one entry in ndkVersions, and ndkVersions overrides this parameter if provided.

  • includeExtras is an array of identifier strings referring to arbitrary add-on packages that should be installed.

  • platformVersions specifies which platform SDK versions should be included.

For each platform version that has been specified, we can apply the following options:

  • includeSystemImages specifies whether a system image for each platform SDK should be included.

  • includeSources specifies whether the sources for each SDK version should be included.

  • useGoogleAPIs specifies that for each selected platform version the Google API should be included.

  • useGoogleTVAddOns specifies that for each selected platform version the Google TV add-on should be included.

For each requested system image we can specify the following options:

  • systemImageTypes specifies what kind of system images should be included. Defaults to: default.

  • abiVersions specifies what kind of ABI version of each system image should be included. Defaults to: armeabi-v7a.

Most of the function arguments have reasonable default settings.

You can specify license names:

  • extraLicenses is a list of license names. You can get these names from repo.json or querypackages.sh licenses. The SDK license (android-sdk-license) is accepted for you if you set accept_license to true. If you are doing something like working with preview SDKs, you will want to add android-sdk-preview-license or whichever license applies here.

Additionally, you can override the repositories that composeAndroidPackages will pull from:

  • repoJson specifies a path to a generated repo.json file. You can generate this by running generate.sh, which in turn will call into mkrepo.rb.

  • repoXmls is an attribute set containing paths to repo XML files. If specified, it takes priority over repoJson, and will trigger a local build writing out a repo.json to the Nix store based on the given repository XMLs.

repoXmls = {
  packages = [ ./xml/repository2-1.xml ];
  images = [
    ./xml/android-sys-img2-1.xml
    ./xml/android-tv-sys-img2-1.xml
    ./xml/android-wear-sys-img2-1.xml
    ./xml/android-wear-cn-sys-img2-1.xml
    ./xml/google_apis-sys-img2-1.xml
    ./xml/google_apis_playstore-sys-img2-1.xml
  ];
  addons = [ ./xml/addon2-1.xml ];
};

When building the above expression with:

$ nix-build

The Android SDK gets deployed with all desired plugin versions.

We can also deploy subsets of the Android SDK. For example, to only the platform-tools package, you can evaluate the following expression:

with import <nixpkgs> {};

let
  androidComposition = androidenv.composeAndroidPackages {
    # ...
  };
in
androidComposition.platform-tools

Using predefined Android package compositions

In addition to composing an Android package set manually, it is also possible to use a predefined composition that contains all basic packages for a specific Android version, such as version 9.0 (API-level 28).

The following Nix expression can be used to deploy the entire SDK with all basic plugins:

with import <nixpkgs> {};

androidenv.androidPkgs_9_0.androidsdk

It is also possible to use one plugin only:

with import <nixpkgs> {};

androidenv.androidPkgs_9_0.platform-tools

Building an Android application

In addition to the SDK, it is also possible to build an Ant-based Android project and automatically deploy all the Android plugins that a project requires.

with import <nixpkgs> {};

androidenv.buildApp {
  name = "MyAndroidApp";
  src = ./myappsources;
  release = true;

  # If release is set to true, you need to specify the following parameters
  keyStore = ./keystore;
  keyAlias = "myfirstapp";
  keyStorePassword = "mykeystore";
  keyAliasPassword = "myfirstapp";

  # Any Android SDK parameters that install all the relevant plugins that a
  # build requires
  platformVersions = [ "24" ];

  # When we include the NDK, then ndk-build is invoked before Ant gets invoked
  includeNDK = true;
}

Aside from the app-specific build parameters (name, src, release and keystore parameters), the buildApp {} function supports all the function parameters that the SDK composition function (the function shown in the previous section) supports.

This build function is particularly useful when it is desired to use Hydra: the Nix-based continuous integration solution to build Android apps. An Android APK gets exposed as a build product and can be installed on any Android device with a web browser by navigating to the build result page.

Spawning emulator instances

For testing purposes, it can also be quite convenient to automatically generate scripts that spawn emulator instances with all desired configuration settings.

An emulator spawn script can be configured by invoking the emulateApp {} function:

with import <nixpkgs> {};

androidenv.emulateApp {
  name = "emulate-MyAndroidApp";
  platformVersion = "28";
  abiVersion = "x86"; # armeabi-v7a, mips, x86_64
  systemImageType = "google_apis_playstore";
}

Additional flags may be applied to the Android SDK’s emulator through the runtime environment variable $NIX_ANDROID_EMULATOR_FLAGS.

It is also possible to specify an APK to deploy inside the emulator and the package and activity names to launch it:

with import <nixpkgs> {};

androidenv.emulateApp {
  name = "emulate-MyAndroidApp";
  platformVersion = "24";
  abiVersion = "armeabi-v7a"; # mips, x86, x86_64
  systemImageType = "default";
  app = ./MyApp.apk;
  package = "MyApp";
  activity = "MainActivity";
}

In addition to prebuilt APKs, you can also bind the APK parameter to a buildApp {} function invocation shown in the previous example.

Notes on environment variables in Android projects

  • ANDROID_SDK_ROOT should point to the Android SDK. In your Nix expressions, this should be ${androidComposition.androidsdk}/libexec/android-sdk. Note that ANDROID_HOME is deprecated, but if you rely on tools that need it, you can export it too.

  • ANDROID_NDK_ROOT should point to the Android NDK, if you’re doing NDK development. In your Nix expressions, this should be ${ANDROID_SDK_ROOT}/ndk-bundle.

If you are running the Android Gradle plugin, you need to export GRADLE_OPTS to override aapt2 to point to the aapt2 binary in the Nix store as well, or use a FHS environment so the packaged aapt2 can run. If you don’t want to use a FHS environment, something like this should work:

let
  buildToolsVersion = "30.0.3";

  # Use buildToolsVersion when you define androidComposition
  androidComposition = <...>;
in
pkgs.mkShell rec {
  ANDROID_SDK_ROOT = "${androidComposition.androidsdk}/libexec/android-sdk";
  ANDROID_NDK_ROOT = "${ANDROID_SDK_ROOT}/ndk-bundle";

  # Use the same buildToolsVersion here
  GRADLE_OPTS = "-Dorg.gradle.project.android.aapt2FromMavenOverride=${ANDROID_SDK_ROOT}/build-tools/${buildToolsVersion}/aapt2";
}

If you are using cmake, you need to add it to PATH in a shell hook or FHS env profile. The path is suffixed with a build number, but properly prefixed with the version. So, something like this should suffice:

let
  cmakeVersion = "3.10.2";

  # Use cmakeVersion when you define androidComposition
  androidComposition = <...>;
in
pkgs.mkShell rec {
  ANDROID_SDK_ROOT = "${androidComposition.androidsdk}/libexec/android-sdk";
  ANDROID_NDK_ROOT = "${ANDROID_SDK_ROOT}/ndk-bundle";

  # Use the same cmakeVersion here
  shellHook = ''
    export PATH="$(echo "$ANDROID_SDK_ROOT/cmake/${cmakeVersion}".*/bin):$PATH"
  '';
}

Note that running Android Studio with ANDROID_SDK_ROOT set will automatically write a local.properties file with sdk.dir set to $ANDROID_SDK_ROOT if one does not already exist. If you are using the NDK as well, you may have to add ndk.dir to this file.

An example shell.nix that does all this for you is provided in examples/shell.nix. This shell.nix includes a shell hook that overwrites local.properties with the correct sdk.dir and ndk.dir values. This will ensure that the SDK and NDK directories will both be correct when you run Android Studio inside nix-shell.

Notes on improving build.gradle compatibility

Ensure that your buildToolsVersion and ndkVersion match what is declared in androidenv. If you are using cmake, make sure its declared version is correct too.

Otherwise, you may get cryptic errors from aapt2 and the Android Gradle plugin warning that it cannot install the build tools because the SDK directory is not writeable.

android {
    buildToolsVersion "30.0.3"
    ndkVersion = "22.0.7026061"
    externalNativeBuild {
        cmake {
            version "3.10.2"
        }
    }
}

Querying the available versions of each plugin

repo.json provides all the options in one file now.

A shell script in the pkgs/development/mobile/androidenv/ subdirectory can be used to retrieve all possible options:

./querypackages.sh packages

The above command-line instruction queries all package versions in repo.json.

Updating the generated expressions

repo.json is generated from XML files that the Android Studio package manager uses. To update the expressions run the generate.sh script that is stored in the pkgs/development/mobile/androidenv/ subdirectory:

./generate.sh

BEAM Languages (Erlang, Elixir & LFE)

Introduction

In this document and related Nix expressions, we use the term, BEAM, to describe the environment. BEAM is the name of the Erlang Virtual Machine and, as far as we’re concerned, from a packaging perspective, all languages that run on the BEAM are interchangeable. That which varies, like the build system, is transparent to users of any given BEAM package, so we make no distinction.

Available versions and deprecations schedule

Elixir

nixpkgs follows the official elixir deprecation schedule and keeps the last 5 released versions of Elixir available.

Structure

All BEAM-related expressions are available via the top-level beam attribute, which includes:

  • interpreters: a set of compilers running on the BEAM, including multiple Erlang/OTP versions (beam.interpreters.erlang_22, etc), Elixir (beam.interpreters.elixir) and LFE (Lisp Flavoured Erlang) (beam.interpreters.lfe).

  • packages: a set of package builders (Mix and rebar3), each compiled with a specific Erlang/OTP version, e.g. beam.packages.erlang22.

The default Erlang compiler, defined by beam.interpreters.erlang, is aliased as erlang. The default BEAM package set is defined by beam.packages.erlang and aliased at the top level as beamPackages.

To create a package builder built with a custom Erlang version, use the lambda, beam.packagesWith, which accepts an Erlang/OTP derivation and produces a package builder similar to beam.packages.erlang.

Many Erlang/OTP distributions available in beam.interpreters have versions with ODBC and/or Java enabled or without wx (no observer support). For example, there’s beam.interpreters.erlang_22_odbc_javac, which corresponds to beam.interpreters.erlang_22 and beam.interpreters.erlang_22_nox, which corresponds to beam.interpreters.erlang_22.

Build Tools

Rebar3

We provide a version of Rebar3, under rebar3. We also provide a helper to fetch Rebar3 dependencies from a lockfile under fetchRebar3Deps.

We also provide a version on Rebar3 with plugins included, under rebar3WithPlugins. This package is a function which takes two arguments: plugins, a list of nix derivations to include as plugins (loaded only when specified in rebar.config), and globalPlugins, which should always be loaded by rebar3. Example: rebar3WithPlugins { globalPlugins = [beamPackages.pc]; }.

When adding a new plugin it is important that the packageName attribute is the same as the atom used by rebar3 to refer to the plugin.

Mix & Erlang.mk

Erlang.mk works exactly as expected. There is a bootstrap process that needs to be run, which is supported by the buildErlangMk derivation.

For Elixir applications use mixRelease to make a release. See examples for more details.

There is also a buildMix helper, whose behavior is closer to that of buildErlangMk and buildRebar3. The primary difference is that mixRelease makes a release, while buildMix only builds the package, making it useful for libraries and other dependencies.

How to Install BEAM Packages

BEAM builders are not registered at the top level, simply because they are not relevant to the vast majority of Nix users. To use any of those builders into your environment, refer to them by their attribute path under beamPackages, e.g. beamPackages.rebar3:

Example 204. Ephemeral shell

$ nix-shell -p beamPackages.rebar3


Example 205. Declarative shell

let
  pkgs = import <nixpkgs> { config = {}; overlays = []; };
in
pkgs.mkShell {
  packages = [ pkgs.beamPackages.rebar3 ];
}


Packaging BEAM Applications

Erlang Applications

Rebar3 Packages

The Nix function, buildRebar3, defined in beam.packages.erlang.buildRebar3 and aliased at the top level, can be used to build a derivation that understands how to build a Rebar3 project.

If a package needs to compile native code via Rebar3’s port compilation mechanism, add compilePort = true; to the derivation.

Erlang.mk Packages

Erlang.mk functions similarly to Rebar3, except we use buildErlangMk instead of buildRebar3.

Mix Packages

mixRelease is used to make a release in the mix sense. Dependencies will need to be fetched with fetchMixDeps and passed to it.

mixRelease - Elixir Phoenix example

there are 3 steps, frontend dependencies (javascript), backend dependencies (elixir) and the final derivation that puts both of those together

mixRelease - Frontend dependencies (javascript)

For phoenix projects, inside of nixpkgs you can either use yarn2nix (mkYarnModule) or node2nix. An example with yarn2nix can be found here. An example with node2nix will follow. To package something outside of nixpkgs, you have alternatives like npmlock2nix or nix-npm-buildpackage

mixRelease - backend dependencies (mix)

There are 2 ways to package backend dependencies. With mix2nix and with a fixed-output-derivation (FOD).

mix2nix

mix2nix is a cli tool available in nixpkgs. it will generate a nix expression from a mix.lock file. It is quite standard in the 2nix tool series.

Note that currently mix2nix can’t handle git dependencies inside the mix.lock file. If you have git dependencies, you can either add them manually (see example) or use the FOD method.

The advantage of using mix2nix is that nix will know your whole dependency graph. On a dependency update, this won’t trigger a full rebuild and download of all the dependencies, where FOD will do so.

Practical steps:

  • run mix2nix > mix_deps.nix in the upstream repo.

  • pass mixNixDeps = with pkgs; import ./mix_deps.nix { inherit lib beamPackages; }; as an argument to mixRelease.

If there are git dependencies.

  • You’ll need to fix the version artificially in mix.exs and regenerate the mix.lock with fixed version (on upstream). This will enable you to run mix2nix > mix_deps.nix.

  • From the mix_deps.nix file, remove the dependencies that had git versions and pass them as an override to the import function.

  mixNixDeps = import ./mix.nix {
    inherit beamPackages lib;
    overrides = (final: prev: {
      # mix2nix does not support git dependencies yet,
      # so we need to add them manually
      prometheus_ex = beamPackages.buildMix rec {
        name = "prometheus_ex";
        version = "3.0.5";

        # Change the argument src with the git src that you actually need
        src = fetchFromGitLab {
          domain = "git.pleroma.social";
          group = "pleroma";
          owner = "elixir-libraries";
          repo = "prometheus.ex";
          rev = "a4e9beb3c1c479d14b352fd9d6dd7b1f6d7deee5";
          hash = "sha256-U17LlN6aGUKUFnT4XyYXppRN+TvUBIBRHEUsfeIiGOw=";
        };
        # you can re-use the same beamDeps argument as generated
        beamDeps = with final; [ prometheus ];
      };
  });
};

You will need to run the build process once to fix the hash to correspond to your new git src.

FOD

A fixed output derivation will download mix dependencies from the internet. To ensure reproducibility, a hash will be supplied. Note that mix is relatively reproducible. An FOD generating a different hash on each run hasn’t been observed (as opposed to npm where the chances are relatively high). See elixir-ls for a usage example of FOD.

Practical steps

  • start with the following argument to mixRelease

  mixFodDeps = fetchMixDeps {
    pname = "mix-deps-${pname}";
    inherit src version;
    hash = lib.fakeHash;
  };

The first build will complain about the hash value, you can replace with the suggested value after that.

Note that if after you’ve replaced the value, nix suggests another hash, then mix is not fetching the dependencies reproducibly. An FOD will not work in that case and you will have to use mix2nix.

mixRelease - example

Here is how your default.nix file would look for a phoenix project.

with import <nixpkgs> { };

let
  # beam.interpreters.erlang_26 is available if you need a particular version
  packages = beam.packagesWith beam.interpreters.erlang;

  pname = "your_project";
  version = "0.0.1";

  src = builtins.fetchgit {
    url = "ssh://git@github.com/your_id/your_repo";
    rev = "replace_with_your_commit";
  };

  # if using mix2nix you can use the mixNixDeps attribute
  mixFodDeps = packages.fetchMixDeps {
    pname = "mix-deps-${pname}";
    inherit src version;
    # nix will complain and tell you the right value to replace this with
    hash = lib.fakeHash;
    mixEnv = ""; # default is "prod", when empty includes all dependencies, such as "dev", "test".
    # if you have build time environment variables add them here
    MY_ENV_VAR="my_value";
  };

  nodeDependencies = (pkgs.callPackage ./assets/default.nix { }).shell.nodeDependencies;

in packages.mixRelease {
  inherit src pname version mixFodDeps;
  # if you have build time environment variables add them here
  MY_ENV_VAR="my_value";

  postBuild = ''
    ln -sf ${nodeDependencies}/lib/node_modules assets/node_modules
    npm run deploy --prefix ./assets

    # for external task you need a workaround for the no deps check flag
    # https://github.com/phoenixframework/phoenix/issues/2690
    mix do deps.loadpaths --no-deps-check, phx.digest
    mix phx.digest --no-deps-check
  '';
}

Setup will require the following steps:

  • Move your secrets to runtime environment variables. For more information refer to the runtime.exs docs. On a fresh Phoenix build that would mean that both DATABASE_URL and SECRET_KEY need to be moved to runtime.exs.

  • cd assets and nix-shell -p node2nix --run node2nix --development will generate a Nix expression containing your frontend dependencies

  • commit and push those changes

  • you can now nix-build .

  • To run the release, set the RELEASE_TMP environment variable to a directory that your program has write access to. It will be used to store the BEAM settings.

Example of creating a service for an Elixir - Phoenix project

In order to create a service with your release, you could add a service.nix in your project with the following

{config, pkgs, lib, ...}:

let
  release = pkgs.callPackage ./default.nix;
  release_name = "app";
  working_directory = "/home/app";
in
{
  systemd.services.${release_name} = {
    wantedBy = [ "multi-user.target" ];
    after = [ "network.target" "postgresql.service" ];
    # note that if you are connecting to a postgres instance on a different host
    # postgresql.service should not be included in the requires.
    requires = [ "network-online.target" "postgresql.service" ];
    description = "my app";
    environment = {
      # RELEASE_TMP is used to write the state of the
      # VM configuration when the system is running
      # it needs to be a writable directory
      RELEASE_TMP = working_directory;
      # can be generated in an elixir console with
      # Base.encode32(:crypto.strong_rand_bytes(32))
      RELEASE_COOKIE = "my_cookie";
      MY_VAR = "my_var";
    };
    serviceConfig = {
      Type = "exec";
      DynamicUser = true;
      WorkingDirectory = working_directory;
      # Implied by DynamicUser, but just to emphasize due to RELEASE_TMP
      PrivateTmp = true;
      ExecStart = ''
        ${release}/bin/${release_name} start
      '';
      ExecStop = ''
        ${release}/bin/${release_name} stop
      '';
      ExecReload = ''
        ${release}/bin/${release_name} restart
      '';
      Restart = "on-failure";
      RestartSec = 5;
      StartLimitBurst = 3;
      StartLimitInterval = 10;
    };
    # disksup requires bash
    path = [ pkgs.bash ];
  };

  # in case you have migration scripts or you want to use a remote shell
  environment.systemPackages = [ release ];
}

How to Develop

Creating a Shell

Usually, we need to create a shell.nix file and do our development inside of the environment specified therein. Just install your version of Erlang and any other interpreters, and then use your normal build tools. As an example with Elixir:

{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:

with pkgs;
let
  elixir = beam.packages.erlang_24.elixir_1_12;
in
mkShell {
  buildInputs = [ elixir ];
}

Using an overlay

If you need to use an overlay to change some attributes of a derivation, e.g. if you need a bugfix from a version that is not yet available in nixpkgs, you can override attributes such as version (and the corresponding hash) and then use this overlay in your development environment:

shell.nix
let
  elixir_1_13_1_overlay = (self: super: {
      elixir_1_13 = super.elixir_1_13.override {
        version = "1.13.1";
        sha256 = "sha256-t0ic1LcC7EV3avWGdR7VbyX7pGDpnJSW1ZvwvQUPC3w=";
      };
    });
  pkgs = import <nixpkgs> { overlays = [ elixir_1_13_1_overlay ]; };
in
with pkgs;
mkShell {
  buildInputs = [
    elixir_1_13
  ];
}
Elixir - Phoenix project

Here is an example shell.nix.

with import <nixpkgs> { };

let
  # define packages to install
  basePackages = [
    git
    # replace with beam.packages.erlang.elixir_1_13 if you need
    beam.packages.erlang.elixir
    nodejs
    postgresql_14
    # only used for frontend dependencies
    # you are free to use yarn2nix as well
    nodePackages.node2nix
    # formatting js file
    nodePackages.prettier
  ];

  inputs = basePackages ++ lib.optionals stdenv.isLinux [ inotify-tools ]
    ++ lib.optionals stdenv.isDarwin
    (with darwin.apple_sdk.frameworks; [ CoreFoundation CoreServices ]);

  # define shell startup command
  hooks = ''
    # this allows mix to work on the local directory
    mkdir -p .nix-mix .nix-hex
    export MIX_HOME=$PWD/.nix-mix
    export HEX_HOME=$PWD/.nix-mix
    # make hex from Nixpkgs available
    # `mix local.hex` will install hex into MIX_HOME and should take precedence
    export MIX_PATH="${beam.packages.erlang.hex}/lib/erlang/lib/hex/ebin"
    export PATH=$MIX_HOME/bin:$HEX_HOME/bin:$PATH
    export LANG=C.UTF-8
    # keep your shell history in iex
    export ERL_AFLAGS="-kernel shell_history enabled"

    # postges related
    # keep all your db data in a folder inside the project
    export PGDATA="$PWD/db"

    # phoenix related env vars
    export POOL_SIZE=15
    export DB_URL="postgresql://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/db"
    export PORT=4000
    export MIX_ENV=dev
    # add your project env vars here, word readable in the nix store.
    export ENV_VAR="your_env_var"
  '';

in mkShell {
  buildInputs = inputs;
  shellHook = hooks;
}

Initializing the project will require the following steps:

  • create the db directory initdb ./db (inside your mix project folder)

  • create the postgres user createuser postgres -ds

  • create the db createdb db

  • start the postgres instance pg_ctl -l "$PGDATA/server.log" start

  • add the /db folder to your .gitignore

  • you can start your phoenix server and get a shell with iex -S mix phx.server

Bower

Bower is a package manager for web site front-end components. Bower packages (comprising of build artifacts and sometimes sources) are stored in git repositories, typically on Github. The package registry is run by the Bower team with package metadata coming from the bower.json file within each package.

The end result of running Bower is a bower_components directory which can be included in the web app’s build process.

Bower can be run interactively, by installing nodePackages.bower. More interestingly, the Bower components can be declared in a Nix derivation, with the help of nodePackages.bower2nix.

bower2nix usage

Suppose you have a bower.json with the following contents:

Example bower.json

  "name": "my-web-app",
  "dependencies": {
    "angular": "~1.5.0",
    "bootstrap": "~3.3.6"
  }

Running bower2nix will produce something like the following output:

{ fetchbower, buildEnv }:
buildEnv { name = "bower-env"; ignoreCollisions = true; paths = [
  (fetchbower "angular" "1.5.3" "~1.5.0" "1749xb0firxdra4rzadm4q9x90v6pzkbd7xmcyjk6qfza09ykk9y")
  (fetchbower "bootstrap" "3.3.6" "~3.3.6" "1vvqlpbfcy0k5pncfjaiskj3y6scwifxygfqnw393sjfxiviwmbv")
  (fetchbower "jquery" "2.2.2" "1.9.1 - 2" "10sp5h98sqwk90y4k6hbdviwqzvzwqf47r3r51pakch5ii2y7js1")
];

Using the bower2nix command line arguments, the output can be redirected to a file. A name like bower-packages.nix would be fine.

The resulting derivation is a union of all the downloaded Bower packages (and their dependencies). To use it, they still need to be linked together by Bower, which is where buildBowerComponents is useful.

buildBowerComponents function

The function is implemented in pkgs/development/bower-modules/generic/default.nix.

Example buildBowerComponents

bowerComponents = buildBowerComponents {
  name = "my-web-app";
  generated = ./bower-packages.nix; # note 1
  src = myWebApp; # note 2
};

In “buildBowerComponents” example the following arguments are of special significance to the function:

  1. generated specifies the file which was created by bower2nix.

  2. src is your project’s sources. It needs to contain a bower.json file.

buildBowerComponents will run Bower to link together the output of bower2nix, resulting in a bower_components directory which can be used.

Here is an example of a web frontend build process using gulp. You might use grunt, or anything else.

Example build script (gulpfile.js)

var gulp = require('gulp');

gulp.task('default', [], function () {
  gulp.start('build');
});

gulp.task('build', [], function () {
  console.log("Just a dummy gulp build");
  gulp
    .src(["./bower_components/**/*"])
    .pipe(gulp.dest("./gulpdist/"));
});

Example Full example — default.nix

{ myWebApp ? { outPath = ./.; name = "myWebApp"; }
, pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {}
}:

pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation {
  name = "my-web-app-frontend";
  src = myWebApp;

  buildInputs = [ pkgs.nodePackages.gulp ];

  bowerComponents = pkgs.buildBowerComponents { # note 1
    name = "my-web-app";
    generated = ./bower-packages.nix;
    src = myWebApp;
  };

  buildPhase = ''
    cp --reflink=auto --no-preserve=mode -R $bowerComponents/bower_components . # note 2
    export HOME=$PWD # note 3
    ${pkgs.nodePackages.gulp}/bin/gulp build # note 4
  '';

  installPhase = "mv gulpdist $out";
}

A few notes about Full example — default.nix:

  1. The result of buildBowerComponents is an input to the frontend build.

  2. Whether to symlink or copy the bower_components directory depends on the build tool in use. In this case a copy is used to avoid gulp silliness with permissions.

  3. gulp requires HOME to refer to a writeable directory.

  4. The actual build command in this example is gulp. Other tools could be used instead.

Troubleshooting

ENOCACHE errors from buildBowerComponents

This means that Bower was looking for a package version which doesn’t exist in the generated bower-packages.nix.

If bower.json has been updated, then run bower2nix again.

It could also be a bug in bower2nix or fetchbower. If possible, try reformulating the version specification in bower.json.

CHICKEN

CHICKEN is a R⁵RS-compliant Scheme compiler. It includes an interactive mode and a custom package format, “eggs”.

Using Eggs

Eggs described in nixpkgs are available inside the chickenPackages.chickenEggs attrset. Including an egg as a build input is done in the typical Nix fashion. For example, to include support for SRFI 189 in a derivation, one might write:

  buildInputs = [
    chicken
    chickenPackages.chickenEggs.srfi-189
  ];

Both chicken and its eggs have a setup hook which configures the environment variables CHICKEN_INCLUDE_PATH and CHICKEN_REPOSITORY_PATH.

Updating Eggs

nixpkgs only knows about a subset of all published eggs. It uses egg2nix to generate a package set from a list of eggs to include.

The package set is regenerated by running the following shell commands:

$ nix-shell -p chickenPackages.egg2nix
$ cd pkgs/development/compilers/chicken/5/
$ egg2nix eggs.scm > eggs.nix

Adding Eggs

When we run egg2nix, we obtain one collection of eggs with mutually-compatible versions. This means that when we add new eggs, we may need to update existing eggs. To keep those separate, follow the procedure for updating eggs before including more eggs.

To include more eggs, edit pkgs/development/compilers/chicken/5/eggs.scm. The first section of this file lists eggs which are required by egg2nix itself; all other eggs go into the second section. After editing, follow the procedure for updating eggs.

Override Scope

The chicken package and its eggs, respectively, reside in a scope. This means, the scope can be overridden to effect other packages in it.

This example shows how to use a local copy of srfi-180 and have it affect all the other eggs:

let
  myChickenPackages = pkgs.chickenPackages.overrideScope' (self: super: {
      # The chicken package itself can be overridden to effect the whole ecosystem.
      # chicken = super.chicken.overrideAttrs {
      #   src = ...
      # };

      chickenEggs = super.chickenEggs.overrideScope' (eggself: eggsuper: {
        srfi-180 = eggsuper.srfi-180.overrideAttrs {
          # path to a local copy of srfi-180
          src = ...
        };
      });
  });
in
# Here, `myChickenPackages.chickenEggs.json-rpc`, which depends on `srfi-180` will use
# the local copy of `srfi-180`.
# ...

Coq and coq packages

Coq derivation: coq

The Coq derivation is overridable through the coq.override overrides, where overrides is an attribute set which contains the arguments to override. We recommend overriding either of the following

  • version (optional, defaults to the latest version of Coq selected for nixpkgs, see pkgs/top-level/coq-packages to witness this choice), which follows the conventions explained in the coqPackages section below,

  • customOCamlPackages (optional, defaults to null, which lets Coq choose a version automatically), which can be set to any of the ocaml packages attribute of ocaml-ng (such as ocaml-ng.ocamlPackages_4_10 which is the default for Coq 8.11 for example).

  • coq-version (optional, defaults to the short version e.g. “8.10”), is a version number of the form “x.y” that indicates which Coq’s version build behavior to mimic when using a source which is not a release. E.g. coq.override { version = "d370a9d1328a4e1cdb9d02ee032f605a9d94ec7a"; coq-version = "8.10"; }.

The associated package set can be obtained using mkCoqPackages coq, where coq is the derivation to use.

Coq packages attribute sets: coqPackages

The recommended way of defining a derivation for a Coq library, is to use the coqPackages.mkCoqDerivation function, which is essentially a specialization of mkDerivation taking into account most of the specifics of Coq libraries. The following attributes are supported:

  • pname (required) is the name of the package,

  • version (optional, defaults to null), is the version to fetch and build, this attribute is interpreted in several ways depending on its type and pattern:

    • if it is a known released version string, i.e. from the release attribute below, the according release is picked, and the version attribute of the resulting derivation is set to this release string,

    • if it is a majorMinor "x.y" prefix of a known released version (as defined above), then the latest "x.y.z" known released version is selected (for the ordering given by versionAtLeast),

    • if it is a path or a string representing an absolute path (i.e. starting with "/"), the provided path is selected as a source, and the version attribute of the resulting derivation is set to "dev",

    • if it is a string of the form owner:branch then it tries to download the branch of owner owner for a project of the same name using the same vcs, and the version attribute of the resulting derivation is set to "dev", additionally if the owner is not provided (i.e. if the owner: prefix is missing), it defaults to the original owner of the package (see below),

    • if it is a string of the form "#N", and the domain is github, then it tries to download the current head of the pull request #N from github,

  • defaultVersion (optional). Coq libraries may be compatible with some specific versions of Coq only. The defaultVersion attribute is used when no version is provided (or if version = null) to select the version of the library to use by default, depending on the context. This selection will mainly depend on a coq version number but also possibly on other packages versions (e.g. mathcomp). If its value ends up to be null, the package is marked for removal in end-user coqPackages attribute set.

  • release (optional, defaults to {}), lists all the known releases of the library and for each of them provides an attribute set with at least a sha256 attribute (you may put the empty string "" in order to automatically insert a fake sha256, this will trigger an error which will allow you to find the correct sha256), each attribute set of the list of releases also takes optional overloading arguments for the fetcher as below (i.e.domain, owner, repo, rev assuming the default fetcher is used) and optional overrides for the result of the fetcher (i.e. version and src).

  • fetcher (optional, defaults to a generic fetching mechanism supporting github or gitlab based infrastructures), is a function that takes at least an owner, a repo, a rev, and a hash and returns an attribute set with a version and src.

  • repo (optional, defaults to the value of pname),

  • owner (optional, defaults to "coq-community").

  • domain (optional, defaults to "github.com"), domains including the strings "github" or "gitlab" in their names are automatically supported, otherwise, one must change the fetcher argument to support them (cf pkgs/development/coq-modules/heq/default.nix for an example),

  • releaseRev (optional, defaults to (v: v)), provides a default mapping from release names to revision hashes/branch names/tags,

  • displayVersion (optional), provides a way to alter the computation of name from pname, by explaining how to display version numbers,

  • namePrefix (optional, defaults to [ "coq" ]), provides a way to alter the computation of name from pname, by explaining which dependencies must occur in name,

  • nativeBuildInputs (optional), is a list of executables that are required to build the current derivation, in addition to the default ones (namely which, dune and ocaml depending on whether useDune, useDuneifVersion and mlPlugin are set).

  • extraNativeBuildInputs (optional, deprecated), an additional list of derivation to add to nativeBuildInputs,

  • overrideNativeBuildInputs (optional) replaces the default list of derivation to which nativeBuildInputs and extraNativeBuildInputs adds extra elements,

  • buildInputs (optional), is a list of libraries and dependencies that are required to build and run the current derivation, in addition to the default one [ coq ],

  • extraBuildInputs (optional, deprecated), an additional list of derivation to add to buildInputs,

  • overrideBuildInputs (optional) replaces the default list of derivation to which buildInputs and extraBuildInputs adds extras elements,

  • propagatedBuildInputs (optional) is passed as is to mkDerivation, we recommend to use this for Coq libraries and Coq plugin dependencies, as this makes sure the paths of the compiled libraries and plugins will always be added to the build environments of subsequent derivation, which is necessary for Coq packages to work correctly,

  • mlPlugin (optional, defaults to false). Some extensions (plugins) might require OCaml and sometimes other OCaml packages. Standard dependencies can be added by setting the current option to true. For a finer grain control, the coq.ocamlPackages attribute can be used in nativeBuildInputs, buildInputs, and propagatedBuildInputs to depend on the same package set Coq was built against.

  • useDuneifVersion (optional, default to (x: false) uses Dune to build the package if the provided predicate evaluates to true on the version, e.g. useDuneifVersion = versions.isGe "1.1" will use dune if the version of the package is greater or equal to "1.1",

  • useDune (optional, defaults to false) uses Dune to build the package if set to true, the presence of this attribute overrides the behavior of the previous one.

  • opam-name (optional, defaults to concatenating with a dash separator the components of namePrefix and pname), name of the Dune package to build.

  • enableParallelBuilding (optional, defaults to true), since it is activated by default, we provide a way to disable it.

  • extraInstallFlags (optional), allows to extend installFlags which initializes the variable COQMF_COQLIB so as to install in the proper subdirectory. Indeed Coq libraries should be installed in $(out)/lib/coq/${coq.coq-version}/user-contrib/. Such directories are automatically added to the $COQPATH environment variable by the hook defined in the Coq derivation.

  • setCOQBIN (optional, defaults to true), by default, the environment variable $COQBIN is set to the current Coq’s binary, but one can disable this behavior by setting it to false,

  • useMelquiondRemake (optional, default to null) is an attribute set, which, if given, overloads the preConfigurePhases, configureFlags, buildPhase, and installPhase attributes of the derivation for a specific use in libraries using remake as set up by Guillaume Melquiond for flocq, gappalib, interval, and coquelicot (see the corresponding derivation for concrete examples of use of this option). For backward compatibility, the attribute useMelquiondRemake.logpath must be set to the logical root of the library (otherwise, one can pass useMelquiondRemake = {} to activate this without backward compatibility).

  • dropAttrs, keepAttrs, dropDerivationAttrs are all optional and allow to tune which attribute is added or removed from the final call to mkDerivation.

It also takes other standard mkDerivation attributes, they are added as such, except for meta which extends an automatically computed meta (where the platform is the same as coq and the homepage is automatically computed).

Here is a simple package example. It is a pure Coq library, thus it depends on Coq. It builds on the Mathematical Components library, thus it also takes some mathcomp derivations as extraBuildInputs.

{ lib, mkCoqDerivation, version ? null
, coq, mathcomp, mathcomp-finmap, mathcomp-bigenough }:
with lib; mkCoqDerivation {
  /* namePrefix leads to e.g. `name = coq8.11-mathcomp1.11-multinomials-1.5.2` */
  namePrefix = [ "coq" "mathcomp" ];
  pname = "multinomials";
  owner = "math-comp";
  inherit version;
  defaultVersion =  with versions; switch [ coq.version mathcomp.version ] [
      { cases = [ (range "8.7" "8.12")  "1.11.0" ];             out = "1.5.2"; }
      { cases = [ (range "8.7" "8.11")  (range "1.8" "1.10") ]; out = "1.5.0"; }
      { cases = [ (range "8.7" "8.10")  (range "1.8" "1.10") ]; out = "1.4"; }
      { cases = [ "8.6"                 (range "1.6" "1.7") ];  out = "1.1"; }
    ] null;
  release = {
    "1.5.2".sha256 = "15aspf3jfykp1xgsxf8knqkxv8aav2p39c2fyirw7pwsfbsv2c4s";
    "1.5.1".sha256 = "13nlfm2wqripaq671gakz5mn4r0xwm0646araxv0nh455p9ndjs3";
    "1.5.0".sha256 = "064rvc0x5g7y1a0nip6ic91vzmq52alf6in2bc2dmss6dmzv90hw";
    "1.5.0".rev    = "1.5";
    "1.4".sha256   = "0vnkirs8iqsv8s59yx1fvg1nkwnzydl42z3scya1xp1b48qkgn0p";
    "1.3".sha256   = "0l3vi5n094nx3qmy66hsv867fnqm196r8v605kpk24gl0aa57wh4";
    "1.2".sha256   = "1mh1w339dslgv4f810xr1b8v2w7rpx6fgk9pz96q0fyq49fw2xcq";
    "1.1".sha256   = "1q8alsm89wkc0lhcvxlyn0pd8rbl2nnxg81zyrabpz610qqjqc3s";
    "1.0".sha256   = "1qmbxp1h81cy3imh627pznmng0kvv37k4hrwi2faa101s6bcx55m";
  };

  propagatedBuildInputs =
    [ mathcomp.ssreflect mathcomp.algebra mathcomp-finmap mathcomp-bigenough ];

  meta = {
    description = "A Coq/SSReflect Library for Monoidal Rings and Multinomials";
    license = licenses.cecill-c;
  };
}

Three ways of overriding Coq packages

There are three distinct ways of changing a Coq package by overriding one of its values: .override, overrideCoqDerivation, and .overrideAttrs. This section explains what sort of values can be overridden with each of these methods.

.override

.override lets you change arguments to a Coq derivation. In the case of the multinomials package above, .override would let you override arguments like mkCoqDerivation, version, coq, mathcomp, mathcom-finmap, etc.

For example, assuming you have a special mathcomp dependency you want to use, here is how you could override the mathcomp dependency:

multinomials.override {
  mathcomp = my-special-mathcomp;
}

In Nixpkgs, all Coq derivations take a version argument. This can be overridden in order to easily use a different version:

coqPackages.multinomials.override {
  version = "1.5.1";
}

Refer to the section called “Coq packages attribute sets: coqPackages for all the different formats that you can potentially pass to version, as well as the restrictions.

overrideCoqDerivation

The overrideCoqDerivation function lets you easily change arguments to mkCoqDerivation. These arguments are described in the section called “Coq packages attribute sets: coqPackages.

For example, here is how you could locally add a new release of the multinomials library, and set the defaultVersion to use this release:

coqPackages.lib.overrideCoqDerivation
  {
    defaultVersion = "2.0";
    release."2.0".sha256 = "1lq8x86vd3vqqh2yq6hvyagpnhfq5wmk5pg2z0xq7b7dbbbhyfkk";
  }
  coqPackages.multinomials

.overrideAttrs

.overrideAttrs lets you override arguments to the underlying stdenv.mkDerivation call. Internally, mkCoqDerivation uses stdenv.mkDerivation to create derivations for Coq libraries. You can override arguments to stdenv.mkDerivation with .overrideAttrs.

For instance, here is how you could add some code to be performed in the derivation after installation is complete:

coqPackages.multinomials.overrideAttrs (oldAttrs: {
  postInstall = oldAttrs.postInstall or "" + ''
    echo "you can do anything you want here"
  '';
})

Crystal

Building a Crystal package

This section uses Mint as an example for how to build a Crystal package.

If the Crystal project has any dependencies, the first step is to get a shards.nix file encoding those. Get a copy of the project and go to its root directory such that its shard.lock file is in the current directory. Executable projects should usually commit the shard.lock file, but sometimes that’s not the case, which means you need to generate it yourself. With an existing shard.lock file, crystal2nix can be run.

$ git clone https://github.com/mint-lang/mint
$ cd mint
$ git checkout 0.5.0
$ if [ ! -f shard.lock ]; then nix-shell -p shards --run "shards lock"; fi
$ nix-shell -p crystal2nix --run crystal2nix

This should have generated a shards.nix file.

Next create a Nix file for your derivation and use pkgs.crystal.buildCrystalPackage as follows:

with import <nixpkgs> {};
crystal.buildCrystalPackage rec {
  pname = "mint";
  version = "0.5.0";

  src = fetchFromGitHub {
    owner = "mint-lang";
    repo = "mint";
    rev = version;
    hash = "sha256-dFN9l5fgrM/TtOPqlQvUYgixE4KPr629aBmkwdDoq28=";
  };

  # Insert the path to your shards.nix file here
  shardsFile = ./shards.nix;

  ...
}

This won’t build anything yet, because we haven’t told it what files build. We can specify a mapping from binary names to source files with the crystalBinaries attribute. The project’s compilation instructions should show this. For Mint, the binary is called “mint”, which is compiled from the source file src/mint.cr, so we’ll specify this as follows:

  crystalBinaries.mint.src = "src/mint.cr";

  # ...

Additionally you can override the default crystal build options (which are currently --release --progress --no-debug --verbose) with

  crystalBinaries.mint.options = [ "--release" "--verbose" ];

Depending on the project, you might need additional steps to get it to compile successfully. In Mint’s case, we need to link against openssl, so in the end the Nix file looks as follows:

with import <nixpkgs> {};
crystal.buildCrystalPackage rec {
  version = "0.5.0";
  pname = "mint";
  src = fetchFromGitHub {
    owner = "mint-lang";
    repo = "mint";
    rev = version;
    hash = "sha256-dFN9l5fgrM/TtOPqlQvUYgixE4KPr629aBmkwdDoq28=";
  };

  shardsFile = ./shards.nix;
  crystalBinaries.mint.src = "src/mint.cr";

  buildInputs = [ openssl ];
}

CUDA

CUDA-only packages are stored in the cudaPackages packages set. This set includes the cudatoolkit, portions of the toolkit in separate derivations, cudnn, cutensor and nccl.

A package set is available for each CUDA version, so for example cudaPackages_11_6. Within each set is a matching version of the above listed packages. Additionally, other versions of the packages that are packaged and compatible are available as well. For example, there can be a cudaPackages.cudnn_8_3 package.

To use one or more CUDA packages in an expression, give the expression a cudaPackages parameter, and in case CUDA is optional

{ config
, cudaSupport ? config.cudaSupport
, cudaPackages ? { }
, ...
}:

When using callPackage, you can choose to pass in a different variant, e.g. when a different version of the toolkit suffices

mypkg = callPackage { cudaPackages = cudaPackages_11_5; }

If another version of say cudnn or cutensor is needed, you can override the package set to make it the default. This guarantees you get a consistent package set.

mypkg = let
  cudaPackages = cudaPackages_11_5.overrideScope (final: prev: {
    cudnn = prev.cudnn_8_3;
  }});
in callPackage { inherit cudaPackages; };

The CUDA NVCC compiler requires flags to determine which hardware you want to target for in terms of SASS (real hardware) or PTX (JIT kernels).

Nixpkgs tries to target support real architecture defaults based on the CUDA toolkit version with PTX support for future hardware. Experienced users may optimize this configuration for a variety of reasons such as reducing binary size and compile time, supporting legacy hardware, or optimizing for specific hardware.

You may provide capabilities to add support or reduce binary size through config using cudaCapabilities = [ "6.0" "7.0" ]; and cudaForwardCompat = true; if you want PTX support for future hardware.

Please consult GPUs supported for your specific card(s).

Library maintainers should consult NVCC Docs and release notes for their software package.

Adding a new CUDA release

WARNING

This section of the docs is still very much in progress. Feedback is welcome in GitHub Issues tagging @NixOS/cuda-maintainers or on Matrix.

The CUDA Toolkit is a suite of CUDA libraries and software meant to provide a development environment for CUDA-accelerated applications. Until the release of CUDA 11.4, NVIDIA had only made the CUDA Toolkit available as a multi-gigabyte runfile installer, which we provide through the cudaPackages.cudatoolkit attribute. From CUDA 11.4 and onwards, NVIDIA has also provided CUDA redistributables (“CUDA-redist”): individually packaged CUDA Toolkit components meant to facilitate redistribution and inclusion in downstream projects. These packages are available in the cudaPackages package set.

All new projects should use the CUDA redistributables available in cudaPackages in place of cudaPackages.cudatoolkit, as they are much easier to maintain and update.

Updating CUDA redistributables

  1. Go to NVIDIA’s index of CUDA redistributables: https://developer.download.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/redist/

  2. Copy the redistrib_*.json corresponding to the release to pkgs/development/compilers/cudatoolkit/redist/manifests.

  3. Generate the redistrib_features_*.json file by running:

    nix run github:ConnorBaker/cuda-redist-find-features -- <path to manifest>
    

    That command will generate the redistrib_features_*.json file in the same directory as the manifest.

  4. Include the path to the new manifest in pkgs/development/compilers/cudatoolkit/redist/extension.nix.

Updating the CUDA Toolkit runfile installer

WARNING

While the CUDA Toolkit runfile installer is still available in Nixpkgs as the cudaPackages.cudatoolkit attribute, its use is not recommended and should it be considered deprecated. Please migrate to the CUDA redistributables provided by the cudaPackages package set.

To ensure packages relying on the CUDA Toolkit runfile installer continue to build, it will continue to be updated until a migration path is available.

  1. Go to NVIDIA’s CUDA Toolkit runfile installer download page: https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-downloads

  2. Select the appropriate OS, architecture, distribution, and version, and installer type.

    • For example: Linux, x86_64, Ubuntu, 22.04, runfile (local)

    • NOTE: Typically, we use the Ubuntu runfile. It is unclear if the runfile for other distributions will work.

  3. Take the link provided by the installer instructions on the webpage after selecting the installer type and get its hash by running:

    nix store prefetch-file --hash-type sha256 <link>
    
  4. Update pkgs/development/compilers/cudatoolkit/versions.toml to include the release.

Updating the CUDA package set

  1. Include a new cudaPackages_<major>_<minor> package set in pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix.

    • NOTE: Changing the default CUDA package set should occur in a separate PR, allowing time for additional testing.

  2. Successfully build the closure of the new package set, updating pkgs/development/compilers/cudatoolkit/redist/overrides.nix as needed. Below are some common failures:

Unable to …During …ReasonSolutionNote
Find headersconfigurePhase or buildPhaseMissing dependency on a dev outputAdd the missing dependencyThe dev output typically contain the headers
Find librariesconfigurePhaseMissing dependency on a dev outputAdd the missing dependencyThe dev output typically contain CMake configuration files
Find librariesbuildPhase or patchelfMissing dependency on a lib or static outputAdd the missing dependencyThe lib or static output typically contain the libraries

In the scenario you are unable to run the resulting binary: this is arguably the most complicated as it could be any combination of the previous reasons. This type of failure typically occurs when a library attempts to load or open a library it depends on that it does not declare in its DT_NEEDED section. As a first step, ensure that dependencies are patched with cudaPackages.autoAddOpenGLRunpath. Failing that, try running the application with nixGL or a similar wrapper tool. If that works, it likely means that the application is attempting to load a library that is not in the RPATH or RUNPATH of the binary.

Cue (Cuelang)

Cuelang is a language to:

  • describe schemas and validate backward-compatibility

  • generate code and schemas in various formats (e.g. JSON Schema, OpenAPI)

  • do configuration akin to Dhall Lang

  • perform data validation

Cuelang schema quick start

Cuelang schemas are similar to JSON, here is a quick cheatsheet:

  • Default types includes: null, string, bool, bytes, number, int, float, lists as [...T] where T is a type.

  • All structures, defined by: myStructName: { <fields> } are open – they accept fields which are not specified.

  • Closed structures can be built by doing myStructName: close({ <fields> }) – they are strict in what they accept.

  • #X are definitions, referenced definitions are recursively closed, i.e. all its children structures are closed.

  • & operator is the unification operator (similar to a type-level merging operator), | is the disjunction operator (similar to a type-level union operator).

  • Values are types, i.e. myStruct: { a: 3 } is a valid type definition that only allows 3 as value.

  • Read https://cuelang.org/docs/concepts/logic/ to learn more about the semantics.

  • Read https://cuelang.org/docs/references/spec/ to learn about the language specification.

writeCueValidator

Nixpkgs provides a pkgs.writeCueValidator helper, which will write a validation script based on the provided Cuelang schema.

Here is an example:

pkgs.writeCueValidator
  (pkgs.writeText "schema.cue" ''
    #Def1: {
      field1: string
    }
  '')
  { document = "#Def1"; }
  • The first parameter is the Cue schema file.

  • The second parameter is an options parameter, currently, only: document can be passed.

document : match your input data against this fragment of structure or definition, e.g. you may use the same schema file but different documents based on the data you are validating.

Another example, given the following validator.nix :

{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:
let
  genericValidator = version:
  pkgs.writeCueValidator
    (pkgs.writeText "schema.cue" ''
      #Version1: {
        field1: string
      }
      #Version2: #Version1 & {
        field1: "unused"
      }''
    )
    { document = "#Version${toString version}"; };
in
{
  validateV1 = genericValidator 1;
  validateV2 = genericValidator 2;
}

The result is a script that will validate the file you pass as the first argument against the schema you provided writeCueValidator.

It can be any format that cue vet supports, i.e. YAML or JSON for example.

Here is an example, named example.json, given the following JSON:

{ "field1": "abc" }

You can run the result script (named validate) as the following:

$ nix-build validator.nix
$ ./result example.json
$ ./result-2 example.json
field1: conflicting values "unused" and "abc":
    ./example.json:1:13
    ../../../../../../nix/store/v64dzx3vr3glpk0cq4hzmh450lrwh6sg-schema.cue:5:11
$ sed -i 's/"abc"/3/' example.json
$ ./result example.json
field1: conflicting values 3 and string (mismatched types int and string):
    ./example.json:1:13
    ../../../../../../nix/store/v64dzx3vr3glpk0cq4hzmh450lrwh6sg-schema.cue:5:11

Known limitations

  • The script will enforce concrete values and will not accept lossy transformations (strictness). You can add these options if you need them.

Dart

Dart applications

The function buildDartApplication builds Dart applications managed with pub.

It fetches its Dart dependencies automatically through fetchDartDeps, and (through a series of hooks) builds and installs the executables specified in the pubspec file. The hooks can be used in other derivations, if needed. The phases can also be overridden to do something different from installing binaries.

If you are packaging a Flutter desktop application, use buildFlutterApplication instead.

vendorHash: is the hash of the output of the dependency fetcher derivation. To obtain it, simply set it to lib.fakeHash (or omit it) and run the build (more details here).

If the upstream source is missing a pubspec.lock file, you’ll have to vendor one and specify it using pubspecLockFile. If it is needed, one will be generated for you and printed when attempting to build the derivation.

The dart commands run can be overridden through pubGetScript and dartCompileCommand, you can also add flags using dartCompileFlags or dartJitFlags.

Dart supports multiple outputs types, you can choose between them using dartOutputType (defaults to exe). If you want to override the binaries path or the source path they come from, you can use dartEntryPoints. Outputs that require a r