98946e2d9c
Basically an attempt to resume fixing #5543 for a breakage introduced
earlier[1]. Basically, when evaluating an older `nixpkgs` with
`nix-shell` the following error occurs:
λ ma27 [~] → nix-shell -I nixpkgs=channel:nixos-18.03 -p nix
error: anonymous function at /nix/store/zakqwc529rb6xcj8pwixjsxscvlx9fbi-source/pkgs/top-level/default.nix:20:1 called with unexpected argument 'inNixShell'
at /nix/store/zakqwc529rb6xcj8pwixjsxscvlx9fbi-source/pkgs/top-level/impure.nix:82:1:
81|
82| import ./. (builtins.removeAttrs args [ "system" "platform" ] // {
| ^
83| inherit config overlays crossSystem;
This is a problem because one of the main selling points of Nix is that
you can evaluate any old Nix expression and still get the same result
(which also means that it *still evaluates*). In fact we're deprecating,
but not removing a lot of stuff for that reason such as unquoted URLs[2]
or `builtins.toPath`. However this property was essentially thrown away
here.
The change is rather simple: check if `inNixShell` is specified in the
formals of an auto-called function. This means that
{ inNixShell ? false }:
builtins.trace inNixShell
(with import <nixpkgs> { }; makeShell { name = "foo"; })
will show `trace: true` while
args@{ ... }:
builtins.trace args.inNixShell
(with import <nixpkgs> { }; makeShell { name = "foo"; })
will throw the following error:
error: attribute 'inNixShell' missing
This is explicitly needed because the function in
`pkgs/top-level/impure.nix` of e.g. NixOS 18.03 has an ellipsis[3], but
passes the attribute-set on to another lambda with formals that doesn't
have an ellipsis anymore (hence the error from above). This was perhaps
a mistake, but we can't fix it anymore. This also means that there's
AFAICS no proper way to check if the attr-set that's passed to the Nix
code via `EvalState::autoCallFunction` is eventually passed to a lambda
with formals where `inNixShell` is missing.
However, this fix comes with a certain price. Essentially every
`shell.nix` that assumes `inNixShell` to be passed to the formals even
without explicitly specifying it would break with this[4]. However I think
that this is ugly, but preferable:
* Nix 2.3 was declared stable by NixOS up until recently (well, it still
is as long as 21.11 is alive), so most people might not have even
noticed that feature.
* We're talking about a way shorter time-span with this change being
in the wild, so the fallout should be smaller IMHO.
[1] 9d612c393a
[2] https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/pull/45#issuecomment-488232537
[3] https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/release-18.03/pkgs/top-level/impure.nix#L75
[4] See e.g. the second expression in this commit-message or the changes
for `tests/ca/nix-shell.sh`.
Nix
Nix is a powerful package manager for Linux and other Unix systems that makes package management reliable and reproducible. Please refer to the Nix manual for more details.
Installation
On Linux and macOS the easiest way to install Nix is to run the following shell command (as a user other than root):
$ curl -L https://nixos.org/nix/install | sh
Information on additional installation methods is available on the Nix download page.
Building And Developing
See our Hacking guide in our manual for instruction on how to build nix from source with nix-build or how to get a development environment.
Additional Resources
- Nix manual
- Nix jobsets on hydra.nixos.org
- NixOS Discourse
- Matrix - #nix:nixos.org
- IRC - #nixos on libera.chat
License
Nix is released under the LGPL v2.1.