diff --git a/pkgs/development/compilers/llvm/7/libc++/default.nix b/pkgs/development/compilers/llvm/7/libc++/default.nix
index 992794f38e54..76bfb34975e6 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/compilers/llvm/7/libc++/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/compilers/llvm/7/libc++/default.nix
@@ -10,11 +10,7 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     export LIBCXXABI_INCLUDE_DIR="$PWD/$(ls -d libcxxabi-${version}*)/include"
   '';
 
-  # on next rebuild, this can be replaced with optionals; for now set to null to avoid
-  # patches = stdenv.lib.optionals stdenv.hostPlatform.isMusl [
-  patches = if stdenv.hostPlatform.isMusl then [
-    ../../libcxx-0001-musl-hacks.patch
-  ] else null;
+  patches = stdenv.lib.optional stdenv.hostPlatform.isMusl ../../libcxx-0001-musl-hacks.patch;
 
   prePatch = ''
     substituteInPlace lib/CMakeLists.txt --replace "/usr/lib/libc++" "\''${LIBCXX_LIBCXXABI_LIB_PATH}/libc++"