1
0
Fork 1
mirror of https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs.git synced 2024-11-26 23:52:33 +00:00
nixpkgs/doc/functions/trivial-builders.xml

125 lines
4.3 KiB
XML
Raw Blame History

This file contains ambiguous Unicode characters

This file contains Unicode characters that might be confused with other characters. If you think that this is intentional, you can safely ignore this warning. Use the Escape button to reveal them.

<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
xml:id="sec-trivial-builders">
<title>Trivial builders</title>
<para>
Nixpkgs provides a couple of functions that help with building
derivations. The most important one,
<function>stdenv.mkDerivation</function>, has already been
documented above. The following functions wrap
<function>stdenv.mkDerivation</function>, making it easier to use
in certain cases.
</para>
<variablelist>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<literal>runCommand</literal>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
This takes three arguments, <literal>name</literal>,
<literal>env</literal>, and <literal>buildCommand</literal>.
<literal>name</literal> is just the name that Nix will append
to the store path in the same way that
<literal>stdenv.mkDerivation</literal> uses its
<literal>name</literal> attribute. <literal>env</literal> is an
attribute set specifying environment variables that will be set
for this derivation. These attributes are then passed to the
wrapped <literal>stdenv.mkDerivation</literal>.
<literal>buildCommand</literal> specifies the commands that
will be run to create this derivation. Note that you will need
to create <literal>$out</literal> for Nix to register the
command as successful.
</para>
<para>
An example of using <literal>runCommand</literal> is provided
below.
</para>
<programlisting>
(import &lt;nixpkgs&gt; {}).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
''
</programlisting>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<literal>runCommandCC</literal>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
This works just like <literal>runCommand</literal>. The only
difference is that it also provides a C compiler in
<literal>buildCommand</literal>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.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<literal>writeTextFile</literal>, <literal>writeText</literal>,
<literal>writeTextDir</literal>, <literal>writeScript</literal>,
<literal>writeScriptBin</literal>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
These functions write <literal>text</literal> to the Nix store.
This is useful for creating scripts from Nix expressions.
<literal>writeTextFile</literal> takes an attribute set and
expects two arguments, <literal>name</literal> and
<literal>text</literal>. <literal>name</literal> corresponds to
the name used in the Nix store path. <literal>text</literal>
will be the contents of the file. You can also set
<literal>executable</literal> to true to make this file have
the executable bit set.
</para>
<para>
Many more commands wrap <literal>writeTextFile</literal>
including <literal>writeText</literal>,
<literal>writeTextDir</literal>,
<literal>writeScript</literal>, and
<literal>writeScriptBin</literal>. These are convenience
functions over <literal>writeTextFile</literal>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term>
<literal>symlinkJoin</literal>
</term>
<listitem>
<para>
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,
<literal>name</literal>, and <literal>paths</literal>.
<literal>name</literal> is the name used in the Nix store path
for the created derivation. <literal>paths</literal> is a list of
paths that will be symlinked. These paths can be to Nix store
derivations or any other subdirectory contained within.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
</variablelist>
</section>