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diff --git a/doc/manual/src/expressions/expression-syntax.md b/doc/manual/src/expressions/expression-syntax.md deleted file mode 100644 index 6b93e692c..000000000 --- a/doc/manual/src/expressions/expression-syntax.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,93 +0,0 @@ -# Expression Syntax - -Here is a Nix expression for GNU Hello: - -```nix -{ stdenv, fetchurl, perl }: ① - -stdenv.mkDerivation { ② - name = "hello-2.1.1"; ③ - builder = ./builder.sh; ④ - src = fetchurl { ⑤ - url = "ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/gnu/hello/hello-2.1.1.tar.gz"; - sha256 = "1md7jsfd8pa45z73bz1kszpp01yw6x5ljkjk2hx7wl800any6465"; - }; - inherit perl; ⑥ -} -``` - -This file is actually already in the Nix Packages collection in -`pkgs/applications/misc/hello/ex-1/default.nix`. It is customary to -place each package in a separate directory and call the single Nix -expression in that directory `default.nix`. The file has the following -elements (referenced from the figure by number): - -1. This states that the expression is a *function* that expects to be - called with three arguments: `stdenv`, `fetchurl`, and `perl`. They - are needed to build Hello, but we don't know how to build them here; - that's why they are function arguments. `stdenv` is a package that - is used by almost all Nix Packages; it provides a - “standard” environment consisting of the things you would expect - in a basic Unix environment: a C/C++ compiler (GCC, to be precise), - the Bash shell, fundamental Unix tools such as `cp`, `grep`, `tar`, - etc. `fetchurl` is a function that downloads files. `perl` is the - Perl interpreter. - - Nix functions generally have the form `{ x, y, ..., z }: e` where - `x`, `y`, etc. are the names of the expected arguments, and where - *e* is the body of the function. So here, the entire remainder of - the file is the body of the function; when given the required - arguments, the body should describe how to build an instance of - the Hello package. - -2. So we have to build a package. Building something from other stuff - is called a *derivation* in Nix (as opposed to sources, which are - built by humans instead of computers). We perform a derivation by - calling `stdenv.mkDerivation`. `mkDerivation` is a function - provided by `stdenv` that builds a package from a set of - *attributes*. A set is just a list of key/value pairs where each - key is a string and each value is an arbitrary Nix - expression. They take the general form `{ name1 = expr1; ... - nameN = exprN; }`. - -3. The attribute `name` specifies the symbolic name and version of - the package. Nix doesn't really care about these things, but they - are used by for instance `nix-env -q` to show a “human-readable” - name for packages. This attribute is required by `mkDerivation`. - -4. The attribute `builder` specifies the builder. This attribute can - sometimes be omitted, in which case `mkDerivation` will fill in a - default builder (which does a `configure; make; make install`, in - essence). Hello is sufficiently simple that the default builder - would suffice, but in this case, we will show an actual builder - for educational purposes. The value `./builder.sh` refers to the - shell script shown in the [next section](build-script.md), - discussed below. - -5. The builder has to know what the sources of the package are. Here, - the attribute `src` is bound to the result of a call to the - `fetchurl` function. Given a URL and a SHA-256 hash of the expected - contents of the file at that URL, this function builds a derivation - that downloads the file and checks its hash. So the sources are a - dependency that like all other dependencies is built before Hello - itself is built. - - Instead of `src` any other name could have been used, and in fact - there can be any number of sources (bound to different attributes). - However, `src` is customary, and it's also expected by the default - builder (which we don't use in this example). - -6. Since the derivation requires Perl, we have to pass the value of the - `perl` function argument to the builder. All attributes in the set - are actually passed as environment variables to the builder, so - declaring an attribute - - ```nix - perl = perl; - ``` - - will do the trick: it binds an attribute `perl` to the function - argument which also happens to be called `perl`. However, it looks a - bit silly, so there is a shorter syntax. The `inherit` keyword - causes the specified attributes to be bound to whatever variables - with the same name happen to be in scope. |