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-rw-r--r--doc/manual/src/SUMMARY.md.in1
-rw-r--r--doc/manual/src/expressions/language-values.md7
-rw-r--r--doc/manual/src/installation/env-variables.md2
-rw-r--r--doc/manual/src/installation/prerequisites-source.md9
-rw-r--r--doc/manual/src/release-notes/rl-2.4.md506
5 files changed, 507 insertions, 18 deletions
diff --git a/doc/manual/src/SUMMARY.md.in b/doc/manual/src/SUMMARY.md.in
index 448fee803..df9209c7d 100644
--- a/doc/manual/src/SUMMARY.md.in
+++ b/doc/manual/src/SUMMARY.md.in
@@ -70,6 +70,7 @@
- [Hacking](contributing/hacking.md)
- [CLI guideline](contributing/cli-guideline.md)
- [Release Notes](release-notes/release-notes.md)
+ - [Release 2.4 (2021-XX-XX)](release-notes/rl-2.4.md)
- [Release 2.3 (2019-09-04)](release-notes/rl-2.3.md)
- [Release 2.2 (2019-01-11)](release-notes/rl-2.2.md)
- [Release 2.1 (2018-09-02)](release-notes/rl-2.1.md)
diff --git a/doc/manual/src/expressions/language-values.md b/doc/manual/src/expressions/language-values.md
index ce31029cc..28fa23b58 100644
--- a/doc/manual/src/expressions/language-values.md
+++ b/doc/manual/src/expressions/language-values.md
@@ -139,6 +139,13 @@ Nix has the following basic data types:
environment variable `NIX_PATH` will be searched for the given file
or directory name.
+ Antiquotation is supported in any paths except those in angle brackets.
+ `./${foo}-${bar}.nix` is a more convenient way of writing
+ `./. + "/" + foo + "-" + bar + ".nix"` or `./. + "/${foo}-${bar}.nix"`. At
+ least one slash must appear *before* any antiquotations for this to be
+ recognized as a path. `a.${foo}/b.${bar}` is a syntactically valid division
+ operation. `./a.${foo}/b.${bar}` is a path.
+
- *Booleans* with values `true` and `false`.
- The null value, denoted as `null`.
diff --git a/doc/manual/src/installation/env-variables.md b/doc/manual/src/installation/env-variables.md
index 4a49897e4..bb35c0e9f 100644
--- a/doc/manual/src/installation/env-variables.md
+++ b/doc/manual/src/installation/env-variables.md
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ export NIX_SSL_CERT_FILE=/etc/ssl/my-certificate-bundle.crt
> **Note**
>
> You must not add the export and then do the install, as the Nix
-> installer will detect the presense of Nix configuration, and abort.
+> installer will detect the presence of Nix configuration, and abort.
## `NIX_SSL_CERT_FILE` with macOS and the Nix daemon
diff --git a/doc/manual/src/installation/prerequisites-source.md b/doc/manual/src/installation/prerequisites-source.md
index 6825af707..40cb79627 100644
--- a/doc/manual/src/installation/prerequisites-source.md
+++ b/doc/manual/src/installation/prerequisites-source.md
@@ -26,15 +26,6 @@
available for download from the official repository
<https://github.com/google/brotli>.
- - The bzip2 compressor program and the `libbz2` library. Thus you must
- have bzip2 installed, including development headers and libraries.
- If your distribution does not provide these, you can obtain bzip2
- from
- <https://sourceware.org/bzip2/>.
-
- - `liblzma`, which is provided by XZ Utils. If your distribution does
- not provide this, you can get it from <https://tukaani.org/xz/>.
-
- cURL and its library. If your distribution does not provide it, you
can get it from <https://curl.haxx.se/>.
diff --git a/doc/manual/src/release-notes/rl-2.4.md b/doc/manual/src/release-notes/rl-2.4.md
index f7ab9f6ad..def4a7b66 100644
--- a/doc/manual/src/release-notes/rl-2.4.md
+++ b/doc/manual/src/release-notes/rl-2.4.md
@@ -1,8 +1,498 @@
-# Release 2.4 (202X-XX-XX)
-
- - It is now an error to modify the `plugin-files` setting via a
- command-line flag that appears after the first non-flag argument
- to any command, including a subcommand to `nix`. For example,
- `nix-instantiate default.nix --plugin-files ""` must now become
- `nix-instantiate --plugin-files "" default.nix`.
- - Plugins that add new `nix` subcommands are now actually respected.
+# Release 2.4 (2021-10-XX)
+
+This is the first release in more than two years and is the result of
+more than 2800 commits from 195 contributors since release 2.3.
+
+## Highlights
+
+* Nix's **error messages** have been improved a lot. For instance,
+ evaluation errors now point out the location of the error:
+
+ ```
+ $ nix build
+ error: undefined variable 'bzip3'
+
+ at /nix/store/449lv242z0zsgwv95a8124xi11sp419f-source/flake.nix:88:13:
+
+ 87| [ curl
+ 88| bzip3 xz brotli editline
+ | ^
+ 89| openssl sqlite
+ ```
+
+* The **`nix` command** has seen a lot of work and is now almost at
+ feature parity with the old command-line interface (the `nix-*`
+ commands). It aims to be [more modern, consistent and pleasant to
+ use](../contributing/cli-guideline.md) than the old CLI. It is still
+ marked as experimental but its interface should not change much
+ anymore in future releases.
+
+* **Flakes** are a new format to package Nix-based projects in a more
+ discoverable, composable, consistent and reproducible way. A flake
+ is just a repository or tarball containing a file named `flake.nix`
+ that specifies dependencies on other flakes and returns any Nix
+ assets such as packages, Nixpkgs overlays, NixOS modules or CI
+ tests. The new `nix` CLI is primarily based around flakes; for
+ example, a command like `nix run nixpkgs#hello` runs the `hello`
+ application from the `nixpkgs` flake.
+
+ Flakes are currently marked as experimental. For an introduction,
+ see [this blog
+ post](https://www.tweag.io/blog/2020-05-25-flakes/). For detailed
+ information about flake syntax and semantics, see the [`nix flake`
+ manual page](../command-ref/new-cli/nix3-flake.md).
+
+* Nix's store can now be **content-addressed**, meaning that the hash
+ component of a store path is the hash of the path's
+ contents. Previously Nix could only build **input-addressed** store
+ paths, where the hash is computed from the derivation dependency
+ graph. Content-addressing allows deduplication, early cutoff in
+ build systems, and unprivileged closure copying. This is still [an
+ experimental
+ feature](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/content-addressed-nix-call-for-testers/12881).
+
+* The Nix manual has been converted into Markdown, making it easier to
+ contribute. In addition, every `nix` subcommand now has a manual
+ page, documenting every option.
+
+* A new setting that allows **experimental features** to be enabled
+ selectively. This allows us to merge unstable features into Nix more
+ quickly and do more frequent releases.
+
+## Other features
+
+* There are many new `nix` subcommands:
+
+ - `nix develop` is intended to replace `nix-shell`. It has a number
+ of new features:
+
+ * It automatically sets the output environment variables (such as
+ `$out`) to writable locations (such as `./outputs/out`).
+
+ * It can store the environment in a profile. This is useful for
+ offline work.
+
+ * It can run specific phases directly. For instance, `nix develop
+ --build` runs `buildPhase`.
+
+ - It allows dependencies in the Nix store to be "redirected" to
+ arbitrary directories using the `--redirect` flag. This is
+ useful if you want to hack on a package *and* some of its
+ dependencies at the same time.
+
+ - `nix print-dev-env` prints the environment variables and bash
+ functions defined by a derivation. This is useful for users of
+ other shells than bash (especially with `--json`).
+
+ - `nix shell` was previously named `nix run` and is intended to
+ replace `nix-shell -p`, but without the `stdenv` overhead. It
+ simply starts a shell where some packages have been added to
+ `$PATH`.
+
+ - `nix run` (not to be confused with the old subcommand that has
+ been renamed to `nix shell`) runs an "app", a flake output that
+ specifies a command to run, or an eponymous program from a
+ package. For example, `nix run nixpkgs#hello` runs the `hello`
+ program from the `hello` package in `nixpkgs`.
+
+ - `nix flake` is the container for flake-related operations, such as
+ creating a new flake, querying the contents of a flake or updating
+ flake lock files.
+
+ - `nix registry` allows you to query and update the flake registry,
+ which maps identifiers such as `nixpkgs` to concrete flake URLs.
+
+ - `nix profile` is intended to replace `nix-env`. Its main advantage
+ is that it keeps track of the provenance of installed packages
+ (e.g. exactly which flake version a package came from). It also
+ has some helpful subcommands:
+
+ * `nix profile history` shows what packages were added, upgraded
+ or removed between each version of a profile.
+
+ * `nix profile diff-closures` shows the changes between the
+ closures of each version of a profile. This allows you to
+ discover the addition or removal of dependencies or size
+ changes.
+
+ **Warning**: after a profile has been updated using `nix profile`,
+ it is no longer usable with `nix-env`.
+
+ - `nix store diff-closures` shows the differences between the
+ closures of two store paths in terms of the versions and sizes of
+ dependencies in the closures.
+
+ - `nix store make-content-addressable` rewrites an arbitrary closure
+ to make it content-addressed. Such paths can be copied into other
+ stores without requiring signatures.
+
+ - `nix bundle` uses the [`nix-bundle`
+ program](https://github.com/matthewbauer/nix-bundle) to convert a
+ closure into a self-extracting executable.
+
+ - Various other replacements for the old CLI, e.g. `nix store gc`,
+ `nix store delete`, `nix store repair`, `nix nar dump-path`, `nix
+ store prefetch-file`, `nix store prefetch-tarball`, `nix key` and
+ `nix daemon`.
+
+* Nix now has an **evaluation cache** for flake outputs. For example,
+ a second invocation of the command `nix run nixpkgs#firefox` will
+ not need to evaluate the `firefox` attribute because it's already in
+ the evaluation cache. This is made possible by the hermetic
+ evaluation model of flakes.
+
+* The new `--offline` flag disables substituters and causes all
+ locally cached tarballs and repositories to be considered
+ up-to-date.
+
+* The new `--refresh` flag causes all locally cached tarballs and
+ repositories to be considered out-of-date.
+
+* Many `nix` subcommands now have a `--json` option to produce
+ machine-readable output.
+
+* `nix repl` has a new `:doc` command to show documentation about
+ builtin functions (e.g. `:doc builtins.map`).
+
+* Binary cache stores now have an option `index-debug-info` to create
+ an index of DWARF debuginfo files for use by
+ [`dwarffs`](https://github.com/edolstra/dwarffs).
+
+* To support flakes, Nix now has an extensible mechanism for fetching
+ source trees. Currently it has the following backends:
+
+ * Git repositories
+
+ * Mercurial repositories
+
+ * GitHub and GitLab repositories (an optimisation for faster
+ fetching than Git)
+
+ * Tarballs
+
+ * Arbitrary directories
+
+ The fetcher infrastructure is exposed via flake input specifications
+ and via the `fetchTree` built-in.
+
+* **Languages changes**: the only new language feature is that you can
+ now have antiquotations in paths, e.g. `./${foo}` instead of `./. +
+ foo`.
+
+* **New built-in functions**:
+
+ - `builtins.fetchTree` allows fetching a source tree using any
+ backends supported by the fetcher infrastructure. It subsumes the
+ functionality of existing built-ins like `fetchGit`,
+ `fetchMercurial` and `fetchTarball`.
+
+ - `builtins.getFlake` fetches a flake and returns its output
+ attributes. This function should not be used inside flakes! Use
+ flake inputs instead.
+
+ - `builtins.floor` and `builtins.ceil` round a floating-point number
+ down and up, respectively.
+
+* Experimental support for recursive Nix. This means that Nix
+ derivations can now call Nix to build other derivations. This is not
+ in a stable state yet and not well
+ [documented](https://github.com/NixOS/nix/commit/c4d7c76b641d82b2696fef73ce0ac160043c18da).
+
+* The new experimental feature `no-url-literals` disables URL
+ literals. This helps to implement [RFC
+ 45](https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/pull/45).
+
+* Nix now uses `libarchive` to decompress and unpack tarballs and zip
+ files, so `tar` is no longer required.
+
+* The priority of substituters can now be overridden using the
+ `priority` substituter setting (e.g. `--substituters
+ 'http://cache.nixos.org?priority=100 daemon?priority=10'`).
+
+* `nix edit` now supports non-derivation attributes, e.g. `nix edit
+ .#nixosConfigurations.bla`.
+
+* The `nix` command now provides command line completion for `bash`,
+ `zsh` and `fish`. Since the support for getting completions is built
+ into `nix`, it's easy to add support for other shells.
+
+* The new `--log-format` flag selects what Nix's output looks like. It
+ defaults to a terse progress indicator. There is a new
+ `internal-json` output format for use by other programs.
+
+* `nix eval` has a new `--apply` flag that applies a function to the
+ evaluation result.
+
+* `nix eval` has a new `--write-to` flag that allows it to write a
+ nested attribute set of string leaves to a corresponding directory
+ tree.
+
+* Memory improvements: many operations that add paths to the store or
+ copy paths between stores now run in constant memory.
+
+* Many `nix` commands now support the flag `--derivation` to operate
+ on a `.drv` file itself instead of its outputs.
+
+* There is a new store called `dummy://` that does not support
+ building or adding paths. This is useful if you want to use the Nix
+ evaluator but don't have a Nix store.
+
+* The `ssh-ng://` store now allows substituting paths on the remote,
+ as `ssh://` already did.
+
+* When auto-calling a function with an ellipsis, all arguments are now
+ passed.
+
+* New `nix-shell` features:
+
+ - It preserves the `PS1` environment variable if
+ `NIX_SHELL_PRESERVE_PROMPT` is set.
+
+ - With `-p`, it passes any `--arg`s as Nixpkgs arguments.
+
+ - Support for structured attributes.
+
+* `nix-prefetch-url` has a new `--executable` flag.
+
+* On `x86_64` systems, [`x86_64` microarchitecture
+ levels](https://lwn.net/Articles/844831/) are mapped to additional
+ system types (e.g. `x86_64-v1-linux`).
+
+* The new `--eval-store` flag allows you to use a different store for
+ evaluation than for building or storing the build result. This is
+ primarily useful when you want to query whether something exists in
+ a read-only store, such as a binary cache:
+
+ ```
+ # nix path-info --json --store https://cache.nixos.org \
+ --eval-store auto nixpkgs#hello
+ ```
+
+ (Here `auto` indicates the local store.)
+
+* The Nix daemon has a new low-latency mechanism for copying
+ closures. This is useful when building on remote stores such as
+ `ssh-ng://`.
+
+* Plugins can now register `nix` subcommands.
+
+## Incompatible changes
+
+* The `nix` command is now marked as an experimental feature. This
+ means that you need to add
+
+ > experimental-features = nix-command
+
+ to your `nix.conf` if you want to use it, or pass
+ `--extra-experimental-features nix-command` on the command line.
+
+* The old `nix run` has been renamed to `nix shell` (and there is a
+ new `nix run` that does something else, as described above).
+
+* It is now an error to modify the `plugin-files` setting via a
+ command-line flag that appears after the first non-flag argument to
+ any command, including a subcommand to `nix`. For example,
+ `nix-instantiate default.nix --plugin-files ""` must now become
+ `nix-instantiate --plugin-files "" default.nix`.
+
+* We no longer release source tarballs. If you want to build from
+ source, please build from the tags in the Git repository.
+
+## Contributors
+
+This release has contributions from
+Adam Höse,
+Albert Safin,
+Alex Kovar,
+Alex Zero,
+Alexander Bantyev,
+Alexandre Esteves,
+Alyssa Ross,
+Anatole Lucet,
+Anders Kaseorg,
+Andreas Rammhold,
+Antoine Eiche,
+Antoine Martin,
+Arnout Engelen,
+Arthur Gautier,
+aszlig,
+Ben Burdette,
+Benjamin Hipple,
+Bernardo Meurer,
+Björn Gohla,
+Bjørn Forsman,
+Bob van der Linden,
+Brian Leung,
+Brian McKenna,
+Brian Wignall,
+Bruce Toll,
+Bryan Richter,
+Calle Rosenquist,
+Calvin Loncaric,
+Carlo Nucera,
+Carlos D'Agostino,
+Chaz Schlarp,
+Christian Höppner,
+Christian Kampka,
+Chua Hou,
+Chuck,
+Cole Helbling,
+Daiderd Jordan,
+Dan Callahan,
+Dani,
+Daniel Fitzpatrick,
+Danila Fedorin,
+Daniël de Kok,
+Danny Bautista,
+DavHau,
+David McFarland,
+Dima,
+Domen Kožar,
+Dominik Schrempf,
+Dominique Martinet,
+dramforever,
+Dustin DeWeese,
+edef,
+Eelco Dolstra,
+Emilio Karakey,
+Emily,
+Eric Culp,
+Ersin Akinci,
+Fabian Möller,
+Farid Zakaria,
+Federico Pellegrin,
+Finn Behrens,
+Florian Franzen,
+Félix Baylac-Jacqué,
+Gabriel Gonzalez,
+Geoff Reedy,
+Georges Dubus,
+Graham Christensen,
+Greg Hale,
+Greg Price,
+Gregor Kleen,
+Gregory Hale,
+Griffin Smith,
+Guillaume Bouchard,
+Harald van Dijk,
+illustris,
+Ivan Zvonimir Horvat,
+Jade,
+Jake Waksbaum,
+jakobrs,
+James Ottaway,
+Jan Tojnar,
+Janne Heß,
+Jaroslavas Pocepko,
+Jarrett Keifer,
+Jeremy Schlatter,
+Joachim Breitner,
+Joe Hermaszewski,
+Joe Pea,
+John Ericson,
+Jonathan Ringer,
+Josef Kemetmüller,
+Joseph Lucas,
+Jude Taylor,
+Julian Stecklina,
+Julien Tanguy,
+Jörg Thalheim,
+Kai Wohlfahrt,
+keke,
+Keshav Kini,
+Kevin Quick,
+Kevin Stock,
+Kjetil Orbekk,
+Krzysztof Gogolewski,
+kvtb,
+Lars Mühmel,
+Leonhard Markert,
+Lily Ballard,
+Linus Heckemann,
+Lorenzo Manacorda,
+Lucas Desgouilles,
+Lucas Franceschino,
+Lucas Hoffmann,
+Luke Granger-Brown,
+Madeline Haraj,
+Marwan Aljubeh,
+Mat Marini,
+Mateusz Piotrowski,
+Matthew Bauer,
+Matthew Kenigsberg,
+Mauricio Scheffer,
+Maximilian Bosch,
+Michael Adler,
+Michael Bishop,
+Michael Fellinger,
+Michael Forney,
+Michael Reilly,
+mlatus,
+Mykola Orliuk,
+Nathan van Doorn,
+Naïm Favier,
+ng0,
+Nick Van den Broeck,
+Nicolas Stig124 Formichella,
+Niels Egberts,
+Niklas Hambüchen,
+Nikola Knezevic,
+oxalica,
+p01arst0rm,
+Pamplemousse,
+Patrick Hilhorst,
+Paul Opiyo,
+Pavol Rusnak,
+Peter Kolloch,
+Philipp Bartsch,
+Philipp Middendorf,
+Piotr Szubiakowski,
+Profpatsch,
+Puck Meerburg,
+Ricardo M. Correia,
+Rickard Nilsson,
+Robert Hensing,
+Robin Gloster,
+Rodrigo,
+Rok Garbas,
+Ronnie Ebrin,
+Rovanion Luckey,
+Ryan Burns,
+Ryan Mulligan,
+Ryne Everett,
+Sam Doshi,
+Sam Lidder,
+Samir Talwar,
+Samuel Dionne-Riel,
+Sebastian Ullrich,
+Sergei Trofimovich,
+Sevan Janiyan,
+Shao Cheng,
+Shea Levy,
+Silvan Mosberger,
+Stefan Frijters,
+Stefan Jaax,
+sternenseemann,
+Steven Shaw,
+Stéphan Kochen,
+SuperSandro2000,
+Suraj Barkale,
+Taeer Bar-Yam,
+Thomas Churchman,
+Théophane Hufschmitt,
+Timothy DeHerrera,
+Timothy Klim,
+Tobias Möst,
+Tobias Pflug,
+Tom Bereknyei,
+Travis A. Everett,
+Ujjwal Jain,
+Vladimír Čunát,
+Wil Taylor,
+Will Dietz,
+Yaroslav Bolyukin,
+Yestin L. Harrison,
+YI,
+Yorick van Pelt,
+Yuriy Taraday and
+zimbatm.