[Nix-dev] buildInputs vs buildNativeInputs

[Mathijs Kwik]

On Mon, Aug 27, 2012 at 1:18 PM, Shea Levy <shea at shealevy.com> wrote:
> On 08/27/2012 07:12 AM, Mathijs Kwik wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I understand the difference between buildInputs and buildNativeInputs,
>> but I'm not quite sure how to figure out when an input should be
>> native.
>
>
> The question is, when is the machine code provided by the input executed? If
> it's at build time (e.g. you execute 'perl' to run a build script), it's a
> buildNativeInput. If it's at run time (e.g. a linked-to library), it's a
> buildInput. The reason for this is cross-compilation: buildNativeInputs are
> host versions of the package, buildInputs are target versions of the
> package.

I understand that part.
I recognize a few easy targets like documentation-builders that I know
run at build-time, but for other inputs it's not always clear.
As I'm not an expert on the build-process of most packages, I was
hoping there is some easy trick to find out when the input is needed.

For example, can I just try to move stuff from buildInputs to
buildNativeInputs one by one? Or some other procedure to try?

Or doesn't it matter a lot most of the time?


>
> Cheers,
> Shea