[Nix-dev] how to write nix expressions for packages that have plugins

[cdep.illabout at gmail.com]

Hi,

I'm trying to write a nix expression for a plugin for a package.  I'm
running into a problem where the package doesn't know where to look
for the new plugin.

The original package stores all of it's plugins in
/nix/store/xxx-package/lib/packagename/{plugin1,plugin2,mycoolplugin}.so.
It expects all of it's plugins to be there.  There doesn't appear to
be any way of telling the program that it needs to look for plugins in
other directories.

How is this type of problem usually solved in other nix packages?

The package/plugin combination in question is "fcitx" and
"fcitx-anthy".  It's an input method editor commonly used to input
Chinese, Japanese, and Korean (among other languages).  I raised a
question about this package/plugin combination on github, but I am
also interested in how it's solved in general.

https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/4550

I have also raised a question on the fcitx issue tracker for anyone curious:

https://github.com/fcitx/fcitx/issues/179

Finally, in case anyone wants to look at the the original
nix-expressions, here they are:

fcitx:
https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/tools/inputmethods/fcitx/default.nix

fcitx-anthy:
https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/tools/inputmethods/fcitx/fcitx-anthy.nix

Thanks,
Dennis