[Nix-dev] Displaying package parameters

Patrick Callahan patrick.callahan at latitudeengineering.com
Sat Mar 5 17:01:33 CET 2016


I think it's great! I bookmarked your copy because I plan on using it while
I look forward to its integration on nixos.org. :-)

On Sun, Feb 28, 2016 at 9:00 PM Fabian Schmitthenner <
nix-dev at schmitthenner.eu> wrote:

> Hi!
>
> I just wanted to share that I tried displaying package parameters on the
> nixos homepage and the current result can be seen here:
> http://schmitthenner.eu/nixos-homepage/nixos/packages.html.
>
> When you click on a package, you hopefully see its parameter. This uses
> a heruristic to try to figure out which parameters are packages (and
> thus not displayed) and which are not (and thus displayed) that goes
> roughly as follows:
>
> - If the parameter is instantiated - either implicitly or explicitly -
> by callPackage, we look at the value and if it's a derivation, or a list
> or attrset set of derivations, or a function it's not displayed
> - Otherwise, it's displayed
>
> I think there was a discussion about this a short while ago, but I
> couldn't find it.
>
> Please let me know what you think and if we might want a (more elaborate
> version, e. g. also displaying the value of default arguments that
> aren't changed by callPackage, which requires an other change to nix
> because this info is currently not available, we only know if the
> argument is optional or not afaik) of this on our official website.
>
> Source code can be found on
> https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-homepage/compare/master...fkz:master
> Technically, I patched nixpkgs customization, so we not only get the
> override... functions, but also the original parameters and the original
> function.
> Furthermore, this uses a patched version of nix which allows catching
> errors inside nix (added a primop __catch) that also seems useful more
> generally (when polished) (see https://github.com/fkz/nix/tree/catch-throw
> ).
>
> Fabian
> _______________________________________________
> nix-dev mailing list
> nix-dev at lists.science.uu.nl
> http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.science.uu.nl/pipermail/nix-dev/attachments/20160305/475a3959/attachment.html 


More information about the nix-dev mailing list