Practical Nix Functions

# autotools.nix
pkgs: attrs:
with pkgs; let
  defaultAttrs = {
    builder = "${bash}/bin/bash";
    args = [./builder.sh];
    setup = ./setup.sh;
    baseInputs = [gnutar gzip gnumake gcc binutils-unwrapped coreutils gawk gnused gnugrep patchelf findutils];
    buildInputs = [];
    system = builtins.currentSystem;
  };
in
  derivation (defaultAttrs // attrs)

# setup.sh (This is a library of functions setting up the environment, not directly executable)
unset PATH
for p in $baseInputs $buildInputs; do
  if [ -d $p/bin ]; then
    export PATH="$p/bin${PATH:+:}$PATH"
  fi
  if [ -d $p/lib/pkgconfig ]; then
    export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$p/lib/pkgconfig${PKG_CONFIG_PATH:+:}$PKG_CONFIG_PATH"
  fi
done

function unpackPhase() {
  tar -xzf $src

  for d in *; do
    if [ -d "$d" ]; then
      cd "$d"
      break
    fi
  done
}

function configurePhase() {
  ./configure --prefix=$out
}

function buildPhase() {
  make
}

function installPhase() {
  make install
}

function fixupPhase() {
  find $out -type f -exec patchelf --shrink-rpath '{}' \; -exec strip '{}' \; 2>/dev/null
}

function genericBuild() {
  unpackPhase
  configurePhase
  buildPhase
  installPhase
  fixupPhase
}

# builder.sh (This is the actual builder script specified in the derivation and
# what `nix-build` expects)
set -e
source $setup
genericBuild

This is another example from the Nix-Pill series shown in another way to show some powerful aspects of functions.

If you have a default.nix like this:

# default.nix
{
  hello = import ./hello.nix;
  graphviz = import ./graphviz.nix;
}

It expects the files that it imports to look like this:

# graphviz.nix
let
  pkgs = import <nixpkgs> { };
  mkDerivation = import ./autotools.nix pkgs;
in
mkDerivation {
  name = "graphviz";
  src = ./graphviz-2.49.3.tar.gz;
}

And hello.nix:

# hello.nix
let
  pkgs = import <nixpkgs> { };
  mkDerivation = import ./autotools.nix pkgs;
in
mkDerivation {
  name = "hello";
  src = ./hello-2.12.1.tar.gz;
}

You would build these with:

nix-build -A hello
nix-build -A graphviz

As you can see both derivations are dependendent on nixpkgs which they both import directly. To centralize our dependencies and avoid redundant imports, we’ll refactor our individual package definitions (hello.nix, graphviz.nix) into functions. Our default.nix will then be responsible for setting up the common inputs (like pkgs and mkDerivation) and passing them as arguments when it imports and calls these package functions.

Here is what our default.nix will look like:

let
  pkgs = import <nixpkgs> { };
  mkDerivation = import ./autotools.nix pkgs;
in
with pkgs;
{
  hello = import ./hello.nix { inherit mkDerivation; };
  graphviz = import ./graphviz.nix {
    inherit
      mkDerivation
      lib
      gd
      pkg-config
      ;
  };
  graphvizCore = import ./graphviz.nix {
    inherit
      mkDerivation
      lib
      gd
      pkg-config
      ;
    gdSupport = false;
  };
}

We define some local variables in the let expression and pass them around.

The whole expression in the above default.nix returns an attribute set with the keys hello, graphviz, and graphvizCore

We import hello.nix and graphviz.nix, which both return a function. We call the functions, passing them a set of inputs with the inherit construct.

Let’s change hello.nix into a function to match what the default.nix now expects.

# hello.nix
{mkDerivation}:
mkDerivation {
  name = "hello";
  src = ./hello-2.12.1.tar.gz;
}

Now our graphviz attribute expects graphviz.nix to be a function that takes the arguments listed in the above default.nix, here’s what graphviz.nix will look like as a function:

# graphviz.nix
{
  mkDerivation,
  lib,
  gdSupport ? true,
  gd,
  pkg-config,
}:
mkDerivation {
  name = "graphviz";
  src = ./graphviz-2.49.3.tar.gz;
  buildInputs =
    if gdSupport
    then [
      pkg-config
      (lib.getLib gd)
      (lib.getDev gd)
    ]
    else [];
}

We factorized the import of nixpkgs and mkDerivation, and also added a variant of graphviz with gd support disabled. The result is that both hello.nix and graphviz.nix are independent of the repository and customizable by passing specific inputs.

Now, we can build the package with gd support disabled with the graphvizCore attribute:

nix-build -A graphvizCore
# or we can still build the package that now defaults to gd support
nix-build -A graphviz

This example showed us how to turn expressions into functions. We saw how functions are passed around and shared between Nix expressions and derivations.