niv

A tool for dealing with third-party packages in Nix.

Building

Inside the provided nix shell:

$ # GHCi:
$ snack ghci
$ # actual build:
$ snack build

Usage

NOTES

• no support for non-json, to enforce convention
• fixed path to nix/versions.json, to enforce convention

Commands

Abbreviations:

Attributes

• -b -> --branch
• -n -> --name
• -o -> --owner
• -r -> --repo
• -t -> --template
• -a -> --attribute

VCS

• -h -> --github
• -l -> --gitlab

init

• [<p1> --branch foo <p2> ...]

Creates (if the file doesn't exist)

• nix/versions.json:

{"nixpkgs": { ... }}

*nix/fetch.nix:

...

*default.nix:

with { fetch = import <fetch>; };
let pkgs = import fetch.nixpkgs;
in pkgs.hello

add

• <package>: adds the following to the versions file where let <username/repo> = <package>

{ "<repo>":
  { "owner":  "<username>",
    "repo":   "<repo>",
    "rev":    "<latest commit on <branch>>",
    "sha256": "<sha256>",
    "branch": "<branch>"
  }
}

• --branch: specifies <branch> (default: master)
• --username <username>: then let <repo> = <package>
• --gitlab: use gitlab instead of GitHub
• --attribute <attribute> <value>: sets <attribute> to <value>

If the package already exists, merges with the package (prior to heuristics)

update

• [p [--commit] [--branch]]

• []: all packages are updated
• [p1 p2 ...]: the specified packages are updated

• --commit <rev>: rev is set to <rev> and the package is prefetched
• --branch <branch>: branch is set to <branch>, rev is set to the latest revision on that branch and the package is prefetched

show

• Shows all packages

drop

<p1> <p2>

• Drops the specified packages

NOTE: should the URLs be used instead? or more simply, how do we differentiate between Gitlab/GitHub?