Re: Set binprefix when not using slashpackage

From: Patrick Mahoney <pat_at_polycrystal.org>
Date: Tue, 02 Aug 2016 12:41:16 -0500

On , Laurent Bercot wrote:
> On 2016-08-02 05:46, Patrick Mahoney wrote:
>
>> The Nix package manager is similar to slashpackage in that a given
>> version of s6 lives within a single directory (e.g. commands can be
>> found in /nix/store/$hash-s6-$version/bin/s6-*), however it does
>> not follow the ${sproot}/package/${category}/${package}-${version}
>> slashpackage standard (partly because a "version" is a hash of all
>> build-time and run-time dependencies).
>
> Does Nix guarantee the availability of binaries under a stable absolute
> path,
> all the time, even across version changes? Is there a way to reliably
> provide
> not only the BINPREFIX, but also the EXTBINPREFIX?

Yes, the absolute path will be stable. This could be set at configure
time and would never change.

> If yes, then I'll gladly accept a patch to ./configure (for the
> application
> packages, and also to the skalibs one, which is very different) that
> implements
> --enable-nix and does the right thing with all the prefixes.

Hm, I'll have to think about this some more. I'd rather not introduce
package-manager-specific special cases if it can be avoided...

> If Nix's policy is to provide "standard" wrappers for every binary
> in a package, then it is definitely broken.

It's not policy; it's just an available technique that works without
requiring any changes to the executable being invoked. Generally I'd
prefer patching things so that executables are invoked via absolute
path.

Thanks,
Patrick
Received on Tue Aug 02 2016 - 17:41:16 UTC