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Dhall
The Nixpkgs support for Dhall assumes some familiarity with Dhall's language support for importing Dhall expressions, which is documented here:
Remote imports
Nixpkgs bypasses Dhall's support for remote imports using Dhall's semantic integrity checks. Specifically, any Dhall import can be protected by an integrity check like:
https://prelude.dhall-lang.org/v20.1.0/package.dhall
sha256:26b0ef498663d269e4dc6a82b0ee289ec565d683ef4c00d0ebdd25333a5a3c98
… and if the import is cached then the interpreter will load the import from cache instead of fetching the URL.
Nixpkgs uses this trick to add all of a Dhall expression's dependencies into the cache so that the Dhall interpreter never needs to resolve any remote URLs. In fact, Nixpkgs uses a Dhall interpreter with remote imports disabled when packaging Dhall expressions to enforce that the interpreter never resolves a remote import. This means that Nixpkgs only supports building Dhall expressions if all of their remote imports are protected by semantic integrity checks.
Instead of remote imports, Nixpkgs uses Nix to fetch remote Dhall code. For
example, the Prelude Dhall package uses pkgs.fetchFromGitHub
to fetch the
dhall-lang
repository containing the Prelude. Relying exclusively on Nix
to fetch Dhall code ensures that Dhall packages built using Nix remain pure and
also behave well when built within a sandbox.
Packaging a Dhall expression from scratch
We can illustrate how Nixpkgs integrates Dhall by beginning from the following trivial Dhall expression with one dependency (the Prelude):
-- ./true.dhall
let Prelude = https://prelude.dhall-lang.org/v20.1.0/package.dhall
in Prelude.Bool.not False
As written, this expression cannot be built using Nixpkgs because the
expression does not protect the Prelude import with a semantic integrity
check, so the first step is to freeze the expression using dhall freeze
,
like this:
$ dhall freeze --inplace ./true.dhall
… which gives us:
-- ./true.dhall
let Prelude =
https://prelude.dhall-lang.org/v20.1.0/package.dhall
sha256:26b0ef498663d269e4dc6a82b0ee289ec565d683ef4c00d0ebdd25333a5a3c98
in Prelude.Bool.not False
To package that expression, we create a ./true.nix
file containing the
following specification for the Dhall package:
# ./true.nix
{ buildDhallPackage, Prelude }:
buildDhallPackage {
name = "true";
code = ./true.dhall;
dependencies = [ Prelude ];
source = true;
}
… and we complete the build by incorporating that Dhall package into the
pkgs.dhallPackages
hierarchy using an overlay, like this:
# ./example.nix
let
nixpkgs = builtins.fetchTarball {
url = "https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/94b2848559b12a8ed1fe433084686b2a81123c99.tar.gz";
hash = "sha256-B4Q3c6IvTLg3Q92qYa8y+i4uTaphtFdjp+Ir3QQjdN0=";
};
dhallOverlay = self: super: {
true = self.callPackage ./true.nix { };
};
overlay = self: super: {
dhallPackages = super.dhallPackages.override (old: {
overrides =
self.lib.composeExtensions (old.overrides or (_: _: {})) dhallOverlay;
});
};
pkgs = import nixpkgs { config = {}; overlays = [ overlay ]; };
in
pkgs
… which we can then build using this command:
$ nix build --file ./example.nix dhallPackages.true
Contents of a Dhall package
The above package produces the following directory tree:
$ tree -a ./result
result
├── .cache
│ └── dhall
│ └── 122027abdeddfe8503496adeb623466caa47da5f63abd2bc6fa19f6cfcb73ecfed70
├── binary.dhall
└── source.dhall
… where:
-
source.dhall
contains the result of interpreting our Dhall package:$ cat ./result/source.dhall True
-
The
.cache
subdirectory contains one binary cache product encoding the same result assource.dhall
:$ dhall decode < ./result/.cache/dhall/122027abdeddfe8503496adeb623466caa47da5f63abd2bc6fa19f6cfcb73ecfed70 True
-
binary.dhall
contains a Dhall expression which handles fetching and decoding the same cache product:$ cat ./result/binary.dhall missing sha256:27abdeddfe8503496adeb623466caa47da5f63abd2bc6fa19f6cfcb73ecfed70 $ cp -r ./result/.cache .cache $ chmod -R u+w .cache $ XDG_CACHE_HOME=.cache dhall --file ./result/binary.dhall True
The source.dhall
file is only present for packages that specify
source = true;
. By default, Dhall packages omit the source.dhall
in order
to conserve disk space when they are used exclusively as dependencies. For
example, if we build the Prelude package it will only contain the binary
encoding of the expression:
$ nix build --file ./example.nix dhallPackages.Prelude
$ tree -a result
result
├── .cache
│ └── dhall
│ └── 122026b0ef498663d269e4dc6a82b0ee289ec565d683ef4c00d0ebdd25333a5a3c98
└── binary.dhall
2 directories, 2 files
Typically, you only specify source = true;
for the top-level Dhall expression
of interest (such as our example true.nix
Dhall package). However, if you
wish to specify source = true
for all Dhall packages, then you can amend the
Dhall overlay like this:
{
dhallOverrides = self: super: {
# Enable source for all Dhall packages
buildDhallPackage =
args: super.buildDhallPackage (args // { source = true; });
true = self.callPackage ./true.nix { };
};
}
… and now the Prelude will contain the fully decoded result of interpreting the Prelude:
$ nix build --file ./example.nix dhallPackages.Prelude
$ tree -a result
result
├── .cache
│ └── dhall
│ └── 122026b0ef498663d269e4dc6a82b0ee289ec565d683ef4c00d0ebdd25333a5a3c98
├── binary.dhall
└── source.dhall
$ cat ./result/source.dhall
{ Bool =
{ and =
\(_ : List Bool) ->
List/fold Bool _ Bool (\(_ : Bool) -> \(_ : Bool) -> _@1 && _) True
, build = \(_ : Type -> _ -> _@1 -> _@2) -> _ Bool True False
, even =
\(_ : List Bool) ->
List/fold Bool _ Bool (\(_ : Bool) -> \(_ : Bool) -> _@1 == _) True
, fold =
\(_ : Bool) ->
…
Packaging functions
We already saw an example of using buildDhallPackage
to create a Dhall
package from a single file, but most Dhall packages consist of more than one
file and there are two derived utilities that you may find more useful when
packaging multiple files:
-
buildDhallDirectoryPackage
- build a Dhall package from a local directory -
buildDhallGitHubPackage
- build a Dhall package from a GitHub repository
The buildDhallPackage
is the lowest-level function and accepts the following
arguments:
-
name
: The name of the derivation -
dependencies
: Dhall dependencies to build and cache ahead of time -
code
: The top-level expression to build for this packageNote that the
code
field accepts an arbitrary Dhall expression. You're not limited to just a file. -
source
: Set totrue
to include the decoded result assource.dhall
in the build product, at the expense of requiring more disk space -
documentationRoot
: Set to the root directory of the package if you wantdhall-docs
to generate documentation underneath thedocs
subdirectory of the build product
The buildDhallDirectoryPackage
is a higher-level function implemented in terms
of buildDhallPackage
that accepts the following arguments:
-
name
: Same asbuildDhallPackage
-
dependencies
: Same asbuildDhallPackage
-
source
: Same asbuildDhallPackage
-
src
: The directory containing Dhall code that you want to turn into a Dhall package -
file
: The top-level file (package.dhall
by default) that is the entrypoint to the rest of the package -
document
: Set totrue
to generate documentation for the package
The buildDhallGitHubPackage
is another higher-level function implemented in
terms of buildDhallPackage
that accepts the following arguments:
-
name
: Same asbuildDhallPackage
-
dependencies
: Same asbuildDhallPackage
-
source
: Same asbuildDhallPackage
-
owner
: The owner of the repository -
repo
: The repository name -
rev
: The desired revision (or branch, or tag) -
directory
: The subdirectory of the Git repository to package (if a directory other than the root of the repository) -
file
: The top-level file (${directory}/package.dhall
by default) that is the entrypoint to the rest of the package -
document
: Set totrue
to generate documentation for the package
Additionally, buildDhallGitHubPackage
accepts the same arguments as
fetchFromGitHub
, such as hash
or fetchSubmodules
.
dhall-to-nixpkgs
You can use the dhall-to-nixpkgs
command-line utility to automate
packaging Dhall code. For example:
$ nix-shell -p haskellPackages.dhall-nixpkgs nix-prefetch-git
[nix-shell]$ dhall-to-nixpkgs github https://github.com/Gabriella439/dhall-semver.git
{ buildDhallGitHubPackage, Prelude }:
buildDhallGitHubPackage {
name = "dhall-semver";
githubBase = "github.com";
owner = "Gabriella439";
repo = "dhall-semver";
rev = "2d44ae605302ce5dc6c657a1216887fbb96392a4";
fetchSubmodules = false;
hash = "sha256-n0nQtswVapWi/x7or0O3MEYmAkt/a1uvlOtnje6GGnk=";
directory = "";
file = "package.dhall";
source = false;
document = false;
dependencies = [ (Prelude.overridePackage { file = "package.dhall"; }) ];
}
:::{.note}
nix-prefetch-git
is added to the nix-shell -p
invocation above, because it has to be in $PATH
for dhall-to-nixpkgs
to work.
:::
The utility takes care of automatically detecting remote imports and converting them to package dependencies. You can also use the utility on local Dhall directories, too:
$ dhall-to-nixpkgs directory ~/proj/dhall-semver
{ buildDhallDirectoryPackage, Prelude }:
buildDhallDirectoryPackage {
name = "proj";
src = ~/proj/dhall-semver;
file = "package.dhall";
source = false;
document = false;
dependencies = [ (Prelude.overridePackage { file = "package.dhall"; }) ];
}
Remote imports as fixed-output derivations
dhall-to-nixpkgs
has the ability to fetch and build remote imports as
fixed-output derivations by using their Dhall integrity check. This is
sometimes easier than manually packaging all remote imports.
This can be used like the following:
$ dhall-to-nixpkgs directory --fixed-output-derivations ~/proj/dhall-semver
{ buildDhallDirectoryPackage, buildDhallUrl }:
buildDhallDirectoryPackage {
name = "proj";
src = ~/proj/dhall-semver;
file = "package.dhall";
source = false;
document = false;
dependencies = [
(buildDhallUrl {
url = "https://prelude.dhall-lang.org/v17.0.0/package.dhall";
hash = "sha256-ENs8kZwl6QRoM9+Jeo/+JwHcOQ+giT2VjDQwUkvlpD4=";
dhallHash = "sha256:10db3c919c25e9046833df897a8ffe2701dc390fa0893d958c3430524be5a43e";
})
];
}
Here, dhall-semver
's Prelude
dependency is fetched and built with the
buildDhallUrl
helper function, instead of being passed in as a function
argument.
Overriding dependency versions
Suppose that we change our true.dhall
example expression to depend on an older
version of the Prelude (19.0.0):
-- ./true.dhall
let Prelude =
https://prelude.dhall-lang.org/v19.0.0/package.dhall
sha256:eb693342eb769f782174157eba9b5924cf8ac6793897fc36a31ccbd6f56dafe2
in Prelude.Bool.not False
If we try to rebuild that expression the build will fail:
$ nix build --file ./example.nix dhallPackages.true
builder for '/nix/store/0f1hla7ff1wiaqyk1r2ky4wnhnw114fi-true.drv' failed with exit code 1; last 10 log lines:
Dhall was compiled without the 'with-http' flag.
The requested URL was: https://prelude.dhall-lang.org/v19.0.0/package.dhall
4│ https://prelude.dhall-lang.org/v19.0.0/package.dhall
5│ sha256:eb693342eb769f782174157eba9b5924cf8ac6793897fc36a31ccbd6f56dafe2
/nix/store/rsab4y99h14912h4zplqx2iizr5n4rc2-true.dhall:4:7
[1 built (1 failed), 0.0 MiB DL]
error: build of '/nix/store/0f1hla7ff1wiaqyk1r2ky4wnhnw114fi-true.drv' failed
… because the default Prelude selected by Nixpkgs revision
94b2848559b12a8ed1fe433084686b2a81123c99is
is version 20.1.0, which doesn't
have the same integrity check as version 19.0.0. This means that version
19.0.0 is not cached and the interpreter is not allowed to fall back to
importing the URL.
However, we can override the default Prelude version by using dhall-to-nixpkgs
to create a Dhall package for our desired Prelude:
$ dhall-to-nixpkgs github https://github.com/dhall-lang/dhall-lang.git \
--name Prelude \
--directory Prelude \
--rev v19.0.0 \
> Prelude.nix
… and then referencing that package in our Dhall overlay, by either overriding the Prelude globally for all packages, like this:
{
dhallOverrides = self: super: {
true = self.callPackage ./true.nix { };
Prelude = self.callPackage ./Prelude.nix { };
};
}
… or selectively overriding the Prelude dependency for just the true
package,
like this:
{
dhallOverrides = self: super: {
true = self.callPackage ./true.nix {
Prelude = self.callPackage ./Prelude.nix { };
};
};
}
Overrides
You can override any of the arguments to buildDhallGitHubPackage
or
buildDhallDirectoryPackage
using the overridePackage
attribute of a package.
For example, suppose we wanted to selectively enable source = true
just for the Prelude. We can do that like this:
{
dhallOverrides = self: super: {
Prelude = super.Prelude.overridePackage { source = true; };
# ...
};
}