path of the Nix expression to be used with the import, upgrade, and
query commands. For instance,
$ nix-env -I ~/nixpkgs/pkgs/system/i686-linux.nix
$ nix-env --query --available [aka -qa]
sylpheed-0.9.7
bison-1.875
pango-1.2.5
subversion-0.35.1
...
$ nix-env -i sylpheed
$ nix-env -u subversion
There can be only one default at a time.
* If the path to a Nix expression is a symlink, follow the symlink
prior to resolving relative path references in the expression.
the symlink ~/.nix-userenv to the given argument (which defaults to
.../links/current). /etc/profile.d/nix-profile creates this symlink
if it doesn't exist yet. Example use:
$ nix-env -l my_profile -i foo.nix subversion quake
$ nix-env -p my_profile
I don't like the term "profile". Let's deprecate it :-)
nix-env -u foo.nix strategoxt
to replace the installed `strategoxt' derivation with the one from `foo.nix', if
the latter has a higher version number. This is a no-op if `strategoxt' is not
installed. Wildcards are also accepted, so
nix-env -u foo.nix '*'
will replace any installed derivation with newer versions from `foo.nix', if
available.
The notion of "version number" is somewhat ad hoc, but should be useful in most
cases, as evidenced by the following unit tests for the version comparator:
TEST("1.0", "2.3", -1);
TEST("2.1", "2.3", -1);
TEST("2.3", "2.3", 0);
TEST("2.5", "2.3", 1);
TEST("3.1", "2.3", 1);
TEST("2.3.1", "2.3", 1);
TEST("2.3.1", "2.3a", 1);
TEST("2.3pre1", "2.3", -1);
TEST("2.3pre3", "2.3pre12", -1);
TEST("2.3a", "2.3c", -1);
TEST("2.3pre1", "2.3c", -1);
TEST("2.3pre1", "2.3q", -1);
(-1 = less, 0 = equal, 1 = greater)
* A new verbosity level `lvlInfo', between `lvlError' and `lvlTalkative'. This is
the default for `nix-env', so without any `-v' flags users should get useful
output, e.g.,
$ nix-env -u foo.nix strategoxt
upgrading `strategoxt-0.9.2' to `strategoxt-0.9.3'
The script nix-install-package takes a `Nix package file' (which
contains one or more derivations, along with URLs of Nix caches),
unpacks it, pulls the caches, and installs the derivations in the
user's environment.
For best results, associate the command `xterm -e
/nix/bin/nix-install-package' with the MIME type
`application/x-nix-package' and visit
http://losser.st-lab.cs.uu.nl/~eelco/test/.