So you can have a script like:
#! /usr/bin/env nix-shell
#! nix-shell script.nix -i python
import prettytable
x = prettytable.PrettyTable(["Foo", "Bar"])
for i in range(1, 10): x.add_row([i, i**2])
print x
with a ‘script.nix’ in the same directory:
with import <nixpkgs> {};
runCommand "dummy" { buildInputs = [ python pythonPackages.prettytable ]; } ""
(Of course, in this particular case, using the ‘-p’ flag is more
convenient.)
This allows scripts to fetch their own dependencies via nix-shell. For
instance, here is a Haskell script that, when executed, pulls in GHC
and the HTTP package:
#! /usr/bin/env nix-shell
#! nix-shell -i runghc -p haskellPackages.ghc haskellPackages.HTTP
import Network.HTTP
main = do
resp <- Network.HTTP.simpleHTTP (getRequest "http://nixos.org/")
body <- getResponseBody resp
print (take 100 body)
Or a Perl script that pulls in Perl and some CPAN packages:
#! /usr/bin/env nix-shell
#! nix-shell -i perl -p perl perlPackages.HTMLTokeParserSimple perlPackages.LWP
use HTML::TokeParser::Simple;
my $p = HTML::TokeParser::Simple->new(url => 'http://nixos.org/');
while (my $token = $p->get_tag("a")) {
my $href = $token->get_attr("href");
print "$href\n" if $href;
}
Note that the options to nix-shell must be given on a separate line
that starts with the magic string ‘#! nix-shell’. This is because
‘env’ does not allow passing arguments to an interpreter directly.
Apparently, turning on utf8 encoding on stderr changes its flushing
behaviour, causing sendReply to not send anything.
http://hydra.nixos.org/build/13944384
This makes things more efficient (we don't need to use an SSH master
connection, and we only start a single remote process) and gets rid of
locking issues (the remote nix-store process will keep inputs and
outputs locked as long as they're needed).
It also makes it more or less secure to connect directly to the root
account on the build machine, using a forced command
(e.g. ‘command="nix-store --serve --write"’). This bypasses the Nix
daemon and is therefore more efficient.
Also, don't call nix-store to import the output paths.
