Impure derivations are derivations that can produce a different result
every time they're built. Example:
stdenv.mkDerivation {
name = "impure";
__impure = true; # marks this derivation as impure
outputHashAlgo = "sha256";
outputHashMode = "recursive";
buildCommand = "date > $out";
};
Some important characteristics:
* This requires the 'impure-derivations' experimental feature.
* Impure derivations are not "cached". Thus, running "nix-build" on
the example above multiple times will cause a rebuild every time.
* They are implemented similar to CA derivations, i.e. the output is
moved to a content-addressed path in the store. The difference is
that we don't register a realisation in the Nix database.
* Pure derivations are not allowed to depend on impure derivations. In
the future fixed-output derivations will be allowed to depend on
impure derivations, thus forming an "impurity barrier" in the
dependency graph.
* When sandboxing is enabled, impure derivations can access the
network in the same way as fixed-output derivations. In relaxed
sandboxing mode, they can access the local filesystem.
Rather than having four different but very similar types of hashes, make
only one, with a tag indicating whether it corresponds to a regular of
deferred derivation.
This implies a slight logical change: The original Nix+multiple-outputs
model assumed only one hash-modulo per derivation. Adding
multiple-outputs CA derivations changed this as these have one
hash-modulo per output. This change is now treating each derivation as
having one hash modulo per output.
This obviously means that we internally loose the guaranty that
all the outputs of input-addressed derivations have the same hash
modulo. But it turns out that it doesn’t matter because there’s nothing
in the code taking advantage of that fact (and it probably shouldn’t
anyways).
The upside is that it is now much easier to work with these hashes, and
we can get rid of a lot of useless `std::visit{ overloaded`.
Co-authored-by: John Ericson <John.Ericson@Obsidian.Systems>
1. `DerivationOutput` now as the `std::variant` as a base class. And the
variants are given hierarchical names under `DerivationOutput`.
In 8e0d0689be @matthewbauer and I
didn't know a better idiom, and so we made it a field. But this sort
of "newtype" is anoying for literals downstream.
Since then we leaned the base class, inherit the constructors trick,
e.g. used in `DerivedPath`. Switching to use that makes this more
ergonomic, and consistent.
2. `store-api.hh` and `derivations.hh` are now independent.
In bcde5456cc I swapped the dependency,
but I now know it is better to just keep on using incomplete types as
much as possible for faster compilation and good separation of
concerns.
This changes was taken from dynamic derivation (#4628). It` somewhat
undoes the refactors I first did for floating CA derivations, as the
benefit of hindsight + requirements of dynamic derivations made me
reconsider some things.
They aren't to consequential, but I figured they might be good to land
first, before the more profound changes @thufschmitt has in the works.
we'll retain the old coerceToString interface that returns a string, but callers
that don't need the returned value to outlive the Value it came from can save
copies by using the new interface instead. for values that weren't stringy we'll
pass a new buffer argument that'll be used for storage and shouldn't be
inspected.
It’s totally valid to have entries in `NIX_PATH` that aren’t valid paths
(they can even be arbitrary urls or `channel:<channel-name>`).
Fix#5998 and #5980
This no longer worked correctly because 'path' is uninitialised when
an exception occurs, leading to errors like
… while importing ''
at /nix/store/rrzz5b1pshvzh1437ac9nkl06br81lkv-source/flake.nix:352:13:
So move the adding of the error context into realisePath().
gives about 1% improvement on system eval, a bit less on nix search.
# before
nix search --no-eval-cache --offline ../nixpkgs hello
Time (mean ± σ): 7.419 s ± 0.045 s [User: 6.362 s, System: 0.794 s]
Range (min … max): 7.335 s … 7.517 s 20 runs
nix eval --raw --impure --expr 'with import <nixpkgs/nixos> {}; system'
Time (mean ± σ): 2.921 s ± 0.023 s [User: 2.626 s, System: 0.210 s]
Range (min … max): 2.883 s … 2.957 s 20 runs
# after
nix search --no-eval-cache --offline ../nixpkgs hello
Time (mean ± σ): 7.370 s ± 0.059 s [User: 6.333 s, System: 0.791 s]
Range (min … max): 7.286 s … 7.541 s 20 runs
nix eval --raw --impure --expr 'with import <nixpkgs/nixos> {}; system'
Time (mean ± σ): 2.891 s ± 0.033 s [User: 2.606 s, System: 0.210 s]
Range (min … max): 2.823 s … 2.958 s 20 runs
when given a string yacc will copy the entire input to a newly allocated
location so that it can add a second terminating NUL byte. since the
parser is a very internal thing to EvalState we can ensure that having
two terminating NUL bytes is always possible without copying, and have
the parser itself merely check that the expected NULs are present.
# before
Benchmark 1: nix search --offline nixpkgs hello
Time (mean ± σ): 572.4 ms ± 2.3 ms [User: 563.4 ms, System: 8.6 ms]
Range (min … max): 566.9 ms … 579.1 ms 50 runs
Benchmark 2: nix eval -f ../nixpkgs/pkgs/development/haskell-modules/hackage-packages.nix
Time (mean ± σ): 381.7 ms ± 1.0 ms [User: 348.3 ms, System: 33.1 ms]
Range (min … max): 380.2 ms … 387.7 ms 50 runs
Benchmark 3: nix eval --raw --impure --expr 'with import <nixpkgs/nixos> {}; system'
Time (mean ± σ): 2.936 s ± 0.005 s [User: 2.715 s, System: 0.221 s]
Range (min … max): 2.923 s … 2.946 s 50 runs
# after
Benchmark 1: nix search --offline nixpkgs hello
Time (mean ± σ): 571.7 ms ± 2.4 ms [User: 563.3 ms, System: 8.0 ms]
Range (min … max): 566.7 ms … 579.7 ms 50 runs
Benchmark 2: nix eval -f ../nixpkgs/pkgs/development/haskell-modules/hackage-packages.nix
Time (mean ± σ): 376.6 ms ± 1.0 ms [User: 345.8 ms, System: 30.5 ms]
Range (min … max): 374.5 ms … 379.1 ms 50 runs
Benchmark 3: nix eval --raw --impure --expr 'with import <nixpkgs/nixos> {}; system'
Time (mean ± σ): 2.922 s ± 0.006 s [User: 2.707 s, System: 0.215 s]
Range (min … max): 2.906 s … 2.934 s 50 runs
there's a few symbols in primops we can create once and pick them out of
EvalState afterwards instead of creating them every time we need them. this
gives almost 1% speedup to an uncached nix search.
Previously you had to remember to call value->attrs->sort() after
populating value->attrs. Now there is a BindingsBuilder helper that
wraps Bindings and ensures that sort() is called before you can use
it.
nixpkgs can save a good bit of eval memory with this primop. zipAttrsWith is
used quite a bit around nixpkgs (eg in the form of recursiveUpdate), but the
most costly application for this primop is in the module system. it improves
the implementation of zipAttrsWith from nixpkgs by not checking an attribute
multiple times if it occurs more than once in the input list, allocates less
values and set elements, and just avoids many a temporary object in general.
nixpkgs has a more generic version of this operation, zipAttrsWithNames, but
this version is only used once so isn't suitable for being the base of a new
primop. if it were to be used more we should add a second primop instead.
This function is very useful in nixpkgs, but its implementation in Nix
itself is rather slow due to it requiring a lot of attribute set and
list appends.
Robert Hensing