13 lines
639 B
Markdown
13 lines
639 B
Markdown
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# Nix Expression Language
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The Nix expression language is a pure, lazy, functional language. Purity
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means that operations in the language don't have side-effects (for
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instance, there is no variable assignment). Laziness means that
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arguments to functions are evaluated only when they are needed.
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Functional means that functions are “normal” values that can be passed
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around and manipulated in interesting ways. The language is not a
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full-featured, general purpose language. Its main job is to describe
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packages, compositions of packages, and the variability within packages.
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This section presents the various features of the language.
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