lix/doc/manual/release-notes/rl-1.6.xml

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<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
2014-08-27 16:41:09 +00:00
xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
version="5.0"
xml:id="ssec-relnotes-1.6.0">
<title>Release 1.6 (September 10, 2013)</title>
<para>In addition to the usual bug fixes, this release has several new
features:</para>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>The command <command>nix-build --run-env</command> has been
renamed to <command>nix-shell</command>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><command>nix-shell</command> now sources
<filename>$stdenv/setup</filename> <emphasis>inside</emphasis> the
interactive shell, rather than in a parent shell. This ensures
that shell functions defined by <literal>stdenv</literal> can be
used in the interactive shell.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><command>nix-shell</command> has a new flag
<option>--pure</option> to clear the environment, so you get an
environment that more closely corresponds to the “real” Nix build.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><command>nix-shell</command> now sets the shell prompt
(<envar>PS1</envar>) to ensure that Nix shells are distinguishable
from your regular shells.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><command>nix-env</command> no longer requires a
<literal>*</literal> argument to match all packages, so
<literal>nix-env -qa</literal> is equivalent to <literal>nix-env
-qa '*'</literal>.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para><command>nix-env -i</command> has a new flag
<option>--remove-all</option> (<option>-r</option>) to remove all
previous packages from the profile. This makes it easier to do
declarative package management similar to NixOSs
<option>environment.systemPackages</option>. For instance, if you
have a specification <filename>my-packages.nix</filename> like this:
<programlisting>
with import &lt;nixpkgs> {};
[ thunderbird
geeqie
...
]
</programlisting>
then after any change to this file, you can run:
<screen>
$ nix-env -f my-packages.nix -ir
</screen>
to update your profile to match the specification.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>The <literal>with</literal> language construct is now more
lazy. It only evaluates its argument if a variable might actually
refer to an attribute in the argument. For instance, this now
works:
<programlisting>
let
pkgs = with pkgs; { foo = "old"; bar = foo; } // overrides;
overrides = { foo = "new"; };
in pkgs.bar
</programlisting>
This evaluates to <literal>"new"</literal>, while previously it
gave an “infinite recursion” error.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>Nix now has proper integer arithmetic operators. For
instance, you can write <literal>x + y</literal> instead of
<literal>builtins.add x y</literal>, or <literal>x &lt;
y</literal> instead of <literal>builtins.lessThan x y</literal>.
The comparison operators also work on strings.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>On 64-bit systems, Nix integers are now 64 bits rather than
32 bits.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>When using the Nix daemon, the <command>nix-daemon</command>
worker process now runs on the same CPU as the client, on systems
that support setting CPU affinity. This gives a significant speedup
on some systems.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>If a stack overflow occurs in the Nix evaluator, you now get
a proper error message (rather than “Segmentation fault”) on some
systems.</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>In addition to directories, you can now bind-mount regular
files in chroots through the (now misnamed) option
<option>build-chroot-dirs</option>.</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<para>This release has contributions from Domen Kožar, Eelco Dolstra,
Florian Friesdorf, Gergely Risko, Ivan Kozik, Ludovic Courtès and Shea
Levy.</para>
</section>