Basically an attempt to resume fixing #5543 for a breakage introduced
earlier[1]. Basically, when evaluating an older `nixpkgs` with
`nix-shell` the following error occurs:
λ ma27 [~] → nix-shell -I nixpkgs=channel:nixos-18.03 -p nix
error: anonymous function at /nix/store/zakqwc529rb6xcj8pwixjsxscvlx9fbi-source/pkgs/top-level/default.nix:20:1 called with unexpected argument 'inNixShell'
at /nix/store/zakqwc529rb6xcj8pwixjsxscvlx9fbi-source/pkgs/top-level/impure.nix:82:1:
81|
82| import ./. (builtins.removeAttrs args [ "system" "platform" ] // {
| ^
83| inherit config overlays crossSystem;
This is a problem because one of the main selling points of Nix is that
you can evaluate any old Nix expression and still get the same result
(which also means that it *still evaluates*). In fact we're deprecating,
but not removing a lot of stuff for that reason such as unquoted URLs[2]
or `builtins.toPath`. However this property was essentially thrown away
here.
The change is rather simple: check if `inNixShell` is specified in the
formals of an auto-called function. This means that
{ inNixShell ? false }:
builtins.trace inNixShell
(with import <nixpkgs> { }; makeShell { name = "foo"; })
will show `trace: true` while
args@{ ... }:
builtins.trace args.inNixShell
(with import <nixpkgs> { }; makeShell { name = "foo"; })
will throw the following error:
error: attribute 'inNixShell' missing
This is explicitly needed because the function in
`pkgs/top-level/impure.nix` of e.g. NixOS 18.03 has an ellipsis[3], but
passes the attribute-set on to another lambda with formals that doesn't
have an ellipsis anymore (hence the error from above). This was perhaps
a mistake, but we can't fix it anymore. This also means that there's
AFAICS no proper way to check if the attr-set that's passed to the Nix
code via `EvalState::autoCallFunction` is eventually passed to a lambda
with formals where `inNixShell` is missing.
However, this fix comes with a certain price. Essentially every
`shell.nix` that assumes `inNixShell` to be passed to the formals even
without explicitly specifying it would break with this[4]. However I think
that this is ugly, but preferable:
* Nix 2.3 was declared stable by NixOS up until recently (well, it still
is as long as 21.11 is alive), so most people might not have even
noticed that feature.
* We're talking about a way shorter time-span with this change being
in the wild, so the fallout should be smaller IMHO.
[1] 9d612c393a
[2] https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/pull/45#issuecomment-488232537
[3] https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/release-18.03/pkgs/top-level/impure.nix#L75
[4] See e.g. the second expression in this commit-message or the changes
for `tests/ca/nix-shell.sh`.
Maximilian Bosch
98946e2d9c