lix/doc/manual/src/hacking.md
Cole Helbling a72ed3e8a1
hacking.md: add --prefix flag to configure
Otherwise, the steps advertised in this document won't actually work
(e.g. `make install` will fail, trying to access /usr, and
`./inst/bin/nix` won't exist).
2020-09-01 12:06:02 -07:00

72 lines
1.3 KiB
Markdown

# Hacking
This section provides some notes on how to hack on Nix. To get the
latest version of Nix from GitHub:
```console
$ git clone https://github.com/NixOS/nix.git
$ cd nix
```
To build Nix for the current operating system/architecture use
```console
$ nix-build
```
or if you have a flake-enabled nix:
```console
$ nix build
```
This will build `defaultPackage` attribute defined in the `flake.nix`
file. To build for other platforms add one of the following suffixes to
it: aarch64-linux, i686-linux, x86\_64-darwin, x86\_64-linux. i.e.
```console
$ nix-build -A defaultPackage.x86_64-linux
```
To build all dependencies and start a shell in which all environment
variables are set up so that those dependencies can be found:
```console
$ nix-shell
```
To build Nix itself in this shell:
```console
[nix-shell]$ ./bootstrap.sh
[nix-shell]$ ./configure $configureFlags --prefix=$(pwd)/inst
[nix-shell]$ make -j $NIX_BUILD_CORES
```
To install it in `$(pwd)/inst` and test it:
```console
[nix-shell]$ make install
[nix-shell]$ make installcheck
[nix-shell]$ ./inst/bin/nix --version
nix (Nix) 2.4
```
To run a functional test:
```console
make tests/test-name-should-auto-complete.sh.test
```
If you have a flakes-enabled Nix you can replace:
```console
$ nix-shell
```
by:
```console
$ nix develop
```