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authorFlorian Klink <flokli@flokli.de>2024-03-01T08·56+0200
committerclbot <clbot@tvl.fyi>2024-03-03T16·52+0000
commit65a810fc0b12e754af47864ab3b9d4b5756cde15 (patch)
treeec69ccf0de3dcd53dc47748f8f2a6a649a85ad48 /tvix/docs/src/lang-version.md
parent6bdaebcb55eef5663f93dbbc8de6a48b459a10c0 (diff)
feat(tvix/docs): switch to mdbook r/7645
Some of the docs are still outdated (like architecture and drv path
inconsistencies).

Change-Id: I7a6afceb008ef4cd19a764dd6c637b39fa842a2e
Reviewed-on: https://cl.tvl.fyi/c/depot/+/11072
Autosubmit: flokli <flokli@flokli.de>
Tested-by: BuildkiteCI
Reviewed-by: edef <edef@edef.eu>
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+# Nix language version history
+
+The Nix language (“Nix”) has its own versioning mechanism independent from its
+most popular implementation (“C++ Nix”): `builtins.langVersion`. It has been
+increased whenever the language has changed syntactically or semantically in a
+way that would not be introspectable otherwise. In particular, this does not
+include addition (or removal) of `builtins`, as this can be introspected using
+standard attribute set operations.
+
+Changes to `builtins.langVersion` are best found by viewing the git history of
+C++ Nix using `git log -G 'mkInt\\(v, [0-9]\\)'` for `builtins.langVersion` < 7.
+After that point `git log -G 'v\\.mkInt\\([0-9]+\\)'` should work. To reduce the
+amount of false positives, specify the version number you are interested in
+explicitly.
+
+## 1
+
+The first version of the Nix language is its state at the point when
+`builtins.langVersion` was added in [8b8ee53] which was first released
+as part of C++ Nix 1.2.
+
+## 2
+
+Nix version 2 changed the behavior of `builtins.storePath`: It would now [try to
+substitute the given path if missing][storePath-substitute], instead of creating
+an evaluation failure. `builtins.langVersion` was increased in [e36229d].
+
+## 3
+
+Nix version 3 changed the behavior of the `==` behavior. Strings would now be
+considered [equal even if they had differing string context][equal-no-ctx].
+
+## 4
+
+Nix version 4 [added the float type][float] to the language.
+
+## 5
+
+The [increase of `builtins.langVersion` to 5][langVersion-5] did not signify a
+language change, but added support for structured attributes to the Nix daemon.
+Eelco Dolstra writes as to what changed:
+
+> The structured attributes support. Unfortunately that's not so much a language
+> change as a build.cc (i.e. daemon) change, but we don't really have a way to
+> express that...
+
+Maybe `builtins.nixVersion` (which was added in version 1) should have been
+used instead. In any case, the [only `langVersion` check][nixpkgs-langVersion-5]
+in nixpkgs verifies a lower bound of 5.
+
+## 6
+
+Nix version 6 added support for [comparing two lists][list-comparison].
+
+[8b8ee53]: https://github.com/nixos/nix/commit/8b8ee53bc73769bb25d967ba259dabc9b23e2e6f
+[storePath-substitute]: https://github.com/nixos/nix/commit/22d665019a3770148929b7504c73bcdbe025ec12
+[e36229d]: https://github.com/nixos/nix/commit/e36229d27f9ab508e0abf1892f3e8c263d2f8c58
+[equal-no-ctx]: https://github.com/nixos/nix/commit/ee7fe64c0ac00f2be11604a2a6509eb86dc19f0a
+[float]: https://github.com/nixos/nix/commit/14ebde52893263930cdcde1406cc91cc5c42556f
+[langVersion-5]: https://github.com/nixos/nix/commit/8191992c83bf4387b03c5fdaba818dc2b520462d
+[list-comparison]: https://github.com/nixos/nix/commit/09471d2680292af48b2788108de56a8da755d661
+[nixpkgs-langVersion-5]: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/d7ac3423d321b8b145ccdd1aed9dfdb280f5e391/pkgs/build-support/closure-info.nix#L11