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2008-08-14 * Added an experimental feature suggested by Andres: ellipses ("...")Eelco Dolstra1-6/+18
in attribute set pattern matches. This allows defining a function that takes *at least* the listed attributes, while ignoring additional attributes. For instance, {stdenv, fetchurl, fuse, ...}: stdenv.mkDerivation { ... }; defines a function that requires an attribute set that contains the specified attributes but ignores others. The main advantage is that we can then write in all-packages.nix aefs = import ../bla/aefs pkgs; instead of aefs = import ../bla/aefs { inherit stdenv fetchurl fuse; }; This saves a lot of typing (not to mention not having to update all-packages.nix with purely mechanical changes). It saves as much typing as the "args: with args;" style, but has the advantage that the function arguments are properly declared (not implicit in what the body of the "with" uses).
2008-08-14 * @-patterns as in Haskell. For instance, in a function definitionEelco Dolstra1-1/+12
f = args @ {x, y, z}: ...; `args' refers to the argument as a whole, which is further pattern-matched against the attribute set pattern {x, y, z}.
2008-08-14 * "pattern" non-terminal.Eelco Dolstra1-5/+8
2008-08-14 * Refactoring: combine functions that take an attribute set andEelco Dolstra1-9/+24
functions that take a single argument (plain lambdas) into one AST node (Function) that contains a Pattern node describing the arguments. Current patterns are single lazy arguments (VarPat) and matching against an attribute set (AttrsPat). This refactoring allows other kinds of patterns to be added easily, such as Haskell-style @-patterns, or list pattern matching.
2008-08-11 * Removed the "valid values" feature. Nobody uses it anyway.Eelco Dolstra1-5/+4
2007-11-30 * Added a new kind of multi-line string literal delimited by twoEelco Dolstra1-3/+104
single quotes. Example (from NixOS): job = '' start on network-interfaces start script rm -f /var/run/opengl-driver ${if videoDriver == "nvidia" then "ln -sf ${nvidiaDrivers} /var/run/opengl-driver" else if cfg.driSupport then "ln -sf ${mesa} /var/run/opengl-driver" else "" } rm -f /var/log/slim.log end script ''; This style has two big advantages: - \, ' and " aren't special, only '' and ${. So you get a lot less escaping in shell scripts / configuration files in Nixpkgs/NixOS. The delimiter '' is rare in scripts (and can usually be written as ""). ${ is also fairly rare. Other delimiters such as <<...>>, {{...}} and <|...|> were also considered but this one appears to have the fewest drawbacks (thanks Martin). - Indentation is intelligently stripped so that multi-line strings can follow the nesting structure of the containing Nix expression. E.g. in the example above 6 spaces are stripped from the start of each line. This prevents unnecessary indentation in generated files (which sometimes even breaks things). See tests/lang/eval-okay-ind-string.nix for some examples.
2007-08-07 * Don't allocate input files on the stack.Eelco Dolstra1-14/+2
2007-05-15 * Allow empty argument lists in function definitions (e.g., `{}:Eelco Dolstra1-0/+1
bla'). Also allow trailing commas (`{x, y,}: ...') as a unintented consequence. Hopefully the reduce/reduce conflict won't cause any problems.
2007-01-15 * Handle multiple indirect symlinks when loading a Nix expression.Eelco Dolstra1-3/+6
2006-12-02 * Remove SwitchToOriginalUser, we're not going to need it anymore.Eelco Dolstra1-2/+0
2006-10-16 * Big cleanup of the semantics of paths, strings, contexts, stringEelco Dolstra1-2/+2
concatenation and string coercion. This was a big mess (see e.g. NIX-67). Contexts are now folded into strings, so that they don't cause evaluation errors when they're not expected. The semantics of paths has been clarified (see nixexpr-ast.def). toString() and coerceToString() have been merged. Semantic change: paths are now copied to the store when they're in a concatenation (and in most other situations - that's the formalisation of the meaning of a path). So "foo " + ./bla evaluates to "foo /nix/store/hash...-bla", not "foo /path/to/current-dir/bla". This prevents accidental impurities, and is more consistent with the treatment of derivation outputs, e.g., `"foo " + bla' where `bla' is a derivation. (Here `bla' would be replaced by the output path of `bla'.)
2006-10-11 * Removed URIs from the evaluator (NIX-66). They are now just anotherEelco Dolstra1-2/+2
kind of notation for strings.
2006-10-02 * Finally, a real "let" syntax: `let x = ...; ... z = ...; in ...'.Eelco Dolstra1-1/+3
2006-10-02 * Hack for Bison 2.3 compatability.Eelco Dolstra1-2/+13
2006-09-04 * Remove unnecessary inclusions of aterm2.h.Eelco Dolstra1-5/+4
2006-09-04 * Compile the lexer as C++ code. Remove all the redundant C/C++Eelco Dolstra1-21/+191
marshalling code.
2006-09-04 * Use a proper namespace.Eelco Dolstra1-17/+30
* Optimise header file usage a bit. * Compile the parser as C++.
2006-07-24 * New language feature: domain checks, which check whether a functionEelco Dolstra1-1/+1
argument has a valid value, i.e., is in a certain domain. E.g., { foo : [true false] , bar : ["a" "b" "c"] }: ... This previously could be done using assertions, but domain checks will allow the buildfarm to automatically extract the configuration space from functions.
2006-07-24 * Refactoring to support domain checks.Eelco Dolstra1-2/+5
2006-05-01 * String interpolation. Expressions likeEelco Dolstra1-2/+15
"--with-freetype2-library=" + freetype + "/lib" can now be written as "--with-freetype2-library=${freetype}/lib" An arbitrary expression can be enclosed within ${...}, not just identifiers. * Escaping in string literals: \n, \r, \t interpreted as in C, any other character following \ is interpreted as-is. * Newlines are now allowed in string literals.
2006-02-13 * Override YYMALLOC and YYFREE so that we can call AT[un]protectMemoryEelco Dolstra1-0/+20
on the Bison parse stack. Otherwise, a garbage collect during parsing could lead to a crash.
2005-09-14 * List concatenation must be right-associative for efficiency.Eelco Dolstra1-1/+1
2005-07-25 * Added a list concatenation operator:Eelco Dolstra1-0/+2
[1 2 3] ++ [4 5 6] => [1 2 3 4 5 6]
2004-11-03 * string2ATerm -> overloaded toATerm.Eelco Dolstra1-2/+7
2004-10-29 * Drop ATmake / ATMatcher also in handling store expressions.Eelco Dolstra1-1/+1
2004-10-26 * Don't use ATmake / ATmatch anymore, nor the ATMatcher class.Eelco Dolstra1-33/+38
Instead we generate data bindings (build and match functions) for the constructors specified in `constructors.def'. In particular this removes the conversions between AFuns and strings, and Nix expression evaluation now seems 3 to 4 times faster.
2004-10-26 * String/path concatenation operator (`+').Eelco Dolstra1-0/+2
2004-10-25 * New language feature: with expressions.Eelco Dolstra1-7/+5
The expression `with E1; E2' evaluates to E2 with all bindings in the attribute set E1 substituted. E.g., with {x = 123;}; x evaluates to 123. That is, the attribute set E1 is in scope in E2. This is particularly useful when importing files containing lots definitions. E.g., instead of let { inherit (import ./foo.nix) a b c d e f; body = ... a ... f ...; } we can now say with import ./foo.nix; ... a ... f ... I.e., we don't have to say what variables should be brought into scope.
2004-04-05 * When something goes wrong in the evaluation of a Nix expression,Eelco Dolstra1-5/+14
print a nice backtrace of the stack, rather than vomiting a gigantic (and useless) aterm on the screen. Example: error: while evaluating file `.../pkgs/system/test.nix': while evaluating attribute `subversion' at `.../pkgs/system/all-packages-generic.nix', line 533: while evaluating function at `.../pkgs/applications/version-management/subversion/default.nix', line 1: assertion failed at `.../pkgs/applications/version-management/subversion/default.nix', line 13 Since the Nix expression language is lazy, the trace may be misleading. The purpose is to provide a hint as to the location of the problem.
2004-03-28 * Added an operator `?' to test for attribute existence, e.g.,Eelco Dolstra1-0/+2
`attrs ? x' yields true iff `attrs' has an attribute named `x'.
2004-03-28 * Added an operator `~' to select paths within a derivation. E.g.,Eelco Dolstra1-0/+2
{stdenv, bash}: derivation { builder = bash ~ /bin/sh; args = ["-e" "-x" ./builder.sh]; ... } Here the attribute `builder' will evaluate to, e.g., `/nix/store/1234abcd...-bash-2.0.1/bin/sh'.
2004-03-28 * Added plain lambdas, e.g., `let { id = x: x; const = x: y: x; }'.Eelco Dolstra1-0/+2
`bla:' is now no longer parsed as a URL. * Re-enabled support for the `args' attribute in derivations to specify command line arguments to the builder, e.g., ... builder = /usr/bin/python; args = ["-c" ./builder.py]; ...
2004-02-19 * Resolve an ambiguity between ifs and attribute selection, e.g., `ifEelco Dolstra1-3/+7
b then x else y.z'.
2004-02-04 * Extended the `inherit' syntax to optionally select attributes fromEelco Dolstra1-3/+8
other attribute sets, rather than the current scope. E.g., {inherit (pkgs) gcc binutils;} is equivalent to {gcc = pkgs.gcc; binutils = pkgs.binutils;} I am not so happy about the syntax.
2004-02-04 * An attribute set update operator (//). E.g.,Eelco Dolstra1-0/+2
{x=1; y=2; z=3;} // {y=4;} => {x=1; y=4; z=3;}
2004-02-02 * Added syntactic sugar to the construction of attribute sets toEelco Dolstra1-5/+15
`inherit' variables from the surrounding lexical scope. E.g., {stdenv, libfoo}: derivation { builder = ./bla; inherit stdenv libfoo; xyzzy = 1; } is equivalent to {stdenv, libfoo}: derivation { builder = ./bla; stdenv = stdenv; libfoo = libfoo; xyzzy = 1; } Note that for mutually recursive attribute set definitions (`rec {...}'), this also works, that is, `rec {inherit x;}' is equivalent to `let {fresh = x; body = rec {x = fresh;};}', *not* `rec {x = x}'.
2004-01-30 * Parser numbers again.Eelco Dolstra1-0/+1
* Include missing files in distributions.
2004-01-30 * Replaced the SDF parser by a substantially faster Bison/FlexEelco Dolstra1-0/+128
parser (roughly 80x faster). The absolutely latest version of Bison (1.875c) is required for reentrant GLR support, as well as a recent version of Flex (say, 2.5.31). Note that most Unix distributions ship with the prehistoric Flex 2.5.4, which doesn't support reentrancy.