Release 1.6 (2013-09-10)
In addition to the usual bug fixes, this release has several new features:
-
The command
nix-build --run-envhas been renamed tonix-shell. -
nix-shellnow sources$stdenv/setupinside the interactive shell, rather than in a parent shell. This ensures that shell functions defined bystdenvcan be used in the interactive shell. -
nix-shellhas a new flag--pureto clear the environment, so you get an environment that more closely corresponds to the “real” Nix build. -
nix-shellnow sets the shell prompt (PS1) to ensure that Nix shells are distinguishable from your regular shells. -
nix-envno longer requires a*argument to match all packages, sonix-env -qais equivalent tonix-env -qa '*'. -
nix-env -ihas a new flag--remove-all(-r) to remove all previous packages from the profile. This makes it easier to do declarative package management similar to NixOS’senvironment.systemPackages. For instance, if you have a specificationmy-packages.nixlike this:with import <nixpkgs> {}; [ thunderbird geeqie ... ]then after any change to this file, you can run:
$ nix-env -f my-packages.nix -irto update your profile to match the specification.
-
The ‘
with’ 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:let pkgs = with pkgs; { foo = "old"; bar = foo; } // overrides; overrides = { foo = "new"; }; in pkgs.barThis evaluates to
"new", while previously it gave an “infinite recursion” error. -
Nix now has proper integer arithmetic operators. For instance, you can write
x + yinstead ofbuiltins.add x y, orx < yinstead ofbuiltins.lessThan x y. The comparison operators also work on strings. -
On 64-bit systems, Nix integers are now 64 bits rather than 32 bits.
-
When using the Nix daemon, the
nix-daemonworker 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. -
If a stack overflow occurs in the Nix evaluator, you now get a proper error message (rather than “Segmentation fault”) on some systems.
-
In addition to directories, you can now bind-mount regular files in chroots through the (now misnamed) option
build-chroot-dirs.
This release has contributions from Domen Kožar, Eelco Dolstra, Florian Friesdorf, Gergely Risko, Ivan Kozik, Ludovic Courtès and Shea Levy.