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lib: Consolidate platform configurations (used for crossSystem)

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This is good for maintenance and education.
This commit is contained in:
John Ericson
2017-05-23 18:04:15 -04:00
parent b20f20d3eb
commit 20e756a093
6 changed files with 200 additions and 173 deletions
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52
doc/cross-compilation.xml
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@@ -85,7 +85,8 @@
This field is obsolete and will soon disappear—please do not use it.
</para></note>
<para>
The exact scheme these fields is a bit ill-defined due to a long and convoluted evolution, but this is slowly being cleaned up.
The exact schema these fields follow is a bit ill-defined due to a long and convoluted evolution, but this is slowly being cleaned up.
You can see examples of ones used in practice in <literal>lib.systems.examples</literal>; note how they are not all very consistent.
For now, here are few fields can count on them containing:
</para>
<variablelist>
@@ -118,8 +119,27 @@
This is a nix representation of a parsed LLVM target triple with white-listed components.
This can be specified directly, or actually parsed from the <varname>config</varname>.
[Technically, only one need be specified and the others can be inferred, though the precision of inference may not be very good.]
See <literal>lib.systems.parse</literal> for the exact representation, along with some <literal>is*</literal>predicates.
These predicates are superior to the ones in <varname>stdenv</varname> as they aren't tied to the build platform (host, as previously discussed, would be a saner default).
See <literal>lib.systems.parse</literal> for the exact representation.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>libc</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>
This is a string identifying the standard C library used.
Valid identifiers include "glibc" for GNU libc, "libsystem" for Darwin's Libsystem, and "uclibc" for µClibc.
It should probably be refactored to use the module system, like <varname>parse</varname>.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
<varlistentry>
<term><varname>is*</varname></term>
<listitem>
<para>
These predicates are defined in <literal>lib.systems.inspect</literal>, and slapped on every platform.
They are superior to the ones in <varname>stdenv</varname> as they force the user to be explicit about which platform they are inspecting.
Please use these instead of those.
</para>
</listitem>
</varlistentry>
@@ -128,7 +148,7 @@
<listitem>
<para>
This is, quite frankly, a dumping ground of ad-hoc settings (it's an attribute set).
See <literal>lib.systems.platforms</literal> for examples—there's hopefully one in there that will work verbatim for each platform one is working.
See <literal>lib.systems.platforms</literal> for examples—there's hopefully one in there that will work verbatim for each platform that is working.
Please help us triage these flags and give them better homes!
</para>
</listitem>
@@ -184,11 +204,27 @@
More information needs to moved from the old wiki, especially <link xlink:href="https://nixos.org/wiki/CrossCompiling" />, for this section.
</para></note>
<para>
Many sources (manual, wiki, etc) probably mention passing <varname>system</varname>, <varname>platform</varname>, and, optionally, <varname>crossSystem</varname> to nixpkgs:
<literal>import &lt;nixpkgs&gt; { system = ..; platform = ..; crossSystem = ..; }</literal>.
<varname>system</varname> and <varname>platform</varname> together determine the system on which packages are built, and <varname>crossSystem</varname> specifies the platform on which packages are ultimately intended to run, if it is different.
This still works, but with more recent changes, one can alternatively pass <varname>localSystem</varname>, containing <varname>system</varname> and <varname>platform</varname>, for symmetry.
Nixpkgs can be instantiated with <varname>localSystem</varname> alone, in which case there is no cross compiling and everything is built by and for that system,
or also with <varname>crossSystem</varname>, in which case packages run on the latter, but all building happens on the former.
Both parameters take the same schema as the 3 (build, host, and target) platforms defined in the previous section.
As mentioned above, <literal>lib.systems.examples</literal> has some platforms which are used as arguments for these parameters in practice.
You can use them programmatically, or on the command line like <command>nix-build &lt;nixpkgs&gt; --arg crossSystem '(import &lt;nixpkgs/lib&gt;).systems.examples.fooBarBaz'</command>.
</para>
<para>
While one is free to pass both parameters in full, there's a lot of logic to fill in missing fields.
As discussed in the previous section, only one of <varname>system</varname>, <varname>config</varname>, and <varname>parsed</varname> is needed to infer the other two.
Additionally, <varname>libc</varname> will be inferred from <varname>parse</varname>.
Finally, <literal>localSystem.system</literal> is also <emphasis>impurely</emphasis> inferred based on the platform evaluation occurs.
This means it is often not necessary to pass <varname>localSystem</varname> at all, as in the command-line example in the previous paragraph.
</para>
<note>
<para>
Many sources (manual, wiki, etc) probably mention passing <varname>system</varname>, <varname>platform</varname>, along with the optional <varname>crossSystem</varname> to nixpkgs:
<literal>import &lt;nixpkgs&gt; { system = ..; platform = ..; crossSystem = ..; }</literal>.
Passing those two instead of <varname>localSystem</varname> is still supported for compatibility, but is discouraged.
Indeed, much of the inference we do for these parameters is motivated by compatibility as much as convenience.
</para>
</note>
<para>
One would think that <varname>localSystem</varname> and <varname>crossSystem</varname> overlap horribly with the three <varname>*Platforms</varname> (<varname>buildPlatform</varname>, <varname>hostPlatform,</varname> and <varname>targetPlatform</varname>; see <varname>stage.nix</varname> or the manual).
Actually, those identifiers are purposefully not used here to draw a subtle but important distinction: