Warning
This program is experimental and its interface is subject to change.
Name
nix edit
- open the Nix expression of a Nix package in $EDITOR
Synopsis
nix edit
[option...] installable
Examples
-
Open the Nix expression of the GNU Hello package:
# nix edit nixpkgs#hello
-
Get the filename and line number used by
nix edit
:# nix eval --raw nixpkgs#hello.meta.position /nix/store/fvafw0gvwayzdan642wrv84pzm5bgpmy-source/pkgs/applications/misc/hello/default.nix:15
Description
This command opens the Nix expression of a derivation in an
editor. The filename and line number of the derivation are taken from
its meta.position
attribute. Nixpkgs' stdenv.mkDerivation
sets
this attribute to the location of the definition of the
meta.description
, version
or name
derivation attributes.
The editor to invoke is specified by the EDITOR
environment
variable. It defaults to cat
. If the editor is emacs
, nano
,
vim
or kak
, it is passed the line number of the derivation using
the argument +<lineno>
.
Options
Common evaluation options
-
--arg
name exprPass the value expr as the argument name to Nix functions.
-
--arg-from-file
name pathPass the contents of file path as the argument name to Nix functions.
-
--arg-from-stdin
namePass the contents of stdin as the argument name to Nix functions.
-
--argstr
name stringPass the string string as the argument name to Nix functions.
-
Start an interactive environment if evaluation fails.
-
--eval-store
store-urlThe URL of the Nix store to use for evaluation, i.e. to store derivations (
.drv
files) and inputs referenced by them. -
Allow access to mutable paths and repositories.
-
--include
/-I
pathAdd path to the Nix search path. The Nix search path is initialized from the colon-separated
NIX_PATH
environment variable, and is used to look up the location of Nix expressions using paths enclosed in angle brackets (i.e.,<nixpkgs>
).For instance, passing
-I /home/eelco/Dev -I /etc/nixos
will cause Nix to look for paths relative to
/home/eelco/Dev
and/etc/nixos
, in that order. This is equivalent to setting theNIX_PATH
environment variable to/home/eelco/Dev:/etc/nixos
It is also possible to match paths against a prefix. For example, passing
-I nixpkgs=/home/eelco/Dev/nixpkgs-branch -I /etc/nixos
will cause Nix to search for
<nixpkgs/path>
in/home/eelco/Dev/nixpkgs-branch/path
and/etc/nixos/nixpkgs/path
.If a path in the Nix search path starts with
http://
orhttps://
, it is interpreted as the URL of a tarball that will be downloaded and unpacked to a temporary location. The tarball must consist of a single top-level directory. For example, passing-I nixpkgs=https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/master.tar.gz
tells Nix to download and use the current contents of the
master
branch in thenixpkgs
repository.The URLs of the tarballs from the official
nixos.org
channels (see the manual page fornix-channel
) can be abbreviated aschannel:<channel-name>
. For instance, the following two flags are equivalent:-I nixpkgs=channel:nixos-21.05 -I nixpkgs=https://nixos.org/channels/nixos-21.05/nixexprs.tar.xz
You can also fetch source trees using flake URLs and add them to the search path. For instance,
-I nixpkgs=flake:nixpkgs
specifies that the prefix
nixpkgs
shall refer to the source tree downloaded from thenixpkgs
entry in the flake registry. Similarly,-I nixpkgs=flake:github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-22.05
makes
<nixpkgs>
refer to a particular branch of theNixOS/nixpkgs
repository on GitHub. -
--override-flake
original-ref resolved-refOverride the flake registries, redirecting original-ref to resolved-ref.
Common flake-related options
-
Commit changes to the flake's lock file.
-
--inputs-from
flake-urlUse the inputs of the specified flake as registry entries.
-
Don't allow lookups in the flake registries.
DEPRECATED
Use
--no-use-registries
instead. -
Do not allow any updates to the flake's lock file.
-
Do not write the flake's newly generated lock file.
-
--output-lock-file
flake-lock-pathWrite the given lock file instead of
flake.lock
within the top-level flake. -
--override-input
input-path flake-urlOverride a specific flake input (e.g.
dwarffs/nixpkgs
). This implies--no-write-lock-file
. -
Recreate the flake's lock file from scratch.
DEPRECATED
Use
nix flake update
instead. -
--reference-lock-file
flake-lock-pathRead the given lock file instead of
flake.lock
within the top-level flake. -
--update-input
input-pathUpdate a specific flake input (ignoring its previous entry in the lock file).
DEPRECATED
Use
nix flake update
instead.
Logging-related options
-
Set the logging verbosity level to 'debug'.
-
--log-format
formatSet the format of log output; one of
raw
,internal-json
,bar
orbar-with-logs
. -
--print-build-logs
/-L
Print full build logs on standard error.
-
Decrease the logging verbosity level.
-
--verbose
/-v
Increase the logging verbosity level.
Miscellaneous global options
-
Show usage information.
-
Disable substituters and consider all previously downloaded files up-to-date.
-
--option
name valueSet the Nix configuration setting name to value (overriding
nix.conf
). -
Consider all previously downloaded files out-of-date.
-
During evaluation, rewrite missing or corrupted files in the Nix store. During building, rebuild missing or corrupted store paths.
-
Show version information.
Options that change the interpretation of installables
-
--expr
exprInterpret installables as attribute paths relative to the Nix expression expr.
-
--file
/-f
fileInterpret installables as attribute paths relative to the Nix expression stored in file. If file is the character -, then a Nix expression will be read from standard input. Implies
--impure
.
Note
See
man nix.conf
for overriding configuration settings with command line flags.