How to write Nix friendly `Make install` targets?

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1

What should the install target generally look like in a Makefile such that I don’t need a custom installPhase in mkDerivation?

2

Anything that follows the GNU Makefile Conventions should work fine. install should do nothing more than create directories as needed and copy files to their respective locations.

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3

Mostly what’s good practice for portability generally is good for nix, too. But here are some important specifics:

  • Respect the configured prefix, or if you have no real configure step, allow the builder to set a prefix through make args. In nix, the prefix will be a nix store path.
  • Follow fhs conventions ($prefix/{bin,lib,share} etc, but no usr or opt or whatnot. That should be part of the prefix, conceptually.)

That’s most of it.

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