Hello, people!
I am now developing a “new” build system for Higan. But, for the sake of debug, I want to change the default gmake to remake. How can I do it?
# file: shell.nix
{ pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> {} }:
pkgs.mkShell {
nativeBuildInputs = with pkgs; [ meson ninja ];
buildInputs = [ /* a bunch of packages */ ];
}
I’m not sure, but here’s how I tried to figure it out:
[cody@nixos:~]$ nix repl '<nixpkgs>'
Welcome to Nix version 2.3.3. Type :? for help.
Loading '<nixpkgs>'...
Added 11588 variables.
nix-repl> ashell = pkgs.mkShell {}
nix-repl> ashell.
ashell.__ignoreNulls ashell.depsBuildBuildPropagated ashell.doCheck ashell.nobuildPhase ashell.passthru ashell.strictDeps
ashell.all ashell.depsBuildTarget ashell.doInstallCheck ashell.out ashell.patches ashell.system
ashell.args ashell.depsBuildTargetPropagated ashell.drvAttrs ashell.outPath ashell.phases ashell.type
ashell.buildInputs ashell.depsHostHost ashell.drvPath ashell.outputName ashell.propagatedBuildInputs ashell.userHook
ashell.builder ashell.depsHostHostPropagated ashell.meta ashell.outputUnspecified ashell.propagatedNativeBuildInputs
ashell.configureFlags ashell.depsTargetTarget ashell.name ashell.outputs ashell.shellHook
ashell.depsBuildBuild ashell.depsTargetTargetPropagated ashell.nativeBuildInputs ashell.overrideAttrs ashell.stdenv
nix-repl> # NOTE: ashell.stdenv looks promising
nix-repl> ashell.stdenv.
ashell.stdenv.__extraImpureHostDeps ashell.stdenv.drvPath ashell.stdenv.isAarch32 ashell.stdenv.isx86_32 ashell.stdenv.preHook
ashell.stdenv.all ashell.stdenv.extraBuildInputs ashell.stdenv.isAarch64 ashell.stdenv.isx86_64 ashell.stdenv.setup
ashell.stdenv.allowedRequisites ashell.stdenv.extraNativeBuildInputs ashell.stdenv.isBigEndian ashell.stdenv.lib ashell.stdenv.shell
ashell.stdenv.args ashell.stdenv.extraSandboxProfile ashell.stdenv.isCygwin ashell.stdenv.meta ashell.stdenv.shellPackage
ashell.stdenv.bootstrapTools ashell.stdenv.fetchurlBoot ashell.stdenv.isDarwin ashell.stdenv.mkDerivation ashell.stdenv.system
ashell.stdenv.buildPlatform ashell.stdenv.glibc ashell.stdenv.isFreeBSD ashell.stdenv.name ashell.stdenv.targetPlatform
ashell.stdenv.builder ashell.stdenv.hasCC ashell.stdenv.isLinux ashell.stdenv.out ashell.stdenv.type
ashell.stdenv.cc ashell.stdenv.hostPlatform ashell.stdenv.isMips ashell.stdenv.outPath
ashell.stdenv.defaultBuildInputs ashell.stdenv.initialPath ashell.stdenv.isOpenBSD ashell.stdenv.outputName
ashell.stdenv.defaultNativeBuildInputs ashell.stdenv.is32bit ashell.stdenv.isSunOS ashell.stdenv.overrides
ashell.stdenv.drvAttrs ashell.stdenv.is64bit ashell.stdenv.isi686 ashell.stdenv.platform
Maybe someone can point out how I could have went further to find the answer here and we can learn how to answer this type of question ourselves in the future 
The generic builder has make command
hardcoded
so you would need to override
phases, i.e. set
your own buildPhase, installPhase…
You could also create a setup hook (see, for example,
ninja)
to make it easier to use for other people.
If remake is just a compatible fork of gnumake (I wonder why they did
not pass the changes upstream) it might also work to change the package
to install make as a symlink to remake. With nix, such potential
path collisions are fine. Not sure if it would be picked up over the
make from stdenv but it is a good thing to try.
Oh, hardcoded path? Then it is better to call remake inside nativeBuildInputs instead. After all it is just for debugging purposes, and it would be silly to modify stdenv in order to accept a new make-compatible tool just because it is fun.
One thing is support different compilers like Clang or CCache. I don’t think different makes are so important…