Package Search Issues

Development Documentation
1

I noticed two issues with the Package Search system:

  1. The Nix Expression item in the package details all say Not specified. That is too bad because I frequently click on the link to learn from the package Nix files.
  2. I expect to see a commit hash where <nixpkgs> commit is found at the bottom of the search result pages. (It could be that I don’t understand the purpose of <nixpkgs> commit.)
1 Like
2

do you mind including examples?

3

No examples needed – they are all broken on NixOS Search
See: "Nix expression" on package search results links to wrong URLs · Issue #372 · NixOS/nixos-homepage · GitHub

Unfortunately, I don’t know when this will be fixed…

1 Like
4

As an example, search for the bash package. Click on bash-4.4-p23 to expand. Nix expression is Not specified:

nixos-search-expression-not-specified-underlined
nixos-search-expression-not-specified-underlined953×160 11.8 KB

All the packages I have clicked on recently have said the same thing.

5

Now look at the very bottom of the same bash search page, where it says <nixpkgs> commit I expect something more like 83df67 commit but I could just be mistaken as to what that is supposed to mean.

nixos-search-nixpkgs-commit-underlined

6

If you’re looking for an alternative while (1) is fixed, nix edit nixpkgs.<pkg> will get you the derivation it’s defined in.

1 Like
7

Slick. I didn’t know about that. This will work while the issue is being fixed.