symlinkJoin
pkgs.symlinkJoin
Docs pulled from | This Revision | 22 minutes ago
TODO: Deduplicate this documentation. More docs in doc/build-helpers/trivial-build-helpers.chapter.md See https://nixos.org/manual/nixpkgs/unstable/#trivial-builder-symlinkJoin
Create a forest of symlinks to the files in paths.
This creates a single derivation that replicates the directory structure of all the input paths.
BEWARE: it may not "work right" when the passed paths contain symlinks to directories.
Examples
symlinkJoin usage example
# adds symlinks of hello to current build.
symlinkJoin { name = "myhello"; paths = [ pkgs.hello ]; }
# adds symlinks of hello and stack to current build and prints "links added"
symlinkJoin { name = "myexample"; paths = [ pkgs.hello pkgs.stack ]; postBuild = "echo links added"; }
This creates a derivation with a directory structure like the following:
/nix/store/sglsr5g079a5235hy29da3mq3hv8sjmm-myexample
|-- bin
| |-- hello -> /nix/store/qy93dp4a3rqyn2mz63fbxjg228hffwyw-hello-2.10/bin/hello
| `-- stack -> /nix/store/6lzdpxshx78281vy056lbk553ijsdr44-stack-2.1.3.1/bin/stack
`-- share
|-- bash-completion
| `-- completions
| `-- stack -> /nix/store/6lzdpxshx78281vy056lbk553ijsdr44-stack-2.1.3.1/share/bash-completion/completions/stack
|-- fish
| `-- vendor_completions.d
| `-- stack.fish -> /nix/store/6lzdpxshx78281vy056lbk553ijsdr44-stack-2.1.3.1/share/fish/vendor_completions.d/stack.fish
...
symlinkJoin and linkFarm are similar functions, but they output
derivations with different structure.
symlinkJoin is used to create a derivation with a familiar directory
structure (top-level bin/, share/, etc), but with all actual files being symlinks to
the files in the input derivations.
symlinkJoin is used many places in nixpkgs to create a single derivation
that appears to contain binaries, libraries, documentation, etc from
multiple input derivations.
linkFarm is instead used to create a simple derivation with symlinks to
other derivations. A derivation created with linkFarm is often used in CI
as a easy way to build multiple derivations at once.