It is just a little confusing for newcomers to guix. If we really want to improve something, I think that could be to give a more rigorous specification of the guix command:

in `guix search --help`, the documentation could be "Search for no hidden packages matching REGEXPS."

in https://guix.gnu.org/manual/en/html_node/Invoking-guix-package.html#Invoking-guix-package, in the specification of the option -s :

-s regexp

List the available packages whose name, synopsis, or description matches regexp

What exactly means "available" ? For example, available means no hidden guix package.

And in

Le mar. 15 nov. 2022 à 15:54, zimoun <zimon.toutoune@gmail.com> a écrit :

Hi,

On Tue, 15 Nov 2022 at 00:53, bbb ee <blasforr@gmail.com> wrote:

> in commit c81457, how gcc-toolchain can depends a package who doesn't
> exists?

The package exists, it is ’hidden’ – it means not accessible at the CLI
level. The ’inherit’ copies, so gcc-11 is also hidden, for instance.

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(define-public gcc-4.7
[...]
(hidden-package
(package
(name "gcc")
(version "4.7.4")

(define-public gcc-4.8
(package (inherit gcc-4.7)
(version "4.8.5")

[...]

(define-public gcc-11
(package
(inherit gcc-8)
(version "11.3.0")
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

The package ’gcc’ by itself is not barely useful because you also need
linker etc. Well, you usually need a complete toolchain, named
gcc-toolchain. ;-)

See manual: <https://guix.gnu.org/manual/devel/en/guix.html#The-GCC-toolchain>

So this is not a bug and I miss how what could be improved. Closing?

Cheers,
simon