On 12-09-2022 03:04, Ryan Prior wrote:
> Hi there! Lately I've been testing distribution tarballs with a workflow 
> like this:
> 
>  1. update some software in my source directory
>  2. create a distribution tarball
>  3. untar to a directory like /tmp/mypkg-src
>  4. run: |guix build --with-source=mypkg=/tmp/mypkg-src|​
> 
> 
> It would be nice to skip step 3 there and just run: |guix build 
> --with-source=mypkg.tar.gz|​
> Guix should then untar and use the result as the source directory for 
> the build.

I believe you can do that already -- "guix build" accepts not only 
directories, but also regular files.

For example, the following builds the 'hello' package, but with the 
source code of 'sed' instead of 'hello' (doesn't make much sense, but 
just an example):

$ guix build hello "--with-source=hello=$(guix build --source sed)"

(no need to unpack tarballs!)


> To soup the process up even further, allow |--with-source|​ to take a 
> URL of a tarball, in which case Guix fetches and untars.

That is already supported:

$ guix build hello "--with-source=hello=file://$(guix build --source sed)"
(succeeds)

$ guix build hello "--with-source=hello=http://localhost/hello.tar.gz"
(network errors, because I don't actually have a tarball there.)

Greetings,
Maxime.