Re: [PATCH] scripts: package: Add --install-from-file option.

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

David Thompson <dthompson2@worcester.edu> skribis:

> In my personal projects, I keep a 'package.scm' file in the root of the
> source tree for use with 'guix environment -l'.  However, it's also
> handy to install that package by using 'guix package -e':
>
>     guix package -e '(primitive-load "package.scm")'
>
> This patch adds a shorthand for this:
>
>     guix package -f package.scm

Makes sense.

> The motivation for this is to ultimately encourage other people to keep
> a 'package.scm' file in their own repos for building reproducible
> development environments and easily testing development snapshots, like
> what we do with our 'guix-devel' package.

Nice.  The bottom line though is that we don’t quite guarantee stability
of the “API” of the package modules.

> I'd like to add the same option for 'guix build', if this is approved.

Sure.

> From 07c9b35facf810872f3bc8342e18b33033714adf Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> From: David Thompson <dthompson2@worcester.edu>
> Date: Sun, 9 Aug 2015 11:35:51 -0400
> Subject: [PATCH] scripts: package: Add --install-from-file option.
>
> * guix/scripts/package.scm (show-help): Add help text for --install-from-file
>   option.
>   (%options): Add --install-from-file option.
> * doc/guix.texi ("invoking guix package"): Document it.

[...]

> +(use-modules (guix packages)
> +             (guix download)
> +             (guix build-system gnu)
> +             (guix licenses))

Just (use-modules (guix) (guix licenses))?

Can you put the example in a separate file (like
doc/environment-gdb.scm)?  That will allow us to easily check that the
file is indeed valid.

> +  (arguments `(#:configure-flags '("--enable-silent-rules")))
> +  (inputs `(("gawk" ,gawk)))

I think these two lines can be removed.

> +@end example

Here it would be good to add a sentence or two like the paragraph you
wrote above about the motivation for all this.

Could you send an updated patch?

Thanks!

Ludo’.