Search path for patches

Search path for patches

[Konrad Hinsen]

Hi everyone,

I have been searching for a while, without much success, so I am trying
to tap into your collective wisdom: What's the search path used by
search-patches?

More precisely, where do I have to put patches
 1. In a channel?
 2. In a directory added to GUIX_PACKAGE_PATH/GUILE_LOAD_PATH?

The main Guix channel has a "patches" directory inside "packages".  The
channel guix-science has it at the root. For my own channel that I am
trying to set up, neither seems to work so far.

Cheers,
  Konrad.

Re: Search path for patches

[Ekaitz Zarraga]

On 2024-09-13 19:33, Konrad Hinsen wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I have been searching for a while, without much success, so I am trying
> to tap into your collective wisdom: What's the search path used by
> search-patches?
> 
> More precisely, where do I have to put patches
>   1. In a channel?
>   2. In a directory added to GUIX_PACKAGE_PATH/GUILE_LOAD_PATH?
> 
> The main Guix channel has a "patches" directory inside "packages".  The
> channel guix-science has it at the root. For my own channel that I am
> trying to set up, neither seems to work so far.
> 
> Cheers,
>    Konrad.
> 

In your own channel it is the root folder of the channel if I'm not 
mistaken. Pretty annoying, honestly.

In Guix it's defaulted to the patches/ directory in packages/

It would be great if they were coherent.

Cheers,
Ekaitz

Re: Search path for patches

[Nicolas Graves]

On 2024-09-13 19:33, Konrad Hinsen wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>
> I have been searching for a while, without much success, so I am trying
> to tap into your collective wisdom: What's the search path used by
> search-patches?
>
> More precisely, where do I have to put patches
>  1. In a channel?
>  2. In a directory added to GUIX_PACKAGE_PATH/GUILE_LOAD_PATH?
>
> The main Guix channel has a "patches" directory inside "packages".  The
> channel guix-science has it at the root. For my own channel that I am
> trying to set up, neither seems to work so far.

Not a direct answer, but I use the approach I've found in guixrus:

      (patches
        (parameterize
            ((%patch-path
              (map
               (lambda (directory)
                 (string-append directory "/guixrus/packages/patches"))
               %load-path)))
        (search-patches
         ;;patches created from github issues
         "lxappearence-gtk3-01-only-do-x11-on-x11.patch"
         "lxappearence-gtk3-02-set-some-settings-gsettings.patch")))

This is allows you to put patches quite conveniently in a channel.

-- 
Best regards,
Nicolas Graves

Re: Search path for patches

[Liliana Marie Prikler]

Am Freitag, dem 13.09.2024 um 19:33 +0200 schrieb Konrad Hinsen:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I have been searching for a while, without much success, so I am
> trying to tap into your collective wisdom: What's the search path
> used by search-patches?
> 
> More precisely, where do I have to put patches
>  1. In a channel?
>  2. In a directory added to GUIX_PACKAGE_PATH/GUILE_LOAD_PATH?
> 
> The main Guix channel has a "patches" directory inside "packages". 
> The channel guix-science has it at the root. For my own channel that
> I am trying to set up, neither seems to work so far.
The search-patch procedure in (gnu packages) – which see – uses the
%patch-path parameter to figure out where patches come from. 
Typically, you'd place patches in the root directory, or somewhere
within your GUILE_LOAD_PATH to have them picked up, but I do recommend
writing your own (search-patch) or parameterizing %patch-path if you
want to place them in a special location.

Cheers

Re: Search path for patches

[Konrad Hinsen]

Hi Ekaitz and Nicolas,

Thanks for your comments!

Ekaitz Zarraga <ekaitz@elenq.tech> writes:

> In your own channel it is the root folder of the channel if I'm not 
> mistaken. Pretty annoying, honestly.
> In Guix it's defaulted to the patches/ directory in packages/

I hadn't considered the possibility that the default channel has
special treatment. At least now I understand what I see. And yes,
root folder is an annoying choice.

Nicolas Graves <ngraves@ngraves.fr> writes:

> Not a direct answer, but I use the approach I've found in guixrus:
> ...

That works for me as well, thanks! It's a bit verbose, but for now I
only have two packages that need patches, so it's OK.

Thanks again,
  Konrad.

Re: Search path for patches

[Konrad Hinsen]

Hi Liliana,

Thanks for your suggestions!

> The search-patch procedure in (gnu packages) – which see – uses the
> %patch-path parameter to figure out where patches come from. 
> Typically, you'd place patches in the root directory, or somewhere
> within your GUILE_LOAD_PATH to have them picked up, but I do recommend
> writing your own (search-patch) or parameterizing %patch-path if you
> want to place them in a special location.

The second technique (parameterizing) is what Nicolas proposed as well.
It's fine for a small number of packages requiring patches (my case so
far), but a bit verbose if used frequently.

Writing my own search-patch has the advantage of being done once for the
whole channel. Maybe I'll end up doing that.

Cheers,
  Konrad.