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cleanSourceWith: don't use baseNameOf#83201

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roberth merged 1 commit intoNixOS:masterfrom
michaelpj:imp/sources-unnamed
Mar 24, 2020
Merged

cleanSourceWith: don't use baseNameOf#83201
roberth merged 1 commit intoNixOS:masterfrom
michaelpj:imp/sources-unnamed

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@michaelpj
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Currently, not providing name to cleanSourceWith will use the name
of the imported directory. However, a common case is for this to be the
top level of some repository. In that case, the name will be the name of
the checkout on the current machine, which is not necessarily
reproducible across different settings, and can lead to e.g. cache
misses in CI.

This is documented in the comment on cleanSourceWith, but this does
not stop it being a subtle trap for users.

There are different tradeoffs in each case:

  1. If cleanSourceWith defaults to "unnamed", then we may end up with a
    user not knowing what directory a source store path corresponds to.
    However, it being called "unnamed" may give them a clue that there is a
    way for them to name it, and lead them to the definition of the
    function, which has a clear name parameter.

  2. If cleanSoureWith defaults to the directory name, then a user may face
    occasional loss of caching, which is hard to notice, and hard to track
    down. Tracking it down likely requires use of more advanced tools like
    nix-diff, and reading the source of a lot of nix code.

I think the downside of the status quo is worse.

This is really another iteration of
NixOS/nix#1305: that led to adding the name
argument in the first place, this just makes us use a better default
name.

lib/sources.nix Outdated
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This should probably be "source" (unconditionally!) to be in line with other tree fetchers. (See NixOS/nix@65b5f17.)

Currently, not providing `name` to `cleanSourceWith` will use the name
of the imported directory. However, a common case is for this to be the
top level of some repository. In that case, the name will be the name of
the checkout on the current machine, which is not necessarily
reproducible across different settings, and can lead to e.g. cache
misses in CI.

This is documented in the comment on `cleanSourceWith`, but this does
not stop it being a subtle trap for users.

There are different tradeoffs in each case:

1. If `cleanSourceWith` defaults to `"source"`, then we may end up with a
user not knowing what directory a source store path corresponds to.
However, it being called "unnamed" may give them a clue that there is a
way for them to name it, and lead them to the definition of the
function, which has a clear `name` parameter.

2. If `cleanSoureWith` defaults to the directory name, then a user may face
occasional loss of caching, which is hard to notice, and hard to track
down. Tracking it down likely requires use of more advanced tools like
`nix-diff`, and reading the source of a lot of nix code.

I think the downside of the status quo is worse.

This is really another iteration of
NixOS/nix#1305: that led to adding the `name`
argument in the first place, this just makes us use a better default
`name`.
@michaelpj michaelpj force-pushed the imp/sources-unnamed branch from 33d2ac6 to 07f363f Compare March 23, 2020 09:53
@ofborg ofborg bot added 10.rebuild-darwin: 0 This PR does not cause any packages to rebuild on Darwin. 10.rebuild-linux: 1-10 This PR causes between 1 and 10 packages to rebuild on Linux. labels Mar 23, 2020
@danbst danbst requested a review from roberth March 24, 2020 06:24
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10.rebuild-darwin: 0 This PR does not cause any packages to rebuild on Darwin. 10.rebuild-linux: 1-10 This PR causes between 1 and 10 packages to rebuild on Linux.

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4 participants