tvl-depot/tvix/eval
Vincent Ambo 5d73c06b1a refactor(tvix/eval): use im::Vector for NixList representation
This is a persistent, structurally sharing data structure which is
more efficient in some of our use-cases. I have verified the
efficiency improvement using `hyperfine` repeatedly over expressions
on nixpkgs.

Lists are not the most performance-critical structure in Nix (that
would be attribute sets), but we can already see a small (~5-10%)
improvement.

Note that there are a handful of cases where we still go via `Vec`
that need to be fixed, most notable for `builtins.sort` which can not
currently be implemented directly using `im::Vector` because of a
restrictive type bound.

Change-Id: I237cc50cbd7629a046e5a5e4601fbb40355e551d
Reviewed-on: https://cl.tvl.fyi/c/depot/+/7670
Tested-by: BuildkiteCI
Reviewed-by: sterni <sternenseemann@systemli.org>
2022-12-29 12:27:59 +00:00
..
benches fix(tvix/eval): fix current clippy warnings 2022-12-25 18:25:06 +00:00
builtin-macros fix(tvix/builtin-macros): parse multi-line docstrings correctly 2022-12-21 23:05:22 +00:00
docs docs(tvix/eval): sketch in place list/attr set update idea 2022-12-29 09:52:17 +00:00
proptest-regressions/value test(tvix/eval): Add tests for the Eq laws of Value 2022-09-18 17:57:09 +00:00
src refactor(tvix/eval): use im::Vector for NixList representation 2022-12-29 12:27:59 +00:00
tests feat(tvix/eval): use EvalIO::import_path when coercing paths 2022-12-21 22:59:18 +00:00
.skip-subtree feat(tvix/tests): check in Nix' language test suite 2022-08-24 21:25:41 +00:00
build.rs feat(tvix/eval): implement builtins.currentSystem 2022-10-24 12:20:01 +00:00
Cargo.toml refactor(tvix/eval): use im::Vector for NixList representation 2022-12-29 12:27:59 +00:00
default.nix refactor(tvix): build Rust projects using crate2nix 2022-12-15 17:26:45 +00:00
README.md docs(tvix/eval): explain where to find the site-specific mg tool 2022-10-13 18:41:02 +00:00

Tvix Evaluator

This project implements an interpreter for the Nix programming language. You can experiment with an online version of the evaluator: tvixbolt.

The interpreter aims to be compatible with nixpkgs, on the foundation of Nix 2.3.

Important note: The evaluator is not yet feature-complete, and while the core mechanisms (compiler, runtime, ...) have stabilised somewhat, a lot of components are still changing rapidly.

Please contact TVL with any questions you might have.

Building the evaluator

If you are in a full checkout of the TVL depot, you can simply run mg build in this directory (or mg build //tvix/eval from anywhere in the repo). The mg command is found in /tools/magrathea.

Important note: We only use and test Nix builds of our software against Nix 2.3. There are a variety of bugs and subtle problems in newer Nix versions which we do not have the bandwidth to address, builds in newer Nix versions may or may not work.

The evaluator can also be built with standard Rust tooling (i.e. cargo build).

If you would like to clone only the evaluator and build it directly with Rust tooling, you can do:

git clone https://code.tvl.fyi/depot.git:/tvix/eval.git tvix-eval

cd tvix-eval && cargo build

Nix test suite

C++ Nix implements a language test suite in the form of Nix source code files, and their expected output. The coverage of this test suite is not complete, but we intend to be compatible with it.

We have ported the test suite to Tvix, but do not run it by default as we are not yet compatible with it.

You can run the test suite by enabling the nix_tests feature in Cargo:

cargo test --features nix_tests

rnix-parser

Tvix is written in memory of jD91mZM2, the author of rnix-parser who sadly passed away.

Tvix makes heavy use of rnix-parser in its bytecode compiler. The parser is now maintained by Nix community members.