History

sterni f3c27f1717 fix(tvix/eval): bring foldl' strictness in line with C++ Nix Working on https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/7158, I discovered that C++ Nix actually is strict in the accumulator, just not in the first value. This seems due to the fact that in the C++ evaluator, function calls don't seem to be thunked unconditionally and foldl' just elects not to wrap it in a thunk (don't quote me on this summary, even though it seems to line up with the code for primop_foldlStrict and testable behavior). It doesn't seem worth it to risk breaking the odd Nix expression just to be strict in one more value per invocation of foldl' (i.e. the initial accumulator value `nul`), so let's match the existing C++ Nix behavior here. Change-Id: If59e62271a90d97cb440f0ca72a58ec7840d1690 Reviewed-on: https://cl.tvl.fyi/c/depot/+/7022 Autosubmit: sterni <sternenseemann@systemli.org> Tested-by: BuildkiteCI Reviewed-by: tazjin <tazjin@tvl.su>		2022-10-15 14:12:23 +00:00
..
benches	refactor(tvix/eval): use Clap for arg+env parsing	2022-09-18 22:08:43 +00:00
docs	fix(tvix/eval): bring foldl' strictness in line with C++ Nix	2022-10-15 14:12:23 +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	fix(tvix/eval): bring foldl' strictness in line with C++ Nix	2022-10-15 14:12:23 +00:00
tests	feat(tvix/eval): Allow adding strings to paths	2022-10-10 20:23:41 +00:00
.envrc	chore(tvix/eval): add simple .envrc / shell.nix	2022-09-17 17:31:08 +00:00
.gitignore	feat(tvix/eval): check in generated project skeleton	2022-08-12 12:34:29 +00:00
.skip-subtree	feat(tvix/tests): check in Nix' language test suite	2022-08-24 21:25:41 +00:00
Cargo.lock	fix(tvix/eval): support string identifiers in inherits	2022-09-22 23:07:14 +00:00
Cargo.toml	fix(tvix/eval): support string identifiers in inherits	2022-09-22 23:07:14 +00:00
default.nix	feat(tvix/eval): Add passthru build for benchmark binaries	2022-10-02 22:43:34 +00:00
README.md	docs(tvix/eval): explain where to find the site-specific `mg` tool	2022-10-13 18:41:02 +00:00
shell.nix	chore(tvix/eval): add rustfmt to the shell	2022-09-18 23:19:54 +00:00

README.md

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.