Re: getting started with guix import nix

[Paul Garlick]

Thank you, Ludo.

I have:

$ git describe

v0.11.0-3373-g2df3d14

My Nixpkgs directory is not managed by git.  It was installed by the Nix install script.  It seems to have the same structure as the Github repository:

$ ls /home/paul/.nix-defexpr/channels/nixpkgs

doc  maintainers  pkgs     README.md    svn-revision

lib  nixos        COPYING  default.nix

> It may be that we’re not getting the same XML output from
> ‘nix-instantiate’ and that somehow confuses the XML parser in your case.
>
> To investigate, you’d need to run the same ‘nix-instantiate’ command
> that snix.scm invokes, same its XML output, and then try parsing it with
> ‘xml->sxml’ from (sxml simple).

Following the snix.scm code, I have tried:

$ nix-instantiate --strict --eval --xml -A opencascade_oce /home/paul/.nix-defexpr/channels/nixpkgs

This command sends xml to standard output for a few minutes, before I kill the process.  Is it common for this process to need a long time?  I have noticed in the Nix manual this comment on the --strict option:

Warning: This option can cause non-termination, because lazy data structures can be infinitely large.

Maybe this is a Nix problem?

Paul.