Developing in golang with Nix package manager

Feb 8, 2015

I’ve been using Go since several months. It’s a pleasant language, even though it has its own drawbacks.

In our Nixpkgs repository we have support for several programming languages: perl, python, ruby, haskell, lua, … We’ve merged a better support for Go.

What kind of support are we talking about? In Nix, you never install libraries. Instead, you define an environment in which to use a certain library compiled for a certain version of the language. The library will be available only within this environment.

Think of it like virtualenv for python, except for any language, and also being able to mix them.
On the other hand Nix requires the src url and the checksum of every dependency of your project. So before starting, make sure you are willing to write nix packages that are not currently present in nixpkgs.

Also you probably have to wait a couple of days before this PR will be available in the unstable channel, at the time of this writing (otherwise git clone https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs.git).

Using nix-shell -p

First a quick example using nix-shell -p for your own project:

$ nix-shell '<nixpkgs>' -p goPackages.go goPackages.net goPackages.osext
[nix-shell]$ echo $GOPATH
/nix/store/kw9dryid364ac038zmbzq72bnh3zsinz-go-1.4.1-go.net-3338d5f109e9/share/go:...

That’s how nix mostly works, it’s as simple as that. The GOPATH is set for every package that provides a directory share/go.

What is goPackages? Currently it’s go14Packages, which is all the go packages we have, compiled with go 1.4. There’s also go13Packages, you know some particular packages don’t work with go 1.4 yet.

Writing a nix file

A more structured example by writing a default.nix file in your project:

with import <nixpkgs> {}; with goPackages;

buildGoPackage rec {
  name = "yourproject";
  buildInputs = [ net osext ];
  goPackagePath = "github.com/you/yourproject";
}

Then you can just run nix-shell in your project directory and have your dev environment ready to compile your code.
The goPackagePath is something needed by buildGoPackage, in case you are going to run nix-build. Ignore it for now.

Writing a dependency

But nixpkgs doesn’t have listed all the possible go projects. What if you need to use a particular library?
Let’s take for example github.com/kr/pty. Write something like this in a pty.nix file:

{ goPackages, fetchFromGitHub }:

goPackages.buildGoPackage rec {
  rev = "67e2db24c831afa6c64fc17b4a143390674365ef";
  name = "pty-${rev}";
  goPackagePath = "github.com/kr/pty";
  src = fetchFromGitHub {
    inherit rev;
    owner = "kr";
    repo = "pty";
    sha256 = "1l3z3wbb112ar9br44m8g838z0pq2gfxcp5s3ka0xvm1hjvanw2d";
  };
}

Then in your default.nix:

with import <nixpkgs> {}; with goPackages;

let
  pty = callPackage ./pty.nix {};
in
buildGoPackage rec {
  name = "yourproject";
  buildInputs = [ net osext pty ];
  goPackagePath = "github.com/you/yourproject";
}

Type nix-shell and now you will also have pty in your dev environment.
So as you can see, for each go package nix requires a name, the go path, where to fetch the sources, and the hash.

You may be wondering how do you get the sha256: a dirty trick is to write a wrong sha, then nix will tell you the correct sha.

Conclusion and references

Nix looks a little complex and boring due to writing a package for each dependency. On the other hand you get for free:

Exact build and runtime dependencies
Sharing build and runtime dependencies between multiple projects
Easily test newer or older versions of libraries, without messing with system-wide installations
Mix with other programming languages, using a similar approach
Packages using C libraries don’t need to be compiled manually by you: define the nix package once, reuse everywhere

For installing nix, follow the manual. Make sure you read the entire document to learn the nix syntax.

For more examples on how to write dependencies, you can look at nixpkgs goPackages itself.

Drop by #nixos on irc.freenode.net for any doubts.