NixOS, GHCi, and Mueval

Making libraries available in GHCi

Because everything on NixOS is immutable, you can’t just install Haskell packages and have them available in your GHC package database. Well, you can, but only in your user-level package database. You can’t do something like this:

$ cat shell.nix
with import <nixpkgs> {};
{
  demoEnv = stdenv.mkDerivation {
    name = "demo-env";
    buildInputs = with pkgs.haskellPackages [ ghc text ];
  };
}
$ nix-shell
[nix-shell:~/tmp]$ ghci
GHCi, version 8.0.1: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/  :? for help
Prelude> import Data.Text

<no location info>: error:
    Could not find module ‘Data.Text’
    Perhaps you meant
      Data.Set (from containers-0.5.7.1@containers-0.5.7.1)

You instead have to construct a GHC whose package database has the packages you desire. Like so:

$ cat shell.nix
with import <nixpkgs> {};
{
  demoEnv = stdenv.mkDerivation {
    name = "demo-env";
    buildInputs = with pkgs.haskellPackages; [ (ghcWithPackages (p: [p.text])) ];
  };
}
$ nix-shell
[nix-shell:~/tmp]$ ghci
GHCi, version 8.0.1: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/  :? for help
Prelude> import Data.Text
Prelude Data.Text>

Making packages available in GHCi and Mueval

This all breaks if you use mueval, as it pulls in the regular GHC. This behaviour seems very odd to me, I’m not sure if it’s a bug or not, but it is how it is:

$ cat shell.nix
with import <nixpkgs> {};
{
  demoEnv = stdenv.mkDerivation {
    name = "demo-env";
    buildInputs = with pkgs.haskellPackages; [ mueval (ghcWithPackages (p: [p.text])) ];
  };
}
$ nix-shell
[nix-shell:~/tmp]$ ghci
GHCi, version 8.0.1: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/  :? for help
Prelude> import Data.Text

<no location info>: error:
    Could not find module ‘Data.Text’
    Perhaps you meant
      Data.Set (from containers-0.5.7.1@containers-0.5.7.1)

Instead you have to override the ghc that hint, one of mueval’s dependencies, pulls in:

$ cat shell.nix
with import <nixpkgs> {};
let
  extraHaskellLibs = p:
    # extra libraries you want
    [ p.text ] ++
    # mueval itself needs these packages
    [ p.mtl p.QuickCheck p.show p.simple-reflect ];
  ghc'    = haskellPackages.ghcWithPackages extraHaskellLibs;
  hint'   = haskellPackages.hint.override { ghc = ghc'; };
  mueval' = haskellPackages.mueval.override { hint = hint'; };
in {
  demoEnv = stdenv.mkDerivation {
    name = "demo-env";
    buildInputs = [ mueval' ];
  };
}
$ nix-shell
[nix-shell:~/tmp]$ ghci
GHCi, version 8.0.1: http://www.haskell.org/ghc/  :? for help
Prelude> import Data.Text
Prelude Data.Text>

However, mueval will not be able to see your new packages yet:

[nix-shell:~/tmp]$ mueval -XOverloadedStrings -m Data.Text -e 'Data.Text.length "hello world"'
<no location info>: error:
    Could not find module ‘Data.Text’
    Perhaps you meant
      Data.Set (from containers-0.5.7.1@containers-0.5.7.1)
    Use -v to see a list of the files searched for.

This is because mueval doesn’t know about the package database set up by ghcWithPackages. Fortunately, we can discover where that is:

#! /nix/store/gabjbkwga2dhhp2wzyaxl83r8hjjfc37-bash-4.3-p48/bin/bash -e
export NIX_GHC="/nix/store/w7s4z1v5y0r8nbvq23b4xm4lddcmar3r-ghc-8.0.1-with-packages/bin/ghc"
export NIX_GHCPKG="/nix/store/w7s4z1v5y0r8nbvq23b4xm4lddcmar3r-ghc-8.0.1-with-packages/bin/ghc-pkg"
export NIX_GHC_DOCDIR="/nix/store/w7s4z1v5y0r8nbvq23b4xm4lddcmar3r-ghc-8.0.1-with-packages/share/doc/ghc/html"
export NIX_GHC_LIBDIR="/nix/store/w7s4z1v5y0r8nbvq23b4xm4lddcmar3r-ghc-8.0.1-with-packages/lib/ghc-8.0.1"
exec /nix/store/b0749p1rjpyvq2wyw58x6vgwpkwxcmnn-ghc-8.0.1/bin/ghci "-B$NIX_GHC_LIBDIR" "${extraFlagsArray[@]}" "$@"

Export the NIX_GHC_LIBDIR variable and try again:

[nix-shell:~/tmp]$ export NIX_GHC_LIBDIR="/nix/store/w7s4z1v5y0r8nbvq23b4xm4lddcmar3r-ghc-8.0.1-with-packages/lib/ghc-8.0.1"

[nix-shell:~/tmp]$ mueval -XOverloadedStrings -m Data.Text -e 'Data.Text.length "hello world"'
11

For a concrete example of this, see yukibot’s README and shell.nix.