nixstore: search packages by attribute path #900
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This is a hack to get a rudimentary package search (by attribute path) working natively in Devbox. For example, to install Go 1.19: ```go remoteStore, _ := Remote("https://cache.nixos.org") remotePkg, _ := remoteStore.PackageAttrPath("go_1_19") localStore, _ := Local("/nix/store") localStore.Install(remotePkg) ``` The attribute path lookup relies on embedding a gzipped JSON index of all nixpkgs at commit 3fb8eedc450. This file adds 4.7 MiB to the size of the Devbox binary. Ideally this index would be downloaded as-needed instead. | If anyone thinks the embedded file is too large, I can hold off on this and get a better implementation working by downloading it at runtime. |
| Not necessarily opposed to embedding, but generally prefer downloading. Is this part of a general strategy for search? or is it tangential? |
| I think downloading (or API) is the way to go. But in the interest of Always Be Shipping, I think it's totally cool to embed as a first pass, and get the search feature out. 4.7 MiB feels reasonable to me, so I'd be inclined to ship this! |
It's more of a first step to get something working for search. I don't think this will (or should) be the final implementation. |
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Should we shelve this in favor of server side search for now?
I think this is a good idea, but would prefer lazy download to avoid the increase in size but I don't think it's a priority
| Is this PR abandoned? (should we close it in that case?) |
Depends on #896.
This is a hack to get a rudimentary package search (by attribute path) working natively in Devbox. For example, to install Go 1.19:
The attribute path lookup relies on embedding a gzipped JSON index of all nixpkgs at commit 3fb8eedc450. This file adds 4.7 MiB to the size of the Devbox binary. Ideally this index would be downloaded as-needed instead.