Re: Is builtins.readFile okay?

Alyssa Ross
2025-11-02T12:04:11Z

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Demi Marie Obenour <demiobenour@gmail.com> writes:

> On 11/1/25 08:21, Alyssa Ross wrote:
>> Demi Marie Obenour <demiobenour@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> Is it okay to use builtins.readFile in a Spectrum derivation? If the
>>> input is a store path that is Import From Derivation and discouraged,
>>> but I don't know if Spectrum's sources will ever be in a store path.
>>
>> That wouldn't be a problem. readFile is fine in principle, although it
>> is rarely what you actually want. There are very few cases where you
>> have a string you need at eval time but don't want to inline into a Nix
>> file, so if you're reaching for readFile I'd take a step back and think
>> about whether there's a better approach.
>>
>> Where readFile is used in your sysupdate VM, the build configuration
>> mechanism[1] might be a better fit, if you don't want to hardcode it.
>>
>> [1]: https://spectrum-os.org/doc/development/build-configuration.html
>
> readFile is used only to read the version number.

and update-url, which is what I was thinking more about.

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