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Whenever nim introduces a (necessary) breaking change (eg; -d:nimLegacyX flags, or see nim-lang/Nim#16924), some packages in important_packages may break, and are then either disabled or their nimble command is patched as follows:
nimble test foo
=>
nimble test foo -d:nimLegacyX
nim r tests/tbar
=>
nim r -d:nimLegacyX tests/tbar
however, this may not be enough, because tests (or nimble) may call (eg via nimscript exec or nim execShellCmd or other) further nim compilation commands, which won't have such flags propagated.
proposal
allow a simple way to pass a user config that would then automatically apply to all nim invocations via sub-processes.
We add an environment variable NIM_CONF: NIM_CONF=/pathto/customconf.nims nim args...
Environment variables are simplest way to inherit a setting for sub-processes without affecting other processes.
When NIM_CONF is non-empty, the file contained in NIM_CONF would be the 1st config file processed before all others (system, user, parent, project).
This gives the maximum flexibility (eg: allows honoring/ignoring further configs, setting --putenv, setting -d:nimLegacyX, setting --path, setting --putenv:NIMBLE_DIR, setting --gc:orc, etc)
alternative considered and rejected
set HOME or XDG_CONFIG_HOME to a custom (temporary) dir which would have the custom configuration, eg:
nimble test
=>
XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/pathto/tempHomeConfig nimble test
then CI would create /pathto/tempHomeConfig and /pathto/tempHomeConfig/nim/config.nims
containing for example: -d:nimLegacyX
one problem is that XDG_CONFIG_HOME is os-specific (IIRC); furthermore, setting HOME or XDG_CONFIG_HOME can have other side effects
use cases
when a nim PR must introduce a breaking change and we want to add -d:nimLegacyX to a test command (eg nimble test) and ensure it applies to all further nim invocations
when nim wants to test important_packages in more configurations (eg: --gc:orc) to see what breaks or ensure a flag works for regression purposes; this is a better approach than the one proposed in Enable 'some' experimental features by default in devel Nim#16913 since it doesn't impose experimental flags in devel (impacting devel users) but still allows testing experimental flags at scale
for things like inim, it's impossible to pass flags to nim and make them propagate (eg try the test suite, the best you can do is XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/tmp/customcfg nimble test because it calls inim which itself calls nim; there's no way to forward flags and ensure they get propagated unless you're heavily modifying that package
design goals
not having to patch such packages
make it simple to use once this feature is implemented
implementation difficulty
probably quite easy, it's a simple update to the config processing
this could be backported all the way to 1.0.x
The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered:
timotheecour
changed the title
NIM_CONF: allows passing in custom config before all others and apply to sub-processes
NIM_CONF env var: allows passing in custom config before all others and apply to sub-processes
Feb 4, 2021
I prefer to pass state around explicitly. With environment variables you ask for trouble like "works on my machine, fails on the CI and works again on half of the production servers".
motivating example
Whenever nim introduces a (necessary) breaking change (eg;
-d:nimLegacyX
flags, or see nim-lang/Nim#16924), some packages in important_packages may break, and are then either disabled or their nimble command is patched as follows:however, this may not be enough, because tests (or nimble) may call (eg via nimscript exec or nim execShellCmd or other) further nim compilation commands, which won't have such flags propagated.
proposal
allow a simple way to pass a user config that would then automatically apply to all nim invocations via sub-processes.
We add an environment variable
NIM_CONF
:NIM_CONF=/pathto/customconf.nims nim args...
Environment variables are simplest way to inherit a setting for sub-processes without affecting other processes.
When
NIM_CONF
is non-empty, the file contained inNIM_CONF
would be the 1st config file processed before all others (system, user, parent, project).This gives the maximum flexibility (eg: allows honoring/ignoring further configs, setting
--putenv
, setting-d:nimLegacyX
, setting--path
, setting--putenv:NIMBLE_DIR
, setting--gc:orc
, etc)alternative considered and rejected
set
HOME
orXDG_CONFIG_HOME
to a custom (temporary) dir which would have the custom configuration, eg:then CI would create /pathto/tempHomeConfig and /pathto/tempHomeConfig/nim/config.nims
containing for example:
-d:nimLegacyX
one problem is that XDG_CONFIG_HOME is os-specific (IIRC); furthermore, setting HOME or XDG_CONFIG_HOME can have other side effects
use cases
-d:nimLegacyX
to a test command (egnimble test
) and ensure it applies to all further nim invocations--gc:orc
) to see what breaks or ensure a flag works for regression purposes; this is a better approach than the one proposed in Enable 'some' experimental features by default in devel Nim#16913 since it doesn't impose experimental flags in devel (impacting devel users) but still allows testing experimental flags at scaleinim
, it's impossible to pass flags to nim and make them propagate (eg try the test suite, the best you can do isXDG_CONFIG_HOME=/tmp/customcfg nimble test
because it calls inim which itself calls nim; there's no way to forward flags and ensure they get propagated unless you're heavily modifying that packagedesign goals
implementation difficulty
The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered: