Package Manager Integrations

[iffse]

Package manager integration is added along with v0.5.15. However, not all package managers are supported yet.

• Some package managers allow searching for a package containing an executable. In this case, we can retrieve the package list directly
  • E.g.: pacman -Fq /usr/bin/executable
• Package managers of some distributions that do not provide such functionality will likely ship with a command_not_found handle by default which suggest packages to install. We can use such output to generate a suggestion

Relevant file.

Progress:

• Pacman (pkgfile, pacman -Fq)
• APT / Snap / pkg (apt-file, command-not-found)
• DNF (dnf provides)
• Portage (e-file)
• nix (nix-locate 'bin/{}')
• YUM (yum provides)
• Zypper
• Slackpkg
• ...

[iffse]

@SigmaSquadron iirc, nixos comes with a command_not_found hook that we can use. Could you take it a look when you have some spare time?

[SigmaSquadron]

The default command_not_found isn't extensible. Programs like nix-locate opt to make their own implementation and replace the default command_not_found implementation.

To query certain files inside Nix Store paths, one could leverage nix-index. (which already does this, although it's extremely slow, since we have over 120k packages.)

[iffse]

although it's extremely slow

I think they are doing some fuzzy searching and apparently not a HashMap based index.

Anyway, it's an optional feature we can enable if nix-locate is installed and just skip if not.

[iffse]

@SigmaSquadron Does this work?

pay-respects/src/system.rs

Lines 78 to 87 in bf096d2

	let result = command_output(shell, &format!("nix-locate /usr/bin/{}", executable));
	let packages: Vec<String> = result
	.lines()
	.map(|line| line.split_whitespace().next().unwrap().trim_end_matches(".out").to_string())
	.collect();
	if packages.is_empty() {
	None
	} else {
	Some(packages)
	}

[SigmaSquadron]

The command syntax should be just nix-locate {}, as /usr/bin won't be a valid path.
Not all binary outputs are named out. Sometimes they're named bin, but really they can just be arbitrarily named. What matters is that binaries will always be inside a folder named bin/ on the root of the output.

[SigmaSquadron]

I should also note that nix-locate takes 1-2s to run on a good day. Expect pay-requests to be slowed down accordingly.

[iffse]

I should also note that nix-locate takes 1-2s to run on a good day. Expect pay-requests to be slowed down accordingly.

pay-respects itself retrieves the suggestion in less than 50ms, so the experience should be the same as the command_not_found handle of nix-index itself.

At least I would take more than 2 second to type nix-env -iA package_name!

[iffse]

as /usr/bin won't be a valid path.

Strange, official doc show an example with nix-locate 'bin/hello'.

I think the package can get installed like nix-env -iA nixpkgs.executable.out?

pay-respects/src/system.rs

Lines 87 to 99 in 06bd676

	let result = command_output(shell, &format!("nix-locate 'bin/{}'", executable));
	if result.is_empty() {
	return None
	}
	let packages: Vec<String> = result
	.lines()
	.map(|line| line.split_whitespace().next().unwrap().to_string())
	.collect();
	if packages.is_empty() {
	None
	} else {
	Some(packages)
	}

pay-respects/src/system.rs

Line 129 in 06bd676

"nix-env" => format!("nix-env -iA nixpkgs.{}", package),

[SigmaSquadron]

Strange, official doc show an example with nix-locate 'bin/hello'.

bin/hello is valid. /bin/hello or /usr/bin/hello is not.

[iffse]

All right, current code should be good then

[SigmaSquadron]

I think the package can get installed like nix-env -iA nixpkgs.executable.out?

You'd want to avoid installing packages, I think. Consider using nix-shell -p <output name> --command <executable name>
Most of the time, <output name> == <executable name>, but this isn't always the case.

[SigmaSquadron]

Consider the following nix-locate output:

coreutils.out   0 s  /nix/store/k48bha2fjqzarg52picsdfwlqx75aqbb-coreutils-9.5/bin/cat

It should suggest the command nix-shell --packages coreutils --command cat

[iffse]

You'd want to avoid installing packages

Gets a bit tricky as nix-shell creates a temporary $PATH, and it won't affect host process/shells.

The use case should be that the user is familiar with a command but happens to not have it installed (new machine, for example), so I think we can keep it simple to install directly.

[SigmaSquadron]

Then avoid using nix-env, and use the newer nix profile install nixpkgs#hello.

[iffse]

Should be good now. Thanks!

pay-respects/src/system.rs

Line 134 in 1c9302e

"nix" => format!("nix profile install nixpkgs#{}", package),

[rexkyng]

Would like to install this with brew on my mac, thanks

[iffse]

Would like to install this with brew on my mac, thanks

@rexkyng Saw you already created a brew repo for pay-respects. I'll add it to the installation methods, thanks!