# Nix development and build environment With Nix it's possible to quickly and reliably recreate the full environments for developing, testing and building PostgREST. ## Getting started with Nix You'll need to [get Nix](https://nixos.org/download.html). Follow the recommended installation for your operating system from the official download website. ## Building PostgREST To build PostgREST from your local checkout of the repository, run: ```bash $ nix-build --attr postgrestPackage ``` This will create a `result` directory that contains the PostgREST binary at `result/bin/postgrest`. The `--attr` parameter (or short: `-A`) tells Nix to build the `postgrestPackage` attribute from the Nix expression it finds in our `default.nix` (see below for details). Nix will take care of getting the right GHC version and all the build dependencies. You can also build a statically linked binary with: ```bash $ nix-build --attr postgrestStatic $ ldd result/bin/postgrest $ not a dynamic executable ``` ## Binary cache We recommend that you use the PostgREST binary cache on [cachix](https://cachix.org/): ```bash # Install cachix: $ nix-env -iA cachix -f https://cachix.org/api/v1/install # Set cachix up to use the PostgREST binary cache: $ cachix use postgrest ``` Without cachix, your machine will have to rebuild all the dependencies that are derived on top of `Musl` for the static builds, which can take a very long time. ## Developing A development environment for PostgREST is available with `nix-shell`. The following command will put you into a new shell that has GHC and Cabal on the PATH: ```bash $ nix-shell ``` Within `nix-shell`, you can run Cabal commands as usual. You can also run stack with the `--nix` option, which causes stack to pick up the non-Haskell dependencies from the same pinned Nixpkgs version that the Nix builds use. ## Working with `nix-shell` and the PostgREST utility scripts The PostgREST utilities available in `nix-shell` all have names that begin with `postgrest-`, so you can use tab completion (typing `postgrest-` and pressing ``) in `nix-shell` to see all that are available: ```bash # Note: The utilities listed here might not be up to date. [nix-shell]$ postgrest- postgrest-build postgrest-test-spec postgrest-check postgrest-watch postgrest-clean postgrest-with-all postgrest-coverage postgrest-with-postgresql-10 postgrest-lint postgrest-with-postgresql-11 postgrest-run postgrest-with-postgresql-12 postgrest-style postgrest-with-postgresql-13 postgrest-style-check postgrest-with-postgresql-9.6 postgrest-test-io ... [nix-shell]$ ``` Some additional modules like `memory`, `docker` and `release` have large dependencies that would need to be built before the shell becomes available, which could take an especially long time if the cachix binary cache is not used. You can activate those by passing a flag to `nix-shell` with `nix-shell --arg true`. This will make the respective utilities available: ```bash $ nix-shell --arg memory true [nix-shell]$ postgrest- postgrest-build postgrest-test-spec postgrest-check postgrest-watch postgrest-clean postgrest-with-all postgrest-coverage postgrest-with-postgresql-10 postgrest-lint postgrest-with-postgresql-11 postgrest-run postgrest-with-postgresql-12 postgrest-style postgrest-with-postgresql-13 postgrest-style-check postgrest-with-postgresql-9.6 postgrest-test-io postgrest-test-memory ... ``` Note that `postgrest-test-memory` is now also available. To run one-off commands, you can also use `nix-shell --run `, which will launch the Nix shell, run that one command and exit. Note that the tab completion will not work with `nix-shell --run`, as Nix has yet to evaluate our Nix expressions to see which utilities are available. ```bash $ nix-shell --run postgrest-style # Note that you need to quote any arguments that you would like to pass to # the command to be run in nix-shell: $ nix-shell --run "postgrest-foo --bar" ``` A third option is to install utilities that you use very often locally: ```bash $ nix-env -f default.nix -iA devTools # `postgrest-style` can now be run directly: $ postgrest-style ``` If you use `nix-shell` very often, you might like to use https://github.com/xzfc/cached-nix-shell, which skips evaluating all our Nix expressions if nothing changed, reducing startup time for the shell considerably. Note: Once inside nix-shell, the utilities work from any directory inside the PostgREST repo. Paths are resolved relative to the repo root: ```bash [nix-shell]$ cd src # Even though the current directory is ./src, the config path must still start # from the repo root: [nix-shell]$ postgrest-run test/io/configs/simple.conf ``` ## Testing In nix-shell, you'll find utility scripts that make it very easy to run our test suite, including setting up all required dependencies and temporary test databases: ```bash # Run the tests against the most recent version of PostgreSQL: $ nix-shell --run postgrest-test-spec # Run the tests against all supported versions of PostgreSQL: $ nix-shell --run "postgrest-with-all postgrest-test-spec" # Run the tests against a specific version of PostgreSQL (use tab-completion in # nix-shell to see all available versions): $ nix-shell --run "postgrest-with-postgresql-13 postgrest-test-spec" ``` The io-test that test PostgREST as a black box with inputs and outputs can be run with `postgrest-test-io`. The test runner under the hood is [pytest](https://docs.pytest.org/) and you can pass it the usual options: ```bash # Filter the tests to run by name, including all that contain 'config': [nix-shell]$ postgrest-test-io -k config # Run tests in parallel using xdist, specifying the number of processes: [nix-shell]$ postgrest-test-io -n auto [nix-shell]$ postgrest-test-io -n 8 ``` The memory tests check that we don't surpass a memory threshold for big request bodies. ```bash # Build the dependencies needed for the memory test $ nix-shell --arg memory true # Run the memory test [nix-shell]$ postgrest-test-memory ``` The loadtests ensure that performance doesn't drop on a change. Underlyingly they use [vegeta](https://github.com/tsenart/vegeta). ```bash # Run the loadtests on the latest commit(HEAD) [nix-shell]$ postgrest-loadtest # You can loadtest comparing to a different branch [nix-shell]$ postgrest-loadtest-against master # You can simulate latency client/postgrest and postgrest/database [nix-shell]$ PGRST_DELAY=5ms PGDELAY=5ms postgrest-loadtest # You can build postgrest directly with cabal for faster iteration [nix-shell]$ PGRST_BUILD_CABAL=1 postgrest-loadtest # Produce a markdown report to be used on CI [nix-shell]$ postgrest-loadtest-report ``` doctests for some of our modules are also available: ```bash [nix-shell]$ postgrest-test-doctest ``` ## Code coverage Code coverage is available under the `postgrest-coverage` command. This will produce a `./coverage` directory that can be visualized on a browser. ```bash # Will run all the tests and produce a coverage dir [nix-shell]$ postgrest-coverage ... postgrest-coverage: To see the results, visit file://$(pwd)/coverage/check/hpc_index.html ``` ## Linting and styling code The nix-shell also contains scripts for linting and styling the PostgREST source code: ```bash # Linting $ nix-shell --run postgrest-lint # Styling / auto-formatting code $ nix-shell --run postgrest-style ``` There is also `postgrest-style-check` that exits with a non-zero exit code if the check resulted in any uncommitted changes. It's mostly useful for CI. ## Documentation The following commands can help you when working on the PostgREST docs: ```bash # Build the docs [nix-shell]$ postgrest-docs-build # Build the docs and start a livereload server on `http://localhost:5500` [nix-shell]$ postgrest-docs-serve # Run aspell, to verify spelling mistakes [nix-shell]$ postgrest-docs-spellcheck # Detect obsolete entries in postgrest.dict [nix-shell]$ postgrest-docs-dictcheck # Build and run all the validation scripts [nix-shell]$ postgrest-docs-check ``` ## General development tools Tools like `postgrest-build`, `postgrest-run`, `postgrest-repl` etc. are simple wrappers around `cabal` and should do what you expect. `postgrest-check` runs most checks that will also run in CI, with the exception of the IO and Memory checks that need to be run separately. `postgrest-with-postgresql-*` take a command as an argument and will run it with a temporary database. `postgrest-with-all` will run the command against all supported PostgreSQL versions. Tests run without `postgrest-with-*` are run against the latest PostgreSQL version by default. `postgrest-watch` takes a command as an argument that it will re-run if any source file is changed. For example, `postgrest-watch postgrest-with-all postgrest-test-spec` will re-run the full spec test suite against all PostgreSQL versions on every change. ## REPL You can use `postgrest-repl` to manually inspect the PostgREST modules. ```bash $ postgrest-repl ghci> import PostgREST. PostgREST.Admin PostgREST.Config.Database PostgREST.Plan.MutatePlan PostgREST.Response.OpenAPI PostgREST.ApiRequest PostgREST.Config.JSPath PostgREST.Plan.ReadPlan PostgREST.SchemaCache ... ghci> import PostgREST.MediaType ghci> decodeMediaType "application/json" MTApplicationJSON ``` ## Working with locally modified Haskell packages Sometimes, we need to modify Haskell libraries in order to debug them or enhance them. For example, if you want to debug the [`hasql-pool`](https://hackage.haskell.org/package/hasql-pool) library: First, copy the package to the repo root. We'll use GitHub in this example. ```bash $ git clone --depth=1 --branch=0.10.1 https://github.com/nikita-volkov/hasql-pool.git $ rm -rf ./hasql-pool/.git ``` Then, pin the local package to the [`haskell-packages.nix`](./overlays/haskell-packages.nix) file. ```nix overrides = # ... rec { # Different subpath may be needed if the cabal file is not in the library's base directory hasql-pool = lib.dontCheck (prev.callCabal2nixWithOptions "hasql-pool" ../../hasql-pool "--subpath=." {} ); }; ``` Next, both [`cabal.project`](/cabal.project) and [`stack.yaml`](/stack.yaml) need to be updated with the local library: ```cabal -- cabal.project packages: ./hasql-pool/hasql-pool.cabal ``` ```yaml # stack.yaml extra-deps: - ./hasql-pool/hasql-pool.cabal ``` Lastly, run `nix-shell` to build the local package. You don't need to exit and enter the Nix shell every time you modify the library's code, re-executing `postgrest-run` should be enough. This is done for development purposes only. Local libraries must not be left in production ready code. ## Tour The following is not required for working on PostgREST with Nix, but it will give you some more background and details on how it works. ### `default.nix` [`default.nix`](../default.nix) is our 'repository expression' that pulls all the pieces that we define with Nix together. It returns a set (like a dict in other programming languages), where each attribute is a derivation that Nix knows how to build, like the `postgrest` attribute from earlier. Internally, our `default.nix` uses the `pkgs.callPackage` function to import the modules that we defined in the `nix` directory. It automatically passes the arguments those modules require if they are available in `pkgs` (this means that `pkgs` is defined in terms of itself, better not to think too much about that). We also use `default.nix` to load our pinned version of the `nixpkgs` repository. This set of packages will always be the same, independently from where or when you use it. The pinned version can be upgraded with the small `nixpkgs-upgrade` utility. Running `nixpkgs-upgrade > nix/nixpkgs-version.nix` in `nix-shell` will upgrade the pinned version to the latest `nixpkgs-unstable` version. ### `shell.nix` [`shell.nix`](../shell.nix) defines an environment in which PostgREST can be built and developed. It extends the build environment from our `postgrest` attribute with useful utilities that will be put on the PATH in `nix-shell`. ### `nix/overlays` Our overlays to the Nix package set are defined here. They allow us to tweak our `pkgs` in `default.nix` by adding new packages or overriding existing ones. ## Upgrading dependencies See the [upgrading checklist](UPGRADE.md) for how to upgrade the PostgREST dependencies.