Subject: [bug#34486] [PATCH 0/1] Add '--inherit' to 'guix environment'

From: Eric Bavier <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2019 10:23:25 -0600

On Fri, 15 Feb 2019 11:42:57 +0100
Ludovic Courtès <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> This new option allows to specify additional variables to be inherited
> in a “pure” (semi-pure?) environment.
> 
> The main motivation was the use of the SLURM batch scheduler, which
> defines environment variables that you need to preserve so that things
> like ‘mpirun’ work correctly.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Ludo’.
> 
> Ludovic Courtès (1):
>   environment: Add '--inherit'.
> 
>  doc/guix.texi                | 21 ++++++++++++--
>  guix/scripts/environment.scm | 53 +++++++++++++++++++++++++-----------
>  tests/guix-environment.sh    | 15 +++++++++-
>  3 files changed, 69 insertions(+), 20 deletions(-)
> 

I wonder if the word "inherit" here might be too easily confused with
the idea of package inheritance.  Could we possibly use an option name
that is familiar?  Of-hand I'm thinking of sudo's '-E' and
'--preserve-env'.  SLURM itself uses '--export'.  Both of these tools
requires passing a list of individual environment variables, but
supporting regexp-matching makes sense to me, especially with the SLURM
use-case in mind.

Now I'm having second thoughts.  Since this will be invoked as 'guix
environment --inherit' hopefully the proximity of the word
'environment' will be strong enough to dispell associations with
other types of inheritance.

Anyhow, sending this anyway just to share the concern.

`~Eric