Subject: bug#61676: package transformations not honored working from a manifest

From: Maxim Cournoyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2023 20:20:56 -0500

Hi Ludo!

Ludovic Courtès <[email-masked]> writes:

[...]

>> But noticed that --with-source and --with-patch were not effective for
>> the jami-with-certs customized package provided by the
>> guix-pack-manifest.scm manifest.
>
> Indeed, that’s expected.
>
>> It seems to me that the rewriting options should be honored on any
>> packages being manipulated, whether they come from the Guix collection,
>> a file, a manifest or another means.
>
> I’m not convinced; I think manifests should be interpreted literally.

Perhaps I do not have the full picture in my head, but if someone calls
'guix pack -m my-manifest.scm
--with-source=some-package=the-source.tar.gz', it'd seem the
--with-source option pretty useless in this case if it doesn't touch the
manifest's packages graph.  It'd rather it error out with a message
like: "package rewriting options have no effects for manifests",
although I'd rather it was possible.

Is there another alternative for the use case I'm after?  The only other
option available seems to be to extend the GUIX_PACKAGE_PATH with a
module and to use -e '(@@ (my module) jami-with-certs)'; would the
jami-with-certs graph get rewritten then?

I also got bit by #61684, which muddied the waters some more :-)

-- 
Thanks,
Maxim