Subject: bug#73599: packages from store paths don't propagate propagated-inputs

From: MSavoritias <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2024 12:34:49 +0300

Tobias Geerinckx-Rice kirjoitti 3.10.2024 klo 12.29:

> I think I was misunderstood.  That is the part that needs improvement.  It may not 'explicitly' say that propagation will work in both cases, but the flow strongly implies it.
Agreed.
>> Personally i could go either way.
> I don't think you can, not *without* extending the database schema or otherwise adding the missing metadata back to the store item though, e.g., a hidden Scheme file, i.e., overkill.  I'd love to be proven wrong.
>
> Otherwise, the documentation-bug way is the only realistic way.
Documentation bug sounds good to me. It would also ideally be handled 
the same with the Documentation bugs i sent in the other email. I didn't 
see it reflected back to me so adding it here. Maybe email lists are 
having problems.

 > Packages have more metadata attached to them than store items.

I was very surprised to discover this yesterday when somebody pointed it 
out. The manual does not mention this in the store section. Is this 
because what you want is a nar that is retrieved only when doing guix 
export/import? at least that is my guess doing a search for metadata in 
the guix manual.

Aside from that as a separate issue of concern

it was mentioned that the Gnu Guix channel has solved this by doing the 
whole pre-inst-env architecture thing but i found little documentation 
to go on in the manual aside from "keeping things separate". There is 
also no mention of why it is needed, why these tools where picked, how 
the architecture is arranged and interacts or what each tool actually 
does. I tried to read the source files but there is not enough comments 
to go on. I assume it is expected to know pathing, unix, autotools, bash 
scripting among others but that is not mentioned and shouldn't be needed 
imo.

Some clarifications of this would be nice but as I said these are out of 
scope of this bug report probably.

Also some guide on the Guix manual by hopefully more knowledgeable 
people on how you are supposed to test packages at runtime would be 
nice. The guide only mentions to build packages but that doesn't make 
sure that packages actually work. namely:

- po4a in the gnu channel of guix is atm broken. It misses gettext at 
runtime.

- gajim doesn't show emojis

MSavoritias