diff --git a/rfcs/0120-no-nested-with.md b/rfcs/0120-no-nested-with.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..a9371531f --- /dev/null +++ b/rfcs/0120-no-nested-with.md @@ -0,0 +1,98 @@ +--- +feature: no-nested-with +start-date: 2021-01-11 +author: Alain Zscheile (@zseri) +co-authors: @sternenseemann +shepherd-team: (names, to be nominated and accepted by RFC steering committee) +shepherd-leader: (name to be appointed by RFC steering committee) +related-issues: (will contain links to implementation PRs) +--- + +# Summary +[summary]: #summary + +Disallow or discourage usage of multiple `with` expressions covering +the same expression / forbid nesting `with` expressions, even indirectly. +If infeasible in general (e.g. forbidding it in all nix expressions), +this can be limited to nixpkgs. + +# Motivation +[motivation]: #motivation + +It makes static analysis of nixpkgs easier, because as soon as `with` +expressions are nested, it becomes basically impossible to [statically +deduce where any free variable comes from] without implementing a +full-blown nix evaluator including lazy evaluation, which is difficult as +soon as `with` expressions and mutually recursive imports are involved +(e.g. as currently present in `nixpkgs/lib/systems/{inspect,parse}.nix`). + +# Detailed design +[design]: #detailed-design + +At least warn about any nested usage of `with` expressions, +at least when they get evaluated, possibly even when they get parsed. +After a grace period ("real time", probably a few months or years, not as in +"a timeout when interpreting" because that wouldn't make sense), +abort instead. + +When the full approach (aborting instead of warning) is applied, +any reference to any free variable can be easily resolved +to the enclosing `with` expression "scope-include", and because +this `with` expression couldn't then be enclosed by another +one, even indirectly, no lookup ambiguity exists. + +# Examples and Interactions +[examples-and-interactions]: #examples-and-interactions + +```nix +pkgs: { + # allowed + a = with pkgs; patchelf; + + # disallowed + b = with pkgs; with lib; patchelf; + + # also disallowed + c = with pkgs; { + meta = with lib; { + license = with licenses; [ mit ]; + }; + }; +} +``` + +# Drawbacks +[drawbacks]: #drawbacks + +* Backward-incompatible, requires changing Nix code used "in the wild". + +# Alternatives +[alternatives]: #alternatives + +* Introduce a kind of `with-only` expression which allows bringing an attrset + into scope while simultaneously hiding the outer scope, such that all + inner free variables are either resolved via the given attrset, or + result in an error. + Similar to this is [RFC 110](https://github.com/NixOS/rfcs/pull/110), + which introduces an `inherit-as-list` construct which solves the primary + application of `with-only`, list specification in `meta` attributes of + nixpkgs derivatons. + +* Completely ban the usage of `with` in nixpkgs; + seems unnecessarily excessive for this problem. + +# Unresolved questions +[unresolved]: #unresolved-questions + +Decide if this is enough. + +e.g. +* Mutually recursive imports combined with `with` expressions also make static + analysis harder, because they require lazyness at the level of scope lookups, + which is difficult to implement corrently. e.g. [nix2js#2](https://github.com/YZITE/nix2js/issues/2) +* Check if any use case is too much negatively impacted by this. + +# Future work +[future]: #future-work + +* Static analyzers and transpilers for Nix