Searching packages: Difference between revisions

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-There are a different ways to search for a package name in the nix package manager.
+There are numerous approaches available for searching substrings within both package names and package descriptions in <code>nixpkgs</code>.
+== Using <code>search.nixos.org</code> website ==
-== The NixOS packages search engine ==
+There is a web service to search with
+: [[channel branches]]
+:* Nix packages at [https://search.nixos.org/packages search.nixos.org/packages]
+:* NixOS options at [https://search.nixos.org/options search.nixos.org/options]
+: [[flakes]]
+:* packages at [https://search.nixos.org/flakes?type=packages search.nixos.org/flakes?type=packages]
+:* options at [https://search.nixos.org/flakes?type=options search.nixos.org/flakes?type=options]
-There is a website that let you search for Nix packages and NixOS options at https://search.nixos.org/
+; pros:
+* easy to use
+* allows filters
+* nice GUI in browser
+* browser extensions possible (like @nixpkgs as search engine in Firefox)
+; cons:
+* always requires Internet connection
-* pros
-** it's easy to use
-** allow filters
-* cons
-** it requires Internet
-== Using the nix-env command ==
+If you'd like to search with this web service from the command line, you may use [https://github.com/peterldowns/nix-search-cli peterldowns/nix-search-cli]. It provides exactly the same search experience by default.
+== Other online sites for searching ==
+These are another possible places to search
+* [https://github.com/search?q=language%3ANix+&type=code github.com] - search for regex/strings in nixpkgs, home-manager, nix-darwin and any other public github repos.
+* [https://mynixos.com mynixos.com] - search for packages in nixpkgs, also nixos, home-manager, nix-darwin options. Not foss and unofficial.
+* [https://home-manager-options.extranix.com home-manager-options.extranix.com] - search for home-manager options. [https://github.com/mipmip/home-manager-option-search foss]
+== Using the <code>nix search</code> command ==
+While this command requires [[flakes]], you can use it to search for a package. It may be slow the first time, but further runs will use cached results.
+<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">nix search nixpkgs firefox</syntaxhighlight>
+; pros:
+* fast
+* possible offline usage
+; cons:
+* requires disk space for caching
+* quite long command
+There are third party tools that allow searching for packages similarly to <code>nix search</code>, namely:
+* [https://github.com/diamondburned/nix-search diamondburned/nix-search]: A faster and channel-compatible <code>nix search</code> using only stable Nix tools (no [[flakes]] required) which creates a local database with a package index.
+== Using the <code>nix-env</code> command ==
 It's possible to search for a package using <code>nix-env -qaP</code>
-* pros
+; pros:
-** works offline
+* works offline
-* cons
+; cons:
-** it's very slow and requires a lot of memory
+* it's very slow and requires a lot of memory
+== Using the <code>nix repl</code> environment ==
+With the read–eval–print loop (REPL) of nix you can browse packages interactively.
+Starting the [https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/command-ref/new-cli/nix3-repl.html nix repl]
+<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">nix repl</syntaxhighlight>
+<syntaxhighlight lang="console">
+Welcome to Nix 2.18.2. Type :? for help.
+nix-repl>
+</syntaxhighlight>
+Loading the repository for nixpkgs
+<syntaxhighlight lang="console">
+nix-repl>
+</syntaxhighlight>
+<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">nix-repl> :load <nixpkgs>
+Added 21181 variables.
+</syntaxhighlight>Type the first letters of a package
+<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">nix-repl> neo  </syntaxhighlight>
+Press <tt>Tab ↹</tt> key<!-- {{[[mw:Template::Key press]]|Tab}} --> for auto completion
 == Reverse search: searching which package provides a file ==
-It's possible to use the third party program [https://github.com/bennofs/nix-index nix-index] to find which package provides a given file, this is particularly useful when you are looking for a very specific file but you don't know which package installs it.
+There are third party programs that make it easier to determine which package you need to install in order to obtain a specific file or program.
+These are most commonly used, and require you to create an index on your computer before you can search for a package:
+* [https://github.com/nix-community/nix-index nix-community/nix-index]
+* [https://github.com/replit/rippkgs replit/rippkgs]
+These are online tools which search an index someone else keeps up to date:
+* [https://github.com/peterldowns/nix-search-cli peterldowns/nix-search-cli]: <code>nix-search -p theBinaryIWantToInstall</code> to search the search.nixos.org elasticsearch index.
 [[Category:Reference]]
+[[Category:Nixpkgs]]