Re: Adding a subcommand "load-profile"

[zimoun]

Dear Roel,

On Tue, 28 Apr 2020 at 17:43, Roel Janssen <address@hidden> wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> $ guixr package -i ... -p /my/profile
> $ guixr load-profile /my/profile
> [env]$
>   # ... A new shell is spawned here.
>   #     Inside this shell only the environment variables in
>   #     /my/profile/etc/profile are set ...
> [env]$ exit
>   # Return to the normal shell state
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[...]

> Would there be any interest from others to have this as well? And also, the
> shell implementation heavy relies on Bash.  What other shells should I attempt
> to implement?

It would be cool!
However, if I remember correctly the previous discussion on such
topic, the issue was to respect the user's shell ($SHELL). This
argument is mitigated by the fact that "guix environment" already uses
Bash to spawn the new shell, if I understand correctly.

Well, I find annoying to not able to "go in" and "go out" in one
profile and I prefer having a Bash specific implementation than
nothing.
So, thank you for the initiative. :-)


> If there is interest in having this as a "load-profile" subcommand, I will 
> post
> an initial implementation to the mailing list ASAP.

Instead of another subcommand, I would suggest to add an option to
"guix environment".
Then an another further step should maybe combine "--load-profile" and
"--ad-hoc" in order to create a temporary "augmented" profile.


All the best,
simon