c - Using rix to build project specific environments

Project-specific Nix environments

Now that you have the required software installed, it’s to time learn more about declaring and using reproducible inveronments.

The ideal workflow when using {rix} is to create a new, separate environment at the start of a project. Let’s say that you wish to analyse some data set, and need {dplyr} and {ggplot2}. Let’s also suppose that you use VS Code as your IDE (there will be more discussion on editors in the vignette vignette("e-interactive-use") but for now, let’s assume that you use VS Code). With the rix::rix() function, you can easily generate the right default.nix file. You need to provide the following inputs to rix():

r_ver: the version of R required. Use “latest” for the latest version;
r_pkgs: the required R packages. For example “dplyr” (more on this in the vignette vignette("d1-installing-r-packages-in-a-nix-environment"));
system_pkgs: the required system packages, if needed. For example “quarto”, or a Python interpreter (more on this in the vignette vignette("d2-installing-system-tools-and-texlive-packages-in-a-nix-environment"));
git_pkgs: list of git packages to add (more on this in the vignette vignette("d1-installing-r-packages-in-a-nix-environment"));
ide: the integrated development editor to use (more on this in the vignette vignette("e-interactive-use"))
path: the path where to save the default.nix file.
overwrite: whether to overwrite the default.nix file or not.
print: whether to print the default.nix file to the console or not.

Run the following command to generate the right default.nix file:

path_default_nix <- tempdir()

rix(
  r_ver = "latest",
  r_pkgs = c("dplyr", "ggplot2"),
  system_pkgs = NULL,
  git_pkgs = NULL,
  ide = "code",
  project_path = path_default_nix,
  overwrite = TRUE,
  print = TRUE
)
#> # This file was generated by the {rix} R package v0.7.1 on 2024-07-01
#> # with following call:
#> # >rix(r_ver = "12a9c0004bc987afb1ff511ebb97b67497a68e22",
#> #  > r_pkgs = c("dplyr",
#> #  > "ggplot2"),
#> #  > system_pkgs = NULL,
#> #  > git_pkgs = NULL,
#> #  > ide = "code",
#> #  > project_path = path_default_nix,
#> #  > overwrite = TRUE,
#> #  > print = TRUE)
#> # It uses nixpkgs' revision 12a9c0004bc987afb1ff511ebb97b67497a68e22 for reproducibility purposes
#> # which will install R version latest.
#> # Report any issues to https://github.com/ropensci/rix
#> let
#>  pkgs = import (fetchTarball "https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/12a9c0004bc987afb1ff511ebb97b67497a68e22.tar.gz") {};
#>
#>   rpkgs = builtins.attrValues {
#>     inherit (pkgs.rPackages)
#>       dplyr
#>       ggplot2
#>       languageserver;
#>   };
#>
#>   system_packages = builtins.attrValues {
#>     inherit (pkgs)
#>       R
#>       glibcLocales
#>       nix;
#>   };
#>
#> in
#>
#> pkgs.mkShell {
#>   LOCALE_ARCHIVE = if pkgs.system == "x86_64-linux" then  "${pkgs.glibcLocales}/lib/locale/locale-archive" else "";
#>   LANG = "en_US.UTF-8";
#>    LC_ALL = "en_US.UTF-8";
#>    LC_TIME = "en_US.UTF-8";
#>    LC_MONETARY = "en_US.UTF-8";
#>    LC_PAPER = "en_US.UTF-8";
#>    LC_MEASUREMENT = "en_US.UTF-8";
#>
#>   buildInputs = [  rpkgs  system_packages   ];
#>
#> }

To start using this environment, open a terminal in the folder containing default.nix and use the following Nix command:

nix-build

nix-build is a Nix command that builds an environment according to the specifications found in a default.nix file. Once the environment is done building, you should find a new file called result next to the default.nix file. This file is a symlink to the software installed by Nix. {rix} also provides a nix_build() function to build Nix environments from within an interactive R session, but it is not always guaranteed to succeed, due to differences in platforms. This is explained in more detail in the following vignette vignette("z-advanced-topic-running-r-or-shell-code-in-nix-from-r"). In case of doubt, run nix-build from your usual terminal application.

To now use the environment, type in the same terminal as before:

nix-shell

This will activate the environment. If you have VS Code installed you can start it from this environment and VS Code will use this specific R version library of packages. We will explore this in greater detail in the vignette vignette("e-interactive-use").

Running old projects with {rix}

The example below shows how to create a default.nix with instructions to build an environment with R version 4.2.1, the {dplyr} and {janitor} packages and no specific IDE:

path_default_nix <- tempdir()

rix(
  r_ver = "4.2.1",
  r_pkgs = c("dplyr", "janitor"),
  system_pkgs = c("quarto"),
  git_pkgs = NULL,
  ide = "other",
  project_path = path_default_nix,
  overwrite = TRUE
)

The file looks like this:

#> # This file was generated by the {rix} R package v0.7.1 on 2024-07-01
#> # with following call:
#> # >rix(r_ver = "79b3d4bcae8c7007c9fd51c279a8a67acfa73a2a",
#> #  > r_pkgs = c("dplyr",
#> #  > "janitor"),
#> #  > system_pkgs = c("quarto"),
#> #  > git_pkgs = NULL,
#> #  > ide = "other",
#> #  > project_path = path_default_nix,
#> #  > overwrite = TRUE)
#> # It uses nixpkgs' revision 79b3d4bcae8c7007c9fd51c279a8a67acfa73a2a for reproducibility purposes
#> # which will install R version 4.2.1.
#> # Report any issues to https://github.com/ropensci/rix
#> let
#>  pkgs = import (fetchTarball "https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/79b3d4bcae8c7007c9fd51c279a8a67acfa73a2a.tar.gz") {};
#>  
#>   rpkgs = builtins.attrValues {
#>     inherit (pkgs.rPackages) 
#>       dplyr
#>       janitor;
#>   };
#>     
#>   system_packages = builtins.attrValues {
#>     inherit (pkgs) 
#>       quarto
#>       R
#>       glibcLocales
#>       nix;
#>   };
#>   
#> in
#> 
#> pkgs.mkShell {
#>   LOCALE_ARCHIVE = if pkgs.system == "x86_64-linux" then  "${pkgs.glibcLocales}/lib/locale/locale-archive" else "";
#>   LANG = "en_US.UTF-8";
#>    LC_ALL = "en_US.UTF-8";
#>    LC_TIME = "en_US.UTF-8";
#>    LC_MONETARY = "en_US.UTF-8";
#>    LC_PAPER = "en_US.UTF-8";
#>    LC_MEASUREMENT = "en_US.UTF-8";
#> 
#>   buildInputs = [  rpkgs  system_packages   ];
#>   
#> }

The first line is quite important, as it shows which revision of nixpkgs is being used for this environment. The revision is the commit hash of that particular release of nixpkgs, here: 79b3d4bcae8. This revision of nixpkgs is the one that shipped version 4.2.1 of R, so the {dplyr} and {janitor} packages that will get installed will be the versions available in that revision as well. This means that R versions and package versions are always coupled when using Nix. However, if you need a specific version of R, but also a specific version of a package that is not available in that particular Nix revision, one solution is to install that package from Github or fro the CRAN archives. Read the vignette vignette("d1-installing-r-packages-in-a-nix-environment") to know more about this. To know which versions of R are available, read the documention of available_r().

Running programs from an environment

You could create a bash script that you put in the path to make the process of launching your editor from that environment more streamlined. For example, if your project is called housing, you could create this script and execute it to start your project:

#!/bin/bash
nix-shell /absolute/path/to/housing/default.nix --run code

This will execute VS Code in the environment for the housing project. If you use {targets} you could execute the pipeline in the environment by running:

cd /absolute/path/to/housing/ && nix-shell default.nix --run "Rscript -e 'targets::tar_make()'"

Running single functions in a subshell

It is also possible to run single functions in an isolated environment from an active R session using with_nix() and get the output of that function loaded into the current session. Refer to this vignette vignette("z-advanced-topic-running-r-or-shell-code-in-nix-from-r") for more details on how to achieve this. Concretely this means that you could be running R version 4.3.2 (installed via Nix, or not), and execute a function on R version 4.0.0 for example in a subshell (or execute a function that requires an old version of a package in that subshell), and get the result of the computation back into the main R session.

Nix environments are not completely isolated from your system

It is important to know that an environment built by Nix is not totally isolated from the rest of the system. Suppose that you have the program sl installed on your system, and suppose you build a Nix environment that also comes with sl. If you activate that environment, the version of sl that will run when called is the one included in the Nix environment. If, however, you start sl in a Nix environment that does not come with it, then your system’s sl will get used instead.

In the context of the R programming language, this means that if you have a user or system library of packages (meaning, a library of packages generated by a regular installation of R), these packages may be loaded by an R version running from a Nix shell. To avoid issues with this, calling rix() automatically runs rix_init() as well, which generates a custom .Rprofile file in the project’s directory. This way, your regular user library of packages will not interfere with R environments managed by Nix. Moreover, this custom .Rprofile also redefines install.packages() and makes it throw an error: indeed, if you wish to add packages to your an R environment managed by Nix, you should add these packages to the default.nix file instead, and rebuild the environment.

If you want to even make other programs inaccessible to a running Nix environment, you can drop into it using nix-shell --pure instead of only nix-shell.