adisbladis / korora

A tiny & fast type system for Nix in Nix

Kororā

A tiny & fast composable type system for Nix, in Nix.

Named after the little penguin.

Features

• Types
  • Primitive types (string, int, etc)
  • Polymorphic types (union, attrsOf, etc)
  • Struct types

Basic usage

• Verification

Basic verification is done with the type function verify:

{ korora }:
let
  t = korora.string;

  value = 1;

  # Error contains the string "Expected type 'string' but value '1' is of type 'int'"
  error = t.verify 1;

in if error != null then throw error else value

Errors are returned as a string. On success null is returned.

• Checking (assertions)

For convenience you can also check a value on-the-fly:

{ korora }:
let
  t = korora.string;

  value = 1;

  # Same error as previous example, but `check` throws.
  value = t.check value value;

in value

On error check throws. On success it returns the value that was passed in.

Examples

For usage example see tests.nix.

Reference

lib.types.typedef

Declare a custom type using a bool function.

name

: Name of the type as a string

verify

: Verification function returning a bool.

lib.types.typedef'

Declare a custom type using an option function.

name

: Name of the type as a string

verify

: Verification function returning null on success & a string with error message on error.

lib.types.string

String

lib.types.str

Type alias for string

lib.types.any

Any

lib.types.never

Never

lib.types.int

Int

lib.types.float

Single precision floating point

lib.types.number

Either an int or a float

lib.types.bool

Bool

lib.types.attrs

Attribute with undefined attribute types

lib.types.list

Attribute with undefined element types

lib.types.function

Function

lib.types.path

Path

lib.types.derivation

Derivation

lib.types.type

Type

lib.types.option

Option

t

: Null or t

lib.types.listOf

listOf

t

: Element type

lib.types.attrsOf

listOf

t

: Attribute value type

lib.types.union

union<types...>

types

: Any of

lib.types.intersection

intersection<types...>

types

: All of

lib.types.struct

struct<name, members...>

Example

korora.struct "myStruct" {
  foo = types.string;
}

Features

• Totality

By default, all attribute names must be present in a struct. It is possible to override this by specifying totality. Here is how to do this:

(korora.struct "myStruct" {
  foo = types.string;
}).override { total = false; }

This means that a myStruct struct can have any of the keys omitted. Thus these are valid:

let
  s1 = { };
  s2 = { foo = "bar"; }
in ...

• Unknown attribute names

By default, unknown attribute names are allowed.

It is possible to override this by specifying unknown.

(korora.struct "myStruct" {
  foo = types.string;
}).override { unknown = false; }

This means that

{
  foo = "bar";
  baz = "hello";
}

is normally valid, but not when unknown is set to false.

Because Nix lacks primitive operations to iterate over attribute sets dynamically without allocation this function allocates one intermediate attribute set per struct verification.

• Custom invariants

Custom struct verification functions can be added as such:

(types.struct "testStruct2" {
  x = types.int;
  y = types.int;
}).override {
  verify = v: if v.x + v.y == 2 then "VERBOTEN" else null;
};

Function signature

name

: Name of struct type as a string

members

: Attribute set of type definitions.

lib.types.enum

enum<name, elems...>

name

: Name of enum type as a string

elems

: List of allowable enum members