Written by ivan

on May 09, 2018

Vim on NixOS

Configuring Vim on NixOS took me into the depths of Vim’s initialization process and was a good primer on composing Nix expressions.

The vim_configurable derivation lets you bake plugins and configuration options into Vim system-wide, rather than on a per-user basis. There’s still room for per-user configuration, but this provides a nice baseline, and means you won’t be faced with an unconfigured Vim when you need to run as root.

sudoedit

If you’re familiar with sudoedit , you might ask why I’d bother with a system-wide Vim configuration when I could instead run sudoedit from my normal user account, launching the editor with elevated privileges and still loading my user’s configuration.

While this works well when editing a single file, it’s less helpful when you want to edit several related files. Because sudoedit uses tempfiles to run its magic, the editing buffer lives in /var/tmp , so trying to open another file relative to the current one won’t behave as expected. Also, any root-owned files you open from within Vim will be opened read-only, rather than as editable tempfiles.

So sudoedit is nice when you know upfront exactly which files you’ll be touching, but if there’s any exploration involved, it falls short. For these reasons, I switch to the root user and run Vim directly when I need to edit a family of root-owned files, such as the components of my nixos configuration.

vim_configurable

In the following default.nix overlay, I use vim_configurable to set up my plugins and vimrc:

self : super : let configured = { packages . core = ( import ./core-package.nix ) self ; customRC = builtins . readFile " ${ self . dotvim } /vimrc" ; }; in { dotvim = super . callPackage ./dotvim.nix { }; vimPrivatePlugins = ( import ./plugins.nix ) super ; vim-configured = self . vim_configurable . customize { name = "vim" ; vimrcConfig = configured ; }; }

core-packages.nix lists the plugins to include in a Vim native package. It can select plugins from pkgs.vimPlugins (plugins already defined in nixpkgs) and pkgs.vimPrivatePlugins (additional plugins I define in plugins.nix).

pkgs : with ( pkgs . vimPlugins ) // ( pkgs . vimPrivatePlugins ); { start = [ abolish articulate # ... ]; opt = [ haskell-vim splitjoin # ... ]; }

In plugins.nix, I describe a set of Vim plugins not already present in pkgs.vimPlugins .

pkgs : { abolish = pkgs . vimUtils . buildVimPlugin { name = "abolish" ; src = pkgs . fetchFromGitHub { owner = "tpope" ; repo = "vim-abolish" ; rev = "b6a8b49e2173ba5a1b34d00e68e0ed8addac3ebd" ; sha256 = "0i9q3l7r5p8mk4in3c1j4x0jbln7ir9lg1cqjxci0chjjzfzc53m" ; }; }; # ... }

dotvim.nix is a derivation that pulls my vimrc from a git repo. This lets me read the contents of my vimrc into the rcConfig attribute that vim_configurable uses.

{ stdenv , fetchFromGitHub }: stdenv . mkDerivation { name = "dotvim" ; src = fetchFromGitHub { owner = "ivanbrennan" ; repo = "dotvim" ; rev = "97bed1f2e534ea583c51b4317d8d9ea53c4728cf" ; sha256 = "0bxhqvzswg37dswnqqgrwq4fwc1jb3lks85fb26i77has57lzv2y" ; }; phases = [ "unpackPhase" "installPhase" ]; installPhase = '' mkdir -p $out cp $src/vimrc $out/vimrc '' ; meta = { description = "A minimal vimrc." ; }; }

Nix store

To see how this all ties together, let’s list everything in the nix store related to Vim.

nix-store --query --requisites \ /run/current-system/sw \ | grep -P '^[^-]+-.*?\K\bvim'

The first several results are paths to plugins, for example:

/nix/store/0lgaf7k8sjciky1hd1n70h82mi62cznd-vimplugin-fzf-0.17.3

The remainder includes vim-pack-dir (the result of core-packages.nix), a couple vimrc’s (more on these in a moment), vim_configurable , and vim (a wrapper script):

/nix/store/79a8mada9j90b6sr74v16c1afhl65hcw-vim-pack-dir /nix/store/d52j23wnwz3swwbgv68mnl1i463a1hpn-vimrc /nix/store/63av9cp8hkwsr332nv5whpnq2k3z0iqg-nixos-vimrc /nix/store/sz52xjgb6viyfbp7w0221hj2jr5avkgf-vim_configurable-8.0.1605 /nix/store/pf28xvba6q4j50iiihlzym58l4x4w0rg-vim

So where’s the real Vim?

which vim /run/current-system/sw/bin/vim readlink -f $( which vim ) /nix/store/pf28xvba6q4j50iiihlzym58l4x4w0rg-vim/bin/vim

So when I run vim at the command line, that’s what my PATH is pointing to. This is not the actual executable though, but a wrapper script:

cat $( readlink -f $( which vim ) ) #!/bin/sh exec /nix/store/sz52xjgb6viyfbp7w0221hj2jr5avkgf-vim_configurable-8.0.1605/bin/vim -u /nix/store/d52j23wnwz3swwbgv68mnl1i463a1hpn-vimrc " $@ "

It invokes Vim using -u to control which vimrc is used.

vimrc

Let’s see what’s actually loaded when I start Vim.

vim -c 'set nomore' \ -c 'redir > outfile | scriptnames | redir END' \ -c 'quit'

The scriptnames ex command lists all the scripts Vim has sourced, in order. The resulting outfile lists about 60 scripts, but it’s worth noting what’s not in the list. When we queried the nix store earlier, we saw a couple vimrc entries:

/nix/store/d52j23wnwz3swwbgv68mnl1i463a1hpn-vimrc /nix/store/63av9cp8hkwsr332nv5whpnq2k3z0iqg-nixos-vimrc

The first one sets up Vim’s 'packpath' (so the plugins in vim-pack-dir can be used) and contains the contents of the vimrc I passed as customRC . This is what Vim is using.

The second, nixos-vimrc , is not being used, so why is it there? We can see that it’s referenced by vim_configurable , and it turns out the reference is a symlink in "$out"/share/vim/vimrc .

nix-store --query --referrers /nix/store/63av9cp8hkwsr332nv5whpnq2k3z0iqg-nixos-vimrc /nix/store/sz52xjgb6viyfbp7w0221hj2jr5avkgf-vim_configurable-8.0.1605 ls -l $(nix-store --query --requisites \ /run/current-system/sw \ | grep 'vim_configurable')/share/vim/vimrc

Inside Vim, we can see that "$out"/share/vim/vimrc corresponds to $VIM/vimrc :

:echo glob("$VIM/vimrc") /nix/store/sz52xjgb6viyfbp7w0221hj2jr5avkgf-vim_configurable-8.0.1605/share/vim/vimrc

When Vim is started normally, it reads the system vimrc (e.g. $VIM/vimrc ) and your personal vimrc (e.g. $HOME/.vim/vimrc ). But when invoked with -u specifying a vimrc, Vim loads only that vimrc.

This is why neither the symlinked nixos-vimrc nor $HOME/.vim/vimrc are loaded by our vim wrapper. It’s also why $MYVIMRC isn’t set.

We can verify this by comparing a wrapped invocation with one that calls the executable directly:

# wrapped: /nix/store/pf28xvba6q4j50iiihlzym58l4x4w0rg-vim/bin/vim vim \ -c 'set nomore' \ -c 'redir @a | scriptnames | redir END' \ -c 'call append(".", matchstr(@a, "\\S\\+vimrc\\S*\\>"))'

# direct: /nix/store/sz52xjgb6viyfbp7w0221hj2jr5avkgf-vim_configurable-8.0.1605/bin/vim $( grep --max-count = 1 -oP 'exec \K\S+' $( readlink -f $( which vim ))) \ -c 'set nomore' \ -c 'redir @a | scriptnames | redir END' \ -c 'call append(".", matchstr(@a, "\\S\\+vimrc\\S*\\>"))'

Since we’re not using nixos-vimrc , what are we missing out on?

nixos-vimrc searches a few locations, including /run/current-system/sw/share/vim-plugins/ , for plugins. It then sources /etc/vimrc or /etc/vim/vimrc if either exists.

In light of this, I might rethink my current configuration. I’d like to continue using Vim’s 'packpath' to manage plugins, but rather than using -u to specify a vimrc, I think putting my system-wide configuration in /etc/vimrc would provide a more consistent, intuitive user experience, since $HOME/.vim/vimrc would still be loaded and $MYVIMRC would be set.

The plugins you bake into Vim using vim_configurable.customize won’t get symlinked into /run/current-system/sw/share/vim-plugins/ unless you also list them in environment.systemPackages . So if you don’t want to bother with the intricacies of customize , you could instead list vimHugeX and the plugins you want in environment.systemPackages . vimHugeX uses vim_configurable as is, so the nixos-vimrc will be used and it will load your plugins. And since it also checks for the presence of /etc/vimrc , you could put your system-wide configuration there.

vimrc

Let’s look at the vimrc that Vim is using.

# /nix/store/d52j23wnwz3swwbgv68mnl1i463a1hpn-vimrc less $( nix-store --query --requisites \ /run/current-system/sw \ | grep -P '^[^-]+-vimrc$' )

" minimal setup, generated by NIX set nocompatible set packpath -=~ /.vim/ after set packpath += /nix/ store/ 79 a8mada9j90b6sr74v16c1afhl65hcw - vim - pack - dir set packpath +=~ /.vim/ after filetype indent plugin on | syn on " This file is sourced early in the initialization process. " " I've extracted most customizations to into plugins organized using Vim 8's " package feature. The only settings that need to remain in vimrc are those " that must be set before loading other runtime files, plugins, or packages. if exists ( 'g:loaded_vimrc' ) | finish | endif let g:loaded_vimrc = 1 let g:loaded_netrwPlugin = 1 " disable netrw ( use dirvish instead ) let g:is_bash = 1 " sh is bash let g:sh_fold_enabled = 1 " fold sh functions let g:vimsyn_folding = "f" " fold vim functions let g:vimsyn_noerror = 1 " vim . vim sometimes gets it wrong let g:fugitive_no_maps = 1 " leave me free to remap < C - R > silent ! source ~ /.vim/ vimrc . local

It adds /nix/store/79a8mada9j90b6sr74v16c1afhl65hcw-vim-pack-dir to Vim’s 'packpath' , allowing Vim’s native packages feature to pick up the plugins I listed in core-package.nix . Everything after the filetype line is from the customRC that I configured. I’ve extracted most of my personal configuration into plugins, so my vimrc only contains things that need to be configured before plugins are loaded.

plugins, packages, after

After reading vimrc(s), Vim searches its 'runtimepath' for plugins. From Vim’s :help load-plugins :

Load the plugin scripts. This does the same as the command: runtime! plugin/**/*.vim The result is that all directories in the ‘runtimepath’ option will be searched for the “plugin” sub-directory and all files ending in “.vim” will be sourced (in alphabetical order per directory), also in subdirectories. However, directories in ‘runtimepath’ ending in “after” are skipped

Next, Vim searches for packages:

Packages are loaded. These are plugins, as above, but found in the “start” directory of each entry in ‘packpath’. Every plugin directory found is added in ‘runtimepath’ and then the plugins are sourced.

Finally, Vim sources the contents of any after directories in the 'runtimepath' .

More to come

As I mentioned, using -u to specify a vimrc means Vim won’t try to load /etc/vimrc or $HOME/.vim/vimrc , nor will it set the $MYVIMRC variable. This is inconsistent with the behavior most users (myself included) are used to.