Release 2.8 (2022-04-19)
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New experimental command: nix fmt, which applies a formatter defined by theformatter.<system>flake output to the Nix expressions in a flake.
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Various Nix commands can now read expressions from standard input using --file -.
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New experimental builtin function builtins.fetchClosurethat copies a closure from a binary cache at evaluation time and rewrites it to content-addressed form (if it isn't already). Likebuiltins.storePath, this allows importing pre-built store paths; the difference is that it doesn't require the user to configure binary caches and trusted public keys.This function is only available if you enable the experimental feature fetch-closure.
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New experimental feature: impure derivations. These are derivations that can produce a different result every time they're built. Here is an example: stdenv.mkDerivation { name = "impure"; __impure = true; # marks this derivation as impure buildCommand = "date > $out"; }Running nix buildtwice on this expression will build the derivation twice, producing two different content-addressed store paths. Like fixed-output derivations, impure derivations have access to the network. Only fixed-output derivations and impure derivations can depend on an impure derivation.
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nix store make-content-addressablehas been renamed tonix store make-content-addressed.
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The nixosModuleflake output attribute has been renamed consistent with the.defaultrenames in Nix 2.7.- nixosModule→- nixosModules.default
 As before, the old output will continue to work, but nix flake checkwill issue a warning about it.
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nix runis now stricter in what it accepts: members of theappsflake output are now required to be apps (as defined in the manual), and members ofpackagesorlegacyPackagesmust be derivations (not apps).