# Trivial builders

Nixpkgs provides a couple of functions that help with building derivations. The most important one, `stdenv.mkDerivation`, has already been documented above. The following functions wrap `stdenv.mkDerivation`, making it easier to use in certain cases.

`runCommand`

  This takes three arguments, `name`, `env`, and `buildCommand`. `name` is just the name that Nix will append to the store path in the same way that `stdenv.mkDerivation` uses its `name` attribute. `env` is an attribute set specifying environment variables that will be set for this derivation. These attributes are then passed to the wrapped `stdenv.mkDerivation`. `buildCommand` specifies the commands that will be run to create this derivation. Note that you will need to create `$out` for Nix to register the command as successful.

  An example of using `runCommand` is provided below.

      (import <nixpkgs> {}).runCommand "my-example" {} ''
        echo My example command is running

        mkdir $out

        echo I can write data to the Nix store > $out/message

        echo I can also run basic commands like:

        echo ls
        ls

        echo whoami
        whoami

        echo date
        date
      ''

`runCommandCC`

  This works just like `runCommand`. The only difference is that it also provides a C compiler in `buildCommand`’s environment. To minimize your dependencies, you should only use this if you are sure you will need a C compiler as part of running your command.

`runCommandLocal`

  Variant of `runCommand` that forces the derivation to be built locally, it is not substituted. This is intended for very cheap commands (<1s execution time). It saves on the network roundrip and can speed up a build.

  This sets `allowSubstitutes` to `false`, so only use `runCommandLocal` if you are certain the user will always have a builder for the `system` of the derivation. This should be true for most trivial use cases (e.g. just copying some files to a different location or adding symlinks), because there the `system` is usually the same as `builtins.currentSystem`.

`writeTextFile`, `writeText`, `writeTextDir`, `writeScript`, `writeScriptBin`

  These functions write `text` to the Nix store. This is useful for creating scripts from Nix expressions. `writeTextFile` takes an attribute set and expects two arguments, `name` and `text`. `name` corresponds to the name used in the Nix store path. `text` will be the contents of the file. You can also set `executable` to true to make this file have the executable bit set.

  Many more commands wrap `writeTextFile` including `writeText`, `writeTextDir`, `writeScript`, and `writeScriptBin`. These are convenience functions over `writeTextFile`.

`symlinkJoin`

  This can be used to put many derivations into the same directory structure. It works by creating a new derivation and adding symlinks to each of the paths listed. It expects two arguments, `name`, and `paths`. `name` is the name used in the Nix store path for the created derivation. `paths` is a list of paths that will be symlinked. These paths can be to Nix store derivations or any other subdirectory contained within.