Nix Release 2.24.0: Nix-Shell Shebang Path Resolution, Tarball Handling, and Large Path Warning

Relative [path](@docroot@/language/types.md#type-path) literals in `nix-shell` shebang scripts' options are now resolved relative to the [script's location](@docroot@/glossary.md?highlight=base%20directory#gloss-base-directory). Previously they were resolved relative to the current working directory. For example, consider the following script in `~/myproject/say-hi`: ```shell #!/usr/bin/env nix-shell #!nix-shell --expr 'import ./shell.nix' #!nix-shell --arg toolset './greeting-tools.nix' #!nix-shell -i bash hello ``` Older versions of `nix-shell` would resolve `shell.nix` relative to the current working directory, such as the user's home directory in this example: ```console [hostname:~]$ ./myproject/say-hi error: … while calling the 'import' builtin at «string»:1:2: 1| (import ./shell.nix) | ^ error: path '/home/user/shell.nix' does not exist ``` Since this release, `nix-shell` resolves `shell.nix` relative to the script's location, and `~/myproject/shell.nix` is used. ```console $ ./myproject/say-hi Hello, world! ``` **Opt-out** This is technically a breaking change, so we have added an option so you can adapt independently of your Nix update. The old behavior can be opted into by setting the option [`nix-shell-shebang-arguments-relative-to-script`](@docroot@/command-ref/conf-file.md#conf-nix-shell-shebang-arguments-relative-to-script) to `false`. This option will be removed in a future release. Author: [**Robert Hensing (@roberth)**](https://github.com/roberth) - Improve handling of tarballs that don't consist of a single top-level directory [#11195](https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/11195) In previous Nix releases, the tarball fetcher (used by `builtins.fetchTarball`) erroneously merged top-level directories into a single directory, and silently discarded top-level files that are not directories. This is no longer the case. The new behaviour is that *only* if the tarball consists of a single directory, the top-level path component of the files in the tarball is removed (similar to `tar`'s `--strip-components=1`). Author: [**Eelco Dolstra (@edolstra)**](https://github.com/edolstra) - Setting to warn about large paths [#10778](https://github.com/NixOS/nix/pull/10778) Nix can now warn when evaluation of a Nix expression causes a large path to be copied to the Nix store. The threshold for this warning can be configured using the `warn-large-path-threshold` setting, e.g. `--warn-large-path-threshold 100M`. # Contributors This release was made possible by the following 43 contributors:

This section details improvements in Nix release 2.24.0, including resolving relative paths in `nix-shell` shebang scripts relative to the script's location (with an opt-out option), improved handling of tarballs without a single top-level directory, and a setting to warn about large paths being copied to the Nix store.