treewide: stop using types.string

[jian-lin]

It is an error1 now.

Description of changes

Things done

• Built on platform(s)
  • x86_64-linux
  • aarch64-linux
  • x86_64-darwin
  • aarch64-darwin
• For non-Linux: Is sandbox = true set in nix.conf? (See Nix manual)
• Tested, as applicable:
  • NixOS test(s) (look inside nixos/tests)
  • and/or package tests
  • or, for functions and "core" functionality, tests in lib/tests or pkgs/test
  • made sure NixOS tests are linked to the relevant packages
• Tested compilation of all packages that depend on this change using nix-shell -p nixpkgs-review --run "nixpkgs-review rev HEAD". Note: all changes have to be committed, also see nixpkgs-review usage
• Tested basic functionality of all binary files (usually in ./result/bin/)
• 23.11 Release Notes (or backporting 23.05 Release notes)
  • (Package updates) Added a release notes entry if the change is major or breaking
  • (Module updates) Added a release notes entry if the change is significant
  • (Module addition) Added a release notes entry if adding a new NixOS module
• Fits CONTRIBUTING.md.

[roberth]

Indeed none of these look like they should ever be merged with string concatenation.

[jian-lin]

Fixed the linked issue number in the commit message.

[infinisil]

Oof I'm a bit surprised these made it in at all, the type should throw a deprecation warning when used. Thanks for the fix!

[majiru]

I am sorry for writing one of PRs that used one of these. Do these warnings not appear when building with 'nix build'? I had one in my branch for a while but never noticed any diagnostic output regarding this.

[infinisil]

@majiru They should definitely appear with both nix-build and nix build. What arguments did you use to test it?

[linsui]

I only tested my PR with nixos-rebuild. I didn't see any warning.

[emilazy]

We had some of these lying around in nix-darwin and they did not throw up any warnings (otherwise I'd have fixed them earlier). I don't know why the warning wasn't working, but it seems like this went from being accepted without complaints directly to a hard error. Not a problem for us, but I just want to flag up that this could cause problems elsewhere in the ecosystem because of that.

[infinisil]

Ahh darn, I figured out what went wrong. I thought I implemented nested type deprecation (#99132), but it turns out it had to be reverted (#121816), which I didn't remember.

[infinisil]

I opened a PR with a revert and a lib.warn instead of a throw: #248278

[RyzeNGrind]

Hi any updates on removing the types.string deprecation error? I am just now getting into Nix and NIxOS ecosystem and I cannot rebuild my configuration due to multiple module/nixpkg references coming from this deprecated type error. Kindly advise.

[nixos@shogun:/mnt/c/Users/$USER/WSL]$ sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake /etc/nixos#
building the system configuration...
error: The type `types.string` is deprecated. See https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/66346 for better alternative types.
(use '--show-trace' to show detailed location information)

I see that the master branch has a PR with a fix that's been merged. How do I go about replicating the changes made across the master branch into my Nix machines? Apologies if this is a noob question. Should I use the unstable or stable channels? I noticed the Nix manual indicates that the master branch and channels have a few days of lag...

[Atemu]

@RyzeNGrind just wait a little and roll back your channel in the mean time. The fix will be in unstable in a few days at most.

[RyzeNGrind]

@Atemu Thank you for your response. Is there anyway I can hot patch this fix for now so I can keep working on my systems without the several day delay? Appreciate your help with this matter.

Edit: Any advice on how to roll back the channel would be appreciated as well as it doesn't seem straightforward

[roberth]

nix-channel is above my pay grade, but if you have a flake you could upgrade to master fairly easily for a couple of days.

Maybe use -I nixpkgs=https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/master.tar.gz for something even less reproducible than nix-channel?

[emilazy]

You can just use nix-channel --rollback, I believe. Repeat until the errors go away.

[Atemu]

Alternatively, you can also briefly switch to the nixos-unstable-small channel which already has the fix. That's more trouble than it's worth though IMO.

This is a topic for a post on Discourse however, not this place.

[nixos-discourse]

This pull request has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nix-build-errors-out-nixos-unstable/31642/4

[nixos-discourse]

This pull request has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/nix-build-errors-out-nixos-unstable/31642/5