nimble build should complain when it requires X >=N and X has nimble develop at version < N

[timotheecour]

I was going to file a bug under inim but after investigation this is a bug in nimble:

inim nimble specifies noise >= 0.1.4 but nimble build still uses noise@0.1.3, causing build errors without indication of what caused the error:

$ nimble dump noise|grep version
version: "0.1.3"

$ git clone https://github.com/AndreiRegiani/INim
$ cd INim

$ git rev-parse HEAD
89b1657444b6b4c6641b3842bc0a08606eedd175

$ grep noise inim.nimble
requires "noise >= 0.1.4"

# $ nimble develop # Error: Cannot develop packages that are binaries only. (=> https://github.com/nim-lang/nimble/issues/853)

$ nimble build
Verifying dependencies for inim@0.6.0
   Warning: The .nimble-link file is pointing to a missing file: /Users/timothee/git_clone/nim/nester/nester.nimble
      Hint: Remove '/Users/timothee/.nimble/pkgs/nester-#head' or restore the file it points to.
      Info: Dependency on cligen@>= 1.0.0 already satisfied
  Verifying dependencies for cligen@0.9.46
      Info: Dependency on noise@>= 0.1.4 already satisfied
  Verifying dependencies for noise@0.1.3
   Building inim/inim using c backend
       Tip: 5 messages have been suppressed, use --verbose to show them.
     Error: Build failed for package: inim
        ... Details:
inim.nim(351, 8) Error: undeclared identifier: 'ktCtrlX'

turns out it's because I had done nimble develop on an old clone of noise, which was stuck at 0.1.3:

find ~/.nimble/pkgs/noise-*
/Users/timothee/.nimble/pkgs/noise-#head
/Users/timothee/.nimble/pkgs/noise-#head/nimblemeta.json
/Users/timothee/.nimble/pkgs/noise-#head/noise.nimble-link

proposal

nimble build should (by default) complain that nimble develop version is too old since we have requires "noise >= 0.1.4" and nimble dump noise|grep version returns 0.1.3

related

• Difficult to verify that develop dep is being used #405
• Forum reference - forum.nim-lang.org/t/6765#42065.

[c-blake]

This seems like it may relate to the behavior of nimble never auto-updating any #head install (which I think most find counter-intuitive).

[timotheecour]

This seems like it may relate to the behavior of nimble never auto-updating any #head install (which I think most find counter-intuitive).

related to #332 (and duplicates-ish #386)

but i think these are 2 separate issues;

• nimble develop should point to a fixed directory name that doesn't get updated when the linked dir gets modified (eg: $HOME/.nimble/pkgs/noise-#develop)
• nimble install sompackage@#head should show the HEAD commit hash (eg: $HOME/.nimble/pkgs/noise-#c704533) instead of symbolic one (head)

either way, an RFC would be nice to discuss this to make sure it's well thought through

[dom96]

IMO this will be resolved once lock files are implemented. Further complicating how Nimble manages develop/head packages is unnecessary.