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authorMarius Bakke <mbakke@fastmail.com>2018-12-12 22:00:52 +0100
committerMarius Bakke <mbakke@fastmail.com>2018-12-12 22:00:52 +0100
commit12878d12acccf83ef3258a53a01f851088f0aa9e (patch)
tree47f875b50bd7714251256475317e96f4e6d73f55 /doc
parent17c3e0d85d9c1a6b4c09d09dd9238297b6165a2f (diff)
parent7b046b1bdc0b1cbc50428d4e08136a110f0a12af (diff)
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@@ -3037,6 +3037,39 @@ the new and upgraded packages that are listed, some like @code{my-gimp} and
@code{my-emacs-with-cool-features} might come from
@code{my-personal-packages}, while others come from the Guix default channel.
+@cindex dependencies, channels
+@cindex meta-data, channels
+@subsection Declaring Channel Dependencies
+
+Channel authors may decide to augment a package collection provided by other
+channels. They can declare their channel to be dependent on other channels in
+a meta-data file @file{.guix-channel}, which is to be placed in the root of
+the channel repository.
+
+The meta-data file should contain a simple S-expression like this:
+
+@lisp
+(channel
+ (version 0)
+ (dependencies
+ (channel
+ (name 'some-collection)
+ (url "https://example.org/first-collection.git"))
+ (channel
+ (name 'some-other-collection)
+ (url "https://example.org/second-collection.git")
+ (branch "testing"))))
+@end lisp
+
+In the above example this channel is declared to depend on two other channels,
+which will both be fetched automatically. The modules provided by the channel
+will be compiled in an environment where the modules of all these declared
+channels are available.
+
+For the sake of reliability and maintainability, you should avoid dependencies
+on channels that you don't control, and you should aim to keep the number of
+dependencies to a minimum.
+
@subsection Replicating Guix
@cindex pinning, channels