This library only exports a single dhallToNix function for translating a Dhall syntax tree to a Nix syntax tree for the hnix library

See the dhall package if you would like to transform Dhall source code into a Dhall syntax tree. Similarly, see the hnix package if you would like to translate a Nix syntax tree into Nix source code.

This package also provides a dhall-to-nix executable which you can use to compile Dhall source code directly to Nix source code for your convenience.

Any Dhall expression can be converted into an equivalent Nix expression. For example, Dhall records can be converted into Nix records:

$ dhall-to-nix <<< "{ foo = 1, bar = True }"
{ bar = true; foo = 1; }

... and you can also convert Dhall functions to Nix functions, too:

$ dhall-to-nix <<< "λ(x : Bool) → x == False"
x: x == false

Many Dhall expressions have a straightforward translation to Nix expressions but there are some translations that are not as obvious. The following section documents these trickier conversions:

First, all Dhall types translate to an empty record:

$ dhall-to-nix <<< "Integer"
{}

Polymorphic Dhall functions translate to Nix functions that ignore their type argument:

$ dhall-to-nix <<< "List/head"
t: xs: if xs == []
      then null
      else builtins.head xs

Optional values translate to null if missing or the unwrapped value if present:

$ dhall-to-nix <<< "[] : Optional Integer"
null

$ dhall-to-nix <<< "[1] : Optional Integer"
1

Unions are Church-encoded:

$ dhall-to-nix <<< "< Left = True | Right : Natural >"
{ Left, Right }: Left true

Doubles cannot be translated to Nix at all since Nix does not support floating point values.

Also, all Dhall expressions are normalized before translation to Nix:

$ dhall-to-nix <<< "True == False"
false

You can use the dhall-to-nix executable within Nix to assemble Nix expressions from Dhall expressions using the following dhallToNix utility function:

dhallToNix = code :
  let
    file = builtins.toFile "dhall-expr" code;

    drv = pkgs.stdenv.mkDerivation {
      name = "dhall-expr-as-nix";

      buildCommand = ''
        dhall-to-nix <<< "${file}" > $out
      '';

      buildInputs = [ pkgs.haskellPackages.dhall-nix ];
    };
  in
    import "${drv}";