Update to unstable version by default instead of stable version

[selfuryon]

Hello!
I find out that for some tags nix-update try to update a package to unstable version (by semver) by default.

For example for ethereum.nix project it tries to update lighthouse from 4.5.0 to 4.5.222-exp

$ nix-update --flake lighthouse
$ nix eval --json --impure --expr
let

  inherit (builtins) getFlake stringLength substring;
  currentSystem = builtins.currentSystem;
  flake = getFlake "/home/syakovlev/src/private/ethereum.nix";
  pkg = flake.packages.${currentSystem}."lighthouse" or flake."lighthouse";
  inherit (flake) outPath;
  outPathLen = stringLength outPath;
  sanitizePosition = { file, ... }@pos:
    assert substring 0 outPathLen file != outPath
      -> throw "${file} is not in ${outPath}";
    pos // { file = "/home/syakovlev/src/private/ethereum.nix" + substring outPathLen (stringLength file - outPathLen) file; };

  raw_version_position = sanitizePosition (builtins.unsafeGetAttrPos "version" pkg);

  position = if pkg ? isRubyGem then
    raw_version_position
  else if pkg ? isPhpExtension then
    raw_version_position
   else
    sanitizePosition (builtins.unsafeGetAttrPos "src" pkg);
in {
  name = pkg.name;
  old_version = pkg.version or (builtins.parseDrvName pkg.name).version;
  inherit raw_version_position;
  filename = position.file;
  line = position.line;
  urls = pkg.src.urls or null;
  url = pkg.src.url or null;
  rev = pkg.src.rev or null;
  hash = pkg.src.outputHash or null;
  go_modules = pkg.goModules.outputHash or null;
  go_modules_old = pkg.go-modules.outputHash or null;
  cargo_deps = pkg.cargoDeps.outputHash or null;
  raw_cargo_lock =
    if pkg ? cargoDeps.lockFile then
      let
        inherit (pkg.cargoDeps) lockFile;
        res = builtins.tryEval (sanitizePosition {
          file = toString lockFile;
        });
      in
      if res.success then res.value.file else false
    else
      null;
  npm_deps = pkg.npmDeps.outputHash or null;
  tests = builtins.attrNames (pkg.passthru.tests or {});
  has_update_script = false;
  src_homepage = pkg.src.meta.homepage or null;
  changelog = pkg.meta.changelog or null;
} --extra-experimental-features flakes nix-command
fetch https://github.com/sigp/lighthouse/releases.atom
Update 4.5.0 -> 4.5.222-exp in /.../ethereum.nix/packages/clients/consensus/lighthouse/default.nix
...

[Mic92]

Currently we use the atom feed to not have to have github api tokens.
However this also means we cannot figure out if a version is an "experimental" one.

You can filter however using regexes like this:

nix-update jq --version-regex 'v(\d+\.\d+\.\d+)'

[Mic92]

Semver is something that is hard to rely on since projects in general seem not to follow it consistently.

[Mic92]

You can also put this in your package definition like this:

 passthru.updateScript = nix-update-script {
   extraArgs = [ "--version-regex" "v(.+)" ];
 };

And than do nix-update --use-update-script

[selfuryon]

Got that, thanks for the explanation!