nix profile remove '.*' doesn't remove path installabes

[erikarvstedt]

Reproduce

nix profile install $(nix build --no-link --print-out-paths nixpkgs#hello) --profile /tmp/nix-profile 
nix profile remove '.*' --profile /tmp/nix-profile
# Result:
# warning: '.*' does not match any packages
# warning: Use 'nix profile list' to see the current profile.

Expected behavior

nix profile remove '.*' should "Remove all packages", as suggested in --help.

nix-env --version output

nix-env (Nix) 2.12.0

Priorities

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[bobvanderlinden]

Hmm, indeed. The currently implementation of regex doesn't look at store paths:

nix/src/nix/profile.cc

Lines 522 to 527 in 67f9575

	if (auto path = std::get_if<Path>(&matcher)) {
	if (element.storePaths.count(store.parseStorePath(*path))) return true;
	} else if (auto regex = std::get_if<RegexPattern>(&matcher)) {
	if (std::regex_match(name, regex->reg))
	return true;
	}

An alternative approach is to introduce a more explicit way to upgrade all packages (like using --all): #10162

[iFreilicht]

@roberth I think this could be marked good first issue. @bobvanderlinden already marked the part of the code that has to be changed, the only other thing a contributor needs to figure out is how to add this case to the functional tests.

[bobvanderlinden]

@iFreilicht Sry! I was already reworking the way packages are matched in nix profile in #10166. This issue will also be resolved if the PR is an acceptable solution.