Restructuring the Nix manual

doc/manual/expressions/simple-expression.xml

@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+<chapter xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
+      xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
+      xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
+      version="5.0"
+      xml:id="ch-simple-expression">
+
+<title>Simple Nix Expression Use-Case</title>
+
+<para>This section shows how to add and test the <link
+xlink:href='http://www.gnu.org/software/hello/hello.html'>GNU Hello
+package</link> to the Nix Packages collection.  Hello is a program
+that prints out the text <quote>Hello, world!</quote>.</para>
+
+<para>To add a package to the Nix Packages collection, you generally
+need to do three things:
+
+<orderedlist>
+
+  <listitem><para>Write a Nix expression for the package.  This is a
+  file that describes all the inputs involved in building the package,
+  such as dependencies, sources, and so on.</para></listitem>
+
+  <listitem><para>Write a <emphasis>builder</emphasis>.  This is a
+  shell script<footnote><para>In fact, it can be written in any
+  language, but typically it's a <command>bash</command> shell
+  script.</para></footnote> that actually builds the package from
+  the inputs.</para></listitem>
+
+  <listitem><para>Add the package to the file
+  <filename>pkgs/top-level/all-packages.nix</filename>.  The Nix
+  expression written in the first step is a
+  <emphasis>function</emphasis>; it requires other packages in order
+  to build it.  In this step you put it all together, i.e., you call
+  the function with the right arguments to build the actual
+  package.</para></listitem>
+
+</orderedlist>
+
+</para>
+
+<xi:include href="expression-syntax.xml" />
+<xi:include href="build-script.xml" />
+<xi:include href="arguments-variables.xml" />
+<xi:include href="simple-building-testing.xml" />
+<xi:include href="generic-builder.xml" />
+
+</chapter>