Merge pull request #12498 from NixOS/fix-cli-fine-version

Restore detailed Nix CLI version

src/libstore/globals.cc

@@ -242,7 +242,7 @@ Path Settings::getDefaultSSLCertFile()
     return "";
 }
 
-const std::string nixVersion = PACKAGE_VERSION;
+std::string nixVersion = PACKAGE_VERSION;
 
 NLOHMANN_JSON_SERIALIZE_ENUM(SandboxMode, {
     {SandboxMode::smEnabled, true},

src/libstore/globals.hh

@@ -1248,7 +1248,15 @@ void loadConfFile(AbstractConfig & config);
 // Used by the Settings constructor
 std::vector<Path> getUserConfigFiles();
 
-extern const std::string nixVersion;
+/**
+ * The version of Nix itself.
+ *
+ * This is not `const`, so that the Nix CLI can provide a more detailed version
+ * number including the git revision, without having to "re-compile" the entire
+ * set of Nix libraries to include that version, even when those libraries are
+ * not affected by the change.
+ */
+extern std::string nixVersion;
 
 /**
  * @param loadConfig Whether to load configuration from `nix.conf`, `NIX_CONFIG`, etc. May be disabled for unit tests.

src/libstore/package.nix

@@ -69,14 +69,6 @@ mkMesonLibrary (finalAttrs: {
     nlohmann_json
   ];
 
-  preConfigure =
-    # "Inline" .version so it's not a symlink, and includes the suffix.
-    # Do the meson utils, without modification.
-    ''
-      chmod u+w ./.version
-      echo ${version} > ../../.version
-    '';
-
   mesonFlags =
     [
       (lib.mesonEnable "seccomp-sandboxing" stdenv.hostPlatform.isLinux)