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My Nix converter tool |
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2025-12-16 |
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Last edit: 2025-12-16 |
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Last year I wanted to convert my Nix code into YAML and TOML. So I went looking… |
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## Presentation |
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The tool is called |
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nix-converter |
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. It's a command-line interface written in Go that converts various configurati… |
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## How it works |
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Let's assume we have a source language called A and a destination language call… |
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First, I use external Go libraries to retrieve a syntactic abstract representin… |
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The only exception to these steps is the transformation of Nix code into TOML c… |
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## Examples of transformations |
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Let's take a simple example with the JSON code below. |
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```json |
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{ |
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"fruits": [ |
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"Apple", |
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"Banana", |
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"Orange", |
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1, |
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2, |
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-1 |
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], |
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"abc": { |
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"c": "c", |
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"b": "b", |
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"a": "a" |
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}, |
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"": 1, |
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"123": "", |
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"f123": "" |
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} |
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``` |
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To convert it into Nix code, you can use the command line below, which also inc… |
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```bash |
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nix-converter -f file.json -l json -unsafe-keys -sort-iterators "all" |
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``` |
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Once launched, you get the Nix code below. |
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```nix |
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{ |
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"" = 1; |
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"123" = ""; |
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abc = { |
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a = "a"; |
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b = "b"; |
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c = "c"; |
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}; |
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f123 = ""; |
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fruits = [ |
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"Apple" |
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"Banana" |
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"Orange" |
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(-1) |
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1 |
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2 |
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]; |
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} |
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``` |
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If we wish, we can convert this Nix code again, for example with the command li… |
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```bash |
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nix-converter -f file.nix -l toml -from-nix |
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``` |
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Here's how it would look below. |
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```toml |
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"" = 1 |
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123 = "" |
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f123 = "" |
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fruits = ["Apple", "Banana", "Orange", -1, 1, 2] |
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[abc] |
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a = "a" |
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b = "b" |
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c = "c" |
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``` |
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## Testing the tool |
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If you're curious and just want to test the tool, you can for example use the N… |
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```bash |
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nix run github:theobori/nix-converter -- -help |
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``` |
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## Contributing |
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Anyone is free to contribute to the source code. For more details, please visit… |
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GitHub repository |
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. |
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## Conclusion |
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nix-converter |
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is a simple and useful tool that I enjoy using when I need to convert Nix code. |
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