nix-shell cannot handle src path with spaces

[gilligan]

with import <nixpkgs> {}; {
  testCase = stdenv.mkDerivation {
    src = ./.;
    name = "test";
  };
}

If you put this in a directory containing spaces like test case and run nix-shell:

% nix-shell
error: invalid character ‘ ’ in name ‘test case’

As a workaround I apply the following function to src

p: builtins.toPath (pkgs.stdenv.lib.escapeShellArg (toString p))

This might be related to NixOS/nixpkgs#8123

[edolstra]

Yes, the base name of src must be a store-compatible name, so no spaces or other "special" characters. This is not specific to nix-shell. For nix-shell, however, you may be able to work around this by doing:

src = if lib.inNixShell then null else ./.;

But nix-build will still barf.