[patrec]

Ah, OK, you mean stuff like this, right? https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/85103

I haven't often run into wrapper issues, but when you do it's a pain. So thanks for the pointer, I should probably look at how guix does it.

[mbakke]

Indeed that approach looks very similar.

In Guix search paths are properties of the packages that consume them: for the GStreamer example in that PR all the plugins provide the search path attribute, whereas in Guix it is only set once, on the 'gstreamer' package.

The Guix approach has a limitation though, in that users must manually install gstreamer for the plugins to become visible in the profile. It's one of the oldest high-severity bugs in Guix: https://issues.guix.gnu.org/22138