Was working on porting most of our docker images at work to building them using nix [check this for more info] and found one of our older images in need of some love.

As it happens it contained ext-dbase, a php extension that has no package in nixpkgs. Dbase is such an old and odd little thing, it is a sort of Excel file combined with some sqlite abilities. Something that came from another era totally.

Since it is that old I see no reason for me to add it to nixpkgs so how would I go to build it just for me?

Surprinsingly, Nix loves php. So it is pretty straight forward if the darn thing is in PECL. I wanted to share this in case some other bloke looking for a dbase fix stumbles upon this somehow:

    { pkgs ? import <nixpkgs> { }, php}:
    with pkgs;
    let
      dbase = php.buildPecl
        rec {
          pname = "dbase";
          version = "7.1.1";

          src = fetchFromGitHub {
            owner = "php";
            repo = "pecl-database-dbase";
            rev = "ba33dfe16f13c2093d19f93deb316390151aa729";
            sha256 = "djtRnx5rFGkRzs/Jai8m5zCBkJtHk1xZmJ0fra7EXeY=";
          };

          buildInputs = [ libuv ];

          meta = with lib; {
            description = "Interface to dbase for php";
            license = licenses.php301;
            homepage = "https://github.com/php/pecl-database-dbase";
            maintainers = teams.php.members;
            platforms = platforms.linux;
          };
        };
    in
    php.buildEnv {
      extensions = ({ enabled, all }: enabled ++ (with all; [
        dbase
      ]));
    }

Then, instead of the php package you normally use, use the above to create a derivation based on the php version you want with your extension enabled:

php82WithDbase = import ./php.nix { php = pkgs.php82; };

That’s it! Very simple.