Name

       nix-store --dump - write a single path to a Nix Archive

   Synopsis
       nix-store --dump path

   Description
       The  operation  --dump  produces a Nix archive (NAR) file containing the contents of the file system tree
       rooted at path. The archive is written to standard output.

       A NAR archive is like a TAR or Zip archive, but it contains  only  the  information  that  Nix  considers
       important.  For  instance,  timestamps are elided because all files in the Nix store have their timestamp
       set to 0 anyway. Likewise, all permissions are left out except for the execute bit, because all files  in
       the Nix store have 444 or 555 permission.

       Also,  a  NAR  archive  is canonical, meaning that “equal” paths always produce the same NAR archive. For
       instance, directory entries are always sorted so that the actual  on-disk  order  doesn’t  influence  the
       result.  This means that the cryptographic hash of a NAR dump of a path is usable as a fingerprint of the
       contents  of  the path. Indeed, the hashes of store paths stored in Nix’s database (see nix-store --query
       --hash) are SHA-256 hashes of the NAR dump of each store path.

       NAR archives support filenames of unlimited length and 64-bit file sizes. They can contain regular files,
       directories, and symbolic links, but not other types of files (such as device nodes).

       A Nix archive can be unpacked using nix-store --restore.

       {{#include ./opt-common.md}}

       {{#include ../opt-common.md}}

       {{#include ../env-common.md}}

                                                                                             nix-store --dump(1)