docs: Add Crystal language framework section

2 files changed, 72 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/doc/languages-frameworks/crystal.section.md b/doc/languages-frameworks/crystal.section.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..07bfc65a553
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/languages-frameworks/crystal.section.md
@@ -0,0 +1,71 @@
+# Crystal
+
+## Building a Crystal package
+
+This section uses [Mint](https://github.com/mint-lang/mint) as an example for how to build a Crystal package.
+
+If the Crystal project has any dependencies, the first step is to get a `shards.nix` file encoding those. Get a copy of the project and go to its root directory such that its `shard.lock` file is in the current directory, then run `crystal2nix` in it
+```bash
+$ git clone https://github.com/mint-lang/mint
+$ cd mint
+$ git checkout 0.5.0
+$ nix-shell -p crystal2nix --run crystal2nix
+```
+
+This should have generated a `shards.nix` file.
+
+Next create a Nix file for your derivation and use `pkgs.crystal.buildCrystalPackage` as follows:
+```nix
+with import <nixpkgs> {};
+crystal.buildCrystalPackage rec {
+  pname = "mint";
+  version = "0.5.0";
+
+  src = fetchFromGitHub {
+    owner = "mint-lang";
+    repo = "mint";
+    rev = version;
+    sha256 = "0vxbx38c390rd2ysvbwgh89v2232sh5rbsp3nk9wzb70jybpslvl";
+  };
+
+  # Insert the path to your shards.nix file here
+  shardsFile = ./shards.nix;
+
+  ...
+}
+```
+
+This won't build anything yet, because we haven't told it what files build. We can specify a mapping from binary names to source files with the `crystalBinaries` attribute. The project's compilation instructions should show this. For Mint, the binary is called "mint", which is compiled from the source file `src/mint.cr`, so we'll specify this as follows:
+
+```nix
+  crystalBinaries.mint.src = "src/mint.cr";
+
+  # ...
+```
+
+Additionally you can override the default `crystal build` options (which are currently `--release --progress --no-debug --verbose`) with
+
+```nix
+  crystalBinaries.mint.options = [ "--release" "--verbose" ];
+```
+
+Depending on the project, you might need additional steps to get it to compile successfully. In Mint's case, we need to link against openssl, so in the end the Nix file looks as follows:
+
+```nix
+with import <nixpkgs> {};
+crystal.buildCrystalPackage rec {
+  version = "0.5.0";
+  pname = "mint";
+  src = fetchFromGitHub {
+    owner = "mint-lang";
+    repo = "mint";
+    rev = version;
+    sha256 = "0vxbx38c390rd2ysvbwgh89v2232sh5rbsp3nk9wzb70jybpslvl";
+  };
+
+  shardsFile = ./shards.nix;
+  crystalBinaries.mint.src = "src/mint.cr";
+
+  buildInputs = [ openssl_1_0_2 ];
+}
+```
diff --git a/doc/languages-frameworks/index.xml b/doc/languages-frameworks/index.xml
index 4564df98fe9..cd4e95cfae6 100644
--- a/doc/languages-frameworks/index.xml
+++ b/doc/languages-frameworks/index.xml
@@ -32,4 +32,5 @@
  <xi:include href="titanium.section.xml" />
  <xi:include href="vim.section.xml" />
  <xi:include href="emscripten.section.xml" />
+ <xi:include href="crystal.section.xml" />
 </chapter>