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2.1.5.3 Inheritance

If you’ve started browsing the existing package definitions, you might have noticed that a significant number of them have a inherit field: 

(define-public adwaita-icon-theme
  (package (inherit gnome-icon-theme)
    (name "adwaita-icon-theme")
    (version "3.26.1")
    (source (origin
              (method url-fetch)
              (uri (string-append "mirror://gnome/sources/" name "/"
                                  (version-major+minor version) "/"
                                  name "-" version ".tar.xz"))
              (sha256
               (base32
                "17fpahgh5dyckgz7rwqvzgnhx53cx9kr2xw0szprc6bnqy977fi8"))))
    (native-inputs (list `(,gtk+ "bin")))))

All unspecified fields are inherited from the parent package. This is very convenient to create alternative packages, for instance with different source, version or compilation options.