February 2008 - cabal-devel

[Hackage] #204: should setting user-prefix in ~/.cabal/config work?
by Hackage 12 Mar '08

12 Mar '08

#204: should setting user-prefix in ~/.cabal/config work? ---------------------------------+------------------------------------------ Reporter: guest | Owner: Type: defect | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: Component: cabal-install tool | Version: 1.2.3.0 Severity: normal | Keywords: Difficulty: normal | Ghcversion: 6.8.2 Platform: Linux | ---------------------------------+------------------------------------------ Setting user-prefix in .cabal/config leads to the following error: {{{ wolverian@puni:~$ cabal info xmonad Warning: Error parsing config file /home/wolverian/.cabal/config: On line 5: Parse of field 'prefix' failed: Warning: Using default configuration. }}} I don't think the file format is documented anywhere, but a bit of poking in the source and a Google led me to believe that this should work. My config file looks like this: {{{ wolverian@puni:~$ cat .cabal/config compiler: GHC repos: hackage.haskell.org:http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive cachedir: "/home/wolverian/.cabal/packages" user-install: true user-prefix: "/home/wolverian" hackage-username: "" hackage-password: "" }}} This is with up-to-date (as of today) Cabal and cabal-install from Darcs: {{{ wolverian@puni:~$ cabal --version cabal-install version 0.4.1 using version 1.3.2 of the Cabal library }}} And my GHC is a local (in ~) GHC 6.8.2: {{{ wolverian@puni:~$ ghc --version The Glorious Glasgow Haskell Compilation System, version 6.8.2 }}} -- wolverian[[BR]] ilmari.vacklin(a)cs.helsinki.fi -- Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/204> Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/> Hackage: Cabal and related projects

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[Hackage] #205: Remove BSD4 from Cabal.Distribution.License.License
by Hackage 12 Mar '08

12 Mar '08

#205: Remove BSD4 from Cabal.Distribution.License.License ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Reporter: igloo | Owner: Type: defect | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: Component: Cabal library | Version: 1.2.3.0 Severity: normal | Keywords: Difficulty: normal | Ghcversion: 6.8.2 Platform: Linux | ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- I doubt any Haskell software actually uses the BSD4 license, and it is likely to confuse users as it looks like a newer version of BSD3. Currently we have {{{ data License = ... | BSD3 | BSD4 }}} so I propose moving to one of {{{ data License = ... | BSD3 data License = ... | BSD data License = ... | BSD3 | OldBSD data License = ... | BSD | OldBSD data License = ... | NewBSD | OldBSD }}} (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical lists it as "New BSD license") All but the first will require changing a number of packages. We could leave the old BSD3 name as deprecated for a while, though. -- Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/205> Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/> Hackage: Cabal and related projects

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[Hackage] #246: cabal-install's tar unpacking does not cope well with links
by Hackage 09 Mar '08

09 Mar '08

#246: cabal-install's tar unpacking does not cope well with links ----------------------------------+----------------------------------------- Reporter: duncan | Owner: Type: defect | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: Component: cabal-install tool | Version: 1.2.3.0 Severity: normal | Keywords: Difficulty: very easy (<1 hour) | Ghcversion: 6.8.2 Platform: | ----------------------------------+----------------------------------------- {{{ Extracting /home/me/.cabal/packages/hackage.haskell.org/pandoc/0.46/pandoc-0.46.tar.gz to /tmp/TMPpandoc-0.46... cabal: /tmp/TMPpandoc-0.46/pandoc-0.46/COPYRIGHT: copyFile: does not exist (No such file or directory) }}} If we look at this tarfile we find that the `COPYRIGHT` entry in the tar file is actually a symbolic link to `debian/copyright`. The tar code in `cabal-install` is designed to cope with symbolic links. It handles them by copying the target file. Same goes for hard links. The problem in this case is that it is trying to copy the other file before it has been unpacked. One partial solution would be to accumulate a list of links and then copy all at the end after the other files have been unpacked. It's only partial because someone could make a tarball with links pointing to other links. We can probably just ignore that problem and let it fail in the same way it does now. -- Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/246> Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/> Hackage: Cabal and related projects

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[Hackage] #235: cabal list should also list installed packages
by Hackage 02 Mar '08

02 Mar '08

#235: cabal list should also list installed packages ---------------------------------+------------------------------------------ Reporter: duncan | Owner: Type: enhancement | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: Component: cabal-install tool | Version: 1.2.3.0 Severity: normal | Keywords: Difficulty: easy (<4 hours) | Ghcversion: 6.8.2 Platform: | ---------------------------------+------------------------------------------ Currently `cabal list foo` only looks at the available packages and not at the installed ones. The `cabal list` command output needs improving. It currently lists all available versions of available (but not installed) packages. That's both too much and too little info. We want to know for each matching package the installed versions and we probably do not need to know every single available version. There are already `RepoIndex` and `LocalIndex` types for doing lookups so this task is just to format the information nicely. See the `Hackage.List` module in `cabal-install`. For reference you might like to look at what other similar tools do. For example Gentoo's `esearch` utility gives us: {{{ $ esearch xmonad [ Results for search key : xmonad ] [ Applications found : 2 ] * x11-wm/xmonad Latest version available: 0.5-r1 Latest version installed: 0.5 Size of downloaded files: [no/bad digest] Homepage: http://www.xmonad.org/ Description: A lightweight X11 window manager License: BSD * x11-wm/xmonad-contrib Latest version available: 0.5-r1 Latest version installed: [ Not Installed ] Size of downloaded files: [no/bad digest] Homepage: http://www.xmonad.org/ Description: Third party extentions for xmonad License: BSD }}} -- Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/235> Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/> Hackage: Cabal and related projects

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using haddock markup in Description field
by Henning Thielemann 02 Mar '08

02 Mar '08

I like to use Haddock markup like bird track (>) and enumerations (*) in the Description field of a package. However I can't get it working, the mentioned markup is simply ignored. The content of the description field must be indented, is it unindented before passing to Haddock?

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every use of BSD4 on hackage is incorrect
by Duncan Coutts 01 Mar '08

01 Mar '08

The following hackage packages specify in their .cabal file: license: BSD4 Which is the 4-clause BSD license, ie the one with the advertising clause. cabal-upload-0.3 Chart-0.5 FiniteMap-0.1 haxr-3000.0.1 haxr-th-1.0 hbeat-0.1 htar-0.1 pcap-0.4.2 tar-0.1.1.1 unix-compat-0.1.2.1 Inspecting the LICENSE files for every one of these packages reveals that they actually use the 3-clause BSD license. Not a single hackage package really uses the 4-clause BSD license. In every case that it has been used it was just a confusion. We therefore propose to deprecate BSD4 as a valid license in .cabal files: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/205 In the unlikely case that anyone really wants to use the 4-clause BSD license they can still specify "license: OtherLicense" and put the text in the accompanying LICENSE file. Additionally, I propose to add the MIT license since there are a couple packages that really use that and allow optional versions on the licenses that are versioned, which includes the GPL and LGPL. Looking at OtherLicense we find common ones are MIT, variations on BSD3 (2 clause and fewer, other informal variations), disjunctions of BSD3 / GPL (ie dual licensing), conjunctions of BSD3 / GPL (ie some bits user BSD some under GPL). Duncan

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[Hackage] #193: add a --with-package-conf= flag to configure
by Hackage 29 Feb '08

29 Feb '08

#193: add a --with-package-conf= flag to configure ---------------------+------------------------------------------------------ Reporter: duncan | Owner: Type: defect | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: Component: Cabal | Version: 1.2.3.0 Severity: normal | Keywords: Difficulty: normal | Ghcversion: 6.8.1 Platform: Linux | ---------------------+------------------------------------------------------ From http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=317803 {{{ Consider adding a --with-package-conf= flag to the configure command, or the register command. }}} There is partial support for this internally in Cabal, though only for GHC of course. We have to decide if and how we want to present this feature given that it is currently GHC-only. Could it be done in a way that allows other implementations to provide a similar feature in future without us having to change the Cabal user interface? -- Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/193> Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/> Hackage: Cabal and related projects

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patch applied (cabal): -Wall clean, remove unused import
by Duncan Coutts 29 Feb '08

29 Feb '08

Fri Feb 29 15:21:29 PST 2008 Duncan Coutts <duncan(a)haskell.org> * -Wall clean, remove unused import M ./Distribution/Simple/Hugs.hs -1 +1 View patch online: http://darcs.haskell.org/cabal/_darcs/patches/20080229232129-adfee-7ce4f6de…

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patch applied (cabal): Document configure --package-db flag
by Duncan Coutts 29 Feb '08

29 Feb '08

Fri Feb 29 15:06:14 PST 2008 Duncan Coutts <duncan(a)haskell.org> * Document configure --package-db flag M ./doc/Cabal.xml +14 View patch online: http://darcs.haskell.org/cabal/_darcs/patches/20080229230614-adfee-acb02cf6…

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patch applied (cabal): Reformat License declaration and add related TODOs
by Duncan Coutts 29 Feb '08

29 Feb '08

Fri Feb 29 14:49:32 PST 2008 Duncan Coutts <duncan(a)haskell.org> * Reformat License declaration and add related TODOs The real difficulty with changing the license stuff is the parser in current and older cabal versions is very fragile, it parses using Read so only recognises those exact enum values and if parsing fails, then parsing the whole .cabal file fails. We really need to make this more permissive for all the enumerations so that we can make changes in future. M ./Distribution/License.hs -8 +32 View patch online: http://darcs.haskell.org/cabal/_darcs/patches/20080229224932-adfee-1373bcf2…

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