May 2009 - cabal-devel

[Hackage] #240: setup install does not preserve MacOS X resource forks
by Hackage 11 Sep '09

11 Sep '09

#240: setup install does not preserve MacOS X resource forks ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Reporter: guest | 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: | ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- I use the attached Setup.lhs file to do some Mac-related magic (which I unfortunately do not understand) on files built with wxhaskell on MacOS X. The key point about this magic is that it allows me to run a GUI from the command line. Without doing the magic, the GUI will open, but it will not react to any user interaction. I think the problem is that whatever mechanism we use to copy the binary over (say to /usr/local/bin) does not preserve the magic. That is, if I run it directly after a runhaskell Setup install, I get the non-reactive GUI. If I do a cp geni /usr/local/bin by hand, then the GUI reacts, presumably because on MacOS X cp also copies the magic over. Sorry for being so vague. Let me know if I can help in any way. -- Eric Kow -- Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/240> Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/> Hackage: Cabal and related projects

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[Hackage] #274: Add a 'build from sdist tarball' feature
by Hackage 23 Aug '09

23 Aug '09

#274: Add a 'build from sdist tarball' feature ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Reporter: guest | Owner: Type: enhancement | Status: new Priority: low | Milestone: Component: Cabal library | Version: 1.2.3.0 Severity: normal | Keywords: Difficulty: normal | Ghcversion: 6.8.2 Platform: | ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- I've often seen Darcs repos where the sdist tarball was incomplete, or where a person had a tarball which was incomplete. I think this is because most people just never use the tarball; if they do ever use it, it's because it's what was downloaded from Hackage. The reason is that doing so is much more complex than 'configure; build; install': you need to configure, create an sdist tarball, cd into dist/; do a tar -xvf or whatever of the correct tarball; cd into *that* - and then you can configure/build/install. Assuming it is a working tarball. Now, of course you can automate it. After the first dozen times, I wrote myself a shellscript to do all that for me: function build_sdist { clean_configure && sdist && cd dist/ && untar *.tar.gz && cd `ls -t ./ | grep "/" | head -n 1` && clean_configure && build && hinstall; haddock && hinstall; } (This is pretty long and imperfect, but it would be even longer if all the other aliases and function definitions were included; I think they're pretty straightforwardly named though, so I haven't included them.) It seems to me that this would be, at the very least, a useful adjunct to cabal check - if it makes sense to see whether various fields are filled out sanely, surely it makes sense to see whether needed files are included/listed? It might be even better to make the normal 'runhaskell Setup build' do it from sdist, but this is harder to code (besides the forgoing, you'd need to copy in the configuration from the top-level, from when the user ran 'runhaskell Setup configure' and added whatever options) and possibly more confusing ("But Foo.hs *is* there, right there in src/! Why can't Cabal find it?"). So I'd be satisfied to do something like 'cabal checkdist'. -- gwern -- Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/274> Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/> Hackage: Cabal and related projects

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[Hackage] #467: Add support for HPC profiling.
by Hackage 15 Aug '09

15 Aug '09

#467: Add support for HPC profiling. ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Reporter: duncan | Owner: Type: enhancement | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: Cabal-1.8 Component: Cabal library | Version: 1.6.0.1 Severity: normal | Keywords: Difficulty: normal | Ghcversion: Platform: | ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Similar to how we support ghc's "normal" profiling way, we should enable support to build packages with hpc turned on. This would also eliminate the need for people to add support on a per- package basis, see eg #430. See also #200. We should consider how to support these various flavours of profiling in a more extensible way. Different compilers have different ways, for example nhc has several (especially when used with hat). -- Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/467> Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/> Hackage: Cabal and related projects

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[Hackage] #481: License compatibility check
by Hackage 05 Aug '09

05 Aug '09

#481: License compatibility check ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Reporter: guest | Owner: Type: enhancement | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: Component: Cabal library | Version: 1.6.0.1 Severity: normal | Keywords: Difficulty: unknown | Ghcversion: Platform: | ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- It would be nice if Cabal could report license compatibility problems - e.g.: * Trying to build a BSD3-licensed package that depends on a GPL package * Trying to build a proprietary-licensed package that depends on a GPL package -- Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/481> Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/> Hackage: Cabal and related projects

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[Hackage] #411: Command to install dependencies of a package.
by Hackage 05 Aug '09

05 Aug '09

#411: Command to install dependencies of a package. ---------------------------------+------------------------------------------ Reporter: mornfall | Owner: Type: defect | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: Component: cabal-install tool | Version: 1.6.0.1 Severity: normal | Keywords: Difficulty: easy (<4 hours) | Ghcversion: 6.8.3 Platform: | ---------------------------------+------------------------------------------ Something like cabal install-deps or install --deps-only or such. We spoke about this with Duncan and this is the proposed solution to my use-case: I have a project that basically consists of a simple shebang haskell script (go.hs), which happens to have somewhat obscure dependencies. I am not interested in building a binary out of this script, nor installing it: but I'd like to use cabal to track and automatically install the dependencies for it. Hence, I would provide a cabal file, whose main purpose would be for people to run "cabal install-deps", which would enable them to run ./go.hs directly... Hopefully it is clear what I mean here... Don't hesitate to prod me if you have better suggestions, or, questions... -- Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/411> Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/> Hackage: Cabal and related projects

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[Hackage] #199: when installing a new version of GHC, there should be a way to upgrade my packages
by Hackage 18 Jul '09

18 Jul '09

#199: when installing a new version of GHC, there should be a way to upgrade my packages ---------------------------------+------------------------------------------ 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 | ---------------------------------+------------------------------------------ If I have version 6.6 of GHC installed, with packages foo, bar, and bang, and I install ghc 6.8, I'd like a way to automatically install foo, bar, and bang. This could be part of GHC's installation script possibly, or maybe a feature of cabal install. cabal can check the installed packages for the previous version of GHC and "cabal install" them. -- Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/199> Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/> Hackage: Cabal and related projects

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working on a fix for ticket #212
by Laszlo Nagy 06 Jul '09

06 Jul '09

Hi All, Trying to create unit test suite.. work in progress. Comments are more than welcome! http://sites.google.com/site/rizsotto/patches/cabal-ticket-212-v1.darcs-send As an easy start, I wrote unit tests with QuickCheck on the following files: Distribution/License.hs Distribution/Package.hs Distribution/Compiler.hs Distribution/System.hs Distribution/ModuleName.hs Distribution/PackageDescription.hs I wrote simple properties like this, for all data type > prop_parse x = x == parse $ display x I did merged the existing QuickCheck test cases into one file. I found it easier to reuse the generator functions for different types. My findings: - The System.Platform did not passed parse tests. The reason: both System.OS and System.Arch allowed the dash character in the name. But System.Platform text representation was concatenate the two strings separated by a dash. So I just simple removed the dash from them. Solved! ;) - VersionRange does not passes parse tests, iff more than two ranges is present. As far as I could see, the parse method is wired to handle only two ranges. Not corrected, because found no good solution. Need help on this! - Package.Dependency also not passes parse tests. (It is depend on VersionRange success.) - Compat.ReadR gather property is obsolete and does not compile. Can't figure it out how could I rewrite it. Need help! - PackageDescription does not passes simple parse test. I guess the problem is with the test itself! ;) I used showPackageDescription method to generate string representation of this type and parse it back. I could not judge it is an expected behaviour or a bug. Need some explanation. My problem is mainly how to run these tests? As unit tests they are pure, does not manipulate any files on disks, does not open socket or anything. (Michael Feathers use the unit test word as strict as this.) So, I expected to run them by anyone, who could compile the sources. #1 'cabal test' could be the best way to exercise them. But the user hook is so complicated for a simple 'compile and run'. Found others ignoring the arguments and call System.Cmd, execute _the compiler_. The compiler name is wired and dependencies also not visible enough, not to mention the extension handling. Basically compile by hand is against cabal! :) (Pro: the best way to invoke; Con: very hard to do) #2 Create testing flag in the cabal file, which enable an executable to be build. (Xmonad guys doing this way.) It compiles easy, developer need not worry about different compilers. Running the test can be done by hand (or darcs) or the test user hook can execute it. If the main product is a library, then it does not link against that, since the library is not installed. Instead developers specify the source dir and it recompiles the tested sources. (Pro: easy to do; Cons: does not test against library) #3 Create another cabal file. Roughly speaking it is same as #2. In my opinion it is suite best for functional tests. (Pro: easy to do; Cons: testing target must be installed first) #4 Use the QuickCheck script. Based naming convention this script runs through the sources, 'grep' the properties, and exec an interpreter to run them. (Pro: easy; Cons: interpreter name is wired in the script) #5 As a proposed long term solution: I might add a new parameter to the 'executable' region describe the target is a unit test. Compile (and run) it only on 'cabal test' invocation. (Con: It does not exists and might be hard to implement :)) Thanks for any help! Regards, Laszlo

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[Hackage] #330: Take non-haddock documentation in account
by Hackage 01 Jul '09

01 Jul '09

#330: Take non-haddock documentation in account ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Reporter: fons | Owner: Type: enhancement | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: Component: Cabal library | Version: 1.2.3.0 Severity: normal | Keywords: Difficulty: normal | Ghcversion: 6.8.2 Platform: | ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- The generation and installation of Non-Haddock documentation (README and INSTALL files, LaTeX and Docbook tutorials/guides, Haskell examples using the package in question) is not currently taken in account by Cabal. Making Cabal understand how to generate documentation for all those formats would probably be too ambitious, but it could be eased (e.g. letting the user provide Makefiles instead of creating custom hooks). More importantly, the installation of documentation would be much easier with a new package property such as "doc-files" ("data-files" nor "extra- source-files" are semantically suitable). -- Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/330> Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/> Hackage: Cabal and related projects

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[Hackage] #325: SHGetFolderPath requiered to configure cabal 1.4
by Hackage 30 Jun '09

30 Jun '09

#325: SHGetFolderPath requiered to configure cabal 1.4 ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Reporter: guest | 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: | ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- i try to install cabal with ghc 6.8.3 on XP. i get the error message GHCi could not find the following symbols SHGetFolderPath i saw some old bugs mentioning this problem - what is a current fix? -- Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/325> Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/> Hackage: Cabal and related projects

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[Hackage] #458: inconsistent use of CPPFLAGS, LDFLAGS etc with build-type Configure
by Hackage 26 Jun '09

26 Jun '09

#458: inconsistent use of CPPFLAGS, LDFLAGS etc with build-type Configure ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Reporter: duncan | Owner: Type: defect | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: Component: Cabal library | Version: 1.2.3.0 Severity: normal | Keywords: Difficulty: normal | Ghcversion: 6.8.3 Platform: | ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- We have a mismatch between the cabal Setup scripts which ignore `LDFLAGS` etc and provide `--extra-lib-dirs` instead, and some `./configure` scripts which grab the `CCFLAGS` etc and bung them into a `.buildinfo` file. This is bad because it means --extra-lib-dirs does not work for those packages and it also means that those packages consult the CCFLAGS etc and others do not. It's quite an inconsistent user interface. We should try to make it more consistent. One approach would be for cabal to consider the CCFLAGS etc, to combine them with the flags passed on the command line and those specified in the .cabal file. (We have code to analyse CC/LD/CPP flags and to split them up into the standard BuildInfo fields.) Then for configure scripts we could pass the whole lot. The danger of course is that the configure scripts duplicate it all and put it into a .buildinfo file. Another tempting option is to call configure with a clean environment so that it cannot pick up these vars. Unfortunately that might break some existing packages. We should be careful with the use of these env vars though, because while it's fine to change the user interface to cabal-install, the interface to the Setup.hs is a machine interface and the more we require of it, the more has to be implemented by every different build system. A case in point is the curl package. It has a .buildinfo file like: {{{ cc-options: @CPPFLAGS@ ld-options: @LDFLAGS@ }}} The `./configure` script checks: {{{ AC_TRY_CPP([#include <curl/curl.h>],,[no_curl=yes]) }}} Which uses the `CPPFLAGS`. So it's adding an extra package-specific user interface by consulting these environment variables. At the same time the configure script ignores the `--extra-lib-dirs=` and `--extra-include-dirs=` Setup.hs command line flags. This means that users doing what is advertised will find the package does not work. Indeed changing to `build-type: Simple` and deleting the configure script makes it work perfectly. So this mismatch is clearly harmful. See also #262 which should make these checks redundant. -- Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/458> Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/> Hackage: Cabal and related projects

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