#262: Check for required C libraries during configure ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Reporter: guest | 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: | ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Cabal should check for required C libraries and other non-Haskell dependencies at the configure stage, rather than just waiting for the linker to fail with an obscure error message during the build stage. Error messages should be helpful for the typical Cabal user, who should not be assumed to know anything about C libraries or linking. That is not so simple. For example: The haddock package current requires the C libraries for readline, due to its dependency on the GHC API. If that library is missing, the user should have some way of figuring out how do the right thing on the given platform - for most Linux distros, install the readline-dev package (as opposed to just readline), for Mac OS X download the GNUreadline framework from the GHC website and drag it into the appropriate Frameworks folder depending on whether this is Tiger and below or Leopard and above, etc. -- Ticket URL: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/262 Hackage http://haskell.org/cabal/ Hackage: Cabal and related projects