Emailing to libraries@, please followup to cabal-devel. Here's a patch from Sigbjorn which adds --ghc-pkg-config-file= to cabal. This is an oldish patch, but I haven't stopped getting requests for this feature :) This allows you to create a "local" package config file, rather than using the --user or --global files, this is useful for in-place building, as when you're developing a set of related packages. I still have some debate about whether this patch should go in; it assumes a model of package registration where you have a config file (as opposed to a directory) which isn't the case for nhc or Hugs. But the idea doesn't seem to bother anyone but me, and the flag is clearly marked as a ghc-related flag, so I'm thinking of letting it through. Opinions? Does anyone want to massage this to work w/ the current cabal head? peace, isaac ------------------------------------------------------------ Changed paths: M /Distribution/Make.hs M /Distribution/Setup.hs M /Distribution/Simple/Build.hs M /Distribution/Simple/Configure.hs M /Distribution/Simple/GHCPackageConfig.hs M /Distribution/Simple/Install.hs M /Distribution/Simple/LocalBuildInfo.hs M /Distribution/Simple/Register.hs M /Distribution/Simple.hs M /tests/ModuleTest.hs A couple of extensions: - support for specifying what GHC package configuration file to use during (un)registration. Specified via the command-line option --ghc-pkg-config-file=<path> which is understood by 'configure', 'install', 'register', and 'unregister' commands. - better handling of package-specific header files during installation. If you use the Include-Dirs: and Includes: fields in your .cabal file to refer to package-local header files and directories, these will be created&copied during 'install'. i.e., suppose you spec the following: Include-Dirs: /usr/local/include/openssl, include Includes: include/openssl-exts.h, +openssl/openssl.h The 'install' action will emit the following ghc-pkg fields when updating/installing the GHC package: include_dirs = [ "/usr/local/include/openssl", "/path/to/your/pkg/installation/lib/directory/include"] c_includes = [ "openssl-exts.h", "openssl/openssl.h"] and creates the directory in include_dirs's second element, followed by copying openssl-exts.h into that directory. Note: - only directories that don't start with '/' are created inside the package's install directory. - Includes: entries that are prefixed with '+' are assumed to be referring to non-package header files and aren't (attempted) copied into the package's installation tree. Bit of a twiddly hack, but supporting the distinction between package and non-package header files does seem to be necessary.