Can you explain why the modular solver filters out '--enable-tests' for packages without tests? It doesn't seem like it should affect the generated dependency list.
It's the natural thing to do. The modular solver will not even generate a choice node in the search tree if there aren't any test stanzas, so an --enable-test constraint will simply have no effect on such a package. The only other option would be to generate such a node for every single package, but that'd just make the search tree larger for no benefit.
(I still want to patch the Cabal lib for this because it made me aware of the fact that the 'test' phase behaves differently from every other phase, but now I will postpone it until I do the other fixes the test runner needs.)
Right. I agree. But it should become an independent fix then, right? Cheers, Andres -- Andres Löh, Haskell Consultant Well-Typed LLP, http://www.well-typed.com