#364: cabal should allow source to be installed with/added to binary packages ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Reporter: claus | 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: | ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- We have the odd situation that package sources are used for `configure`/`build`/`haddock`/`install`/.., but aren't actually managed by cabal. This makes rebuilds (eg,with different options, or for another compiler version) or reinstalls (eg, with added or modified haddocks) somewhat chancey. Unless you keep your sources in a safe place, and remember where that was, you have to start by getting the sources again. (I assume that `cabal-install` has a cache of package source tarballs somewhere, but that doesn't account for modified-before-build-and-install package sources, right?) This is also an issue for source code analysis tools, if binary versions of imported packages aren't sufficient for processing the importing source. Haddock currently works around that by (a) being integrated with cabal and (b) generating its own interface files for installed packages (`*.haddock`); but we cannot expect all tools to be integrated with cabal. If tools and users could get programatic access to the sources that were used to install a package, they could refer to those for further processing. It is slightly ridiculous that the sources may be available in html-ized form (if haddock was used with appropriate options) but not in source form. See also: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/2630 -- Ticket URL: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/364 Hackage http://haskell.org/cabal/ Hackage: Cabal and related projects