#8244: Removing the Cabal dependency ------------------------------------+------------------------------------- Reporter: nh2 | Owner: Type: bug | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: Component: Compiler | Version: 7.6.3 Keywords: | Operating System: Unknown/Multiple Architecture: Unknown/Multiple | Type of failure: None/Unknown Difficulty: Unknown | Test Case: Blocked By: | Blocking: Related Tickets: | ------------------------------------+------------------------------------- GHC depends on cabal, which is so far has been problematic many times, for many reasons. A few discussions include: * http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2013-September/108746.html * http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/ghc-devs/2013-March/000821.html GHC uses only a very small part of Cabal, in these files: {{{ ./compiler/ghci/Linker.lhs ./compiler/main/Packages.lhs ./compiler/main/PackageConfig.hs ./compiler/main/Finder.lhs }}} plus 1 file for ghc-pkg: ./utils/ghc-pkg/Main.hs (see http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2013-September/108750.html for details). It was proposed that either * the package format could be a plain specification without direct code dependencies * the Cabal package could be split off into Cabal-the-build-system and a minimal part to describe the package DB to be shared by Cabal and GHC The Cabal part that is used is in only a few modules of Distribution.* while the remaining majority of the Cabal-the-library package is not used (e.g. none of Distribution.Simple.*). Decoupling GHC and Cabal seems to be a public desire, yet there are some problems with these approaches. Let us discuss them in this ticket. -- Ticket URL: http://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/8244 GHC http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ The Glasgow Haskell Compiler