From: Bayley, Alistair
The result is that a user of Takusen can't easily use the library with ghci/runhaskell "out of the box", unless they have the full set of DBMS client libraries installed.
I forgot to mention that there's another difference between ghci and gnu ld: if the external library is called libxx.dll, rather than xx.dll (which is the convention on Windows, it seems), then gnu ld is still able to locate & link to it when you say -lxx, but ghci fails to find it. You have to say -llibxx to ghci for it to work. This also makes distributing the Takusen library as a single package awkward, because 1. the cabal installation detects the presence of the library and configures the package with the -lxx option 2. ghc --make passes -lxx to gnu ld, which is nice... 3. ... but ghci tries to use -lxx also, and fails. So PostgreSQL users can't use ghci with the installed package unless they're willing to re-configure/build/install and change the -l option to from -lpq to -llibpq, which breaks normal compilation with ghc, because gnu ld can't find the library when you say -llibpq. (This affects the PostgreSQL client library on Windows, which is called libpq.dll.) Alistair ***************************************************************** Confidentiality Note: The information contained in this message, and any attachments, may contain confidential and/or privileged material. It is intended solely for the person(s) or entity to which it is addressed. Any review, retransmission, dissemination, or taking of any action in reliance upon this information by persons or entities other than the intended recipient(s) is prohibited. If you received this in error, please contact the sender and delete the material from any computer. *****************************************************************