Judah, Thanks for your reply, and your help.
(Although it looks like the libraries/readline/configure script might recognize these, I can't get an option to pass through.)
Actually, this is supposed to work. When running the top-level ghc configure, you should be able to just say ./configure --with-readline-libraries=/opt/local/lib --with-readline-includes=/opt/local/include [...] I just checked that this works on my machine (Tiger x86) when building 6.8.2 against MacPorts' readline. If it doesn't work for you, what errors are you getting?
I was slow to reply, in part so I could try this again with a fresh start from the tarballs. Sure enough, it now works for me. What I /was/ seeing was a successful compile and install of ghc, but no readline functionality in ghci (i.e. backspaces gave me junk).
Also, a couple of other generic questions: - Are you on x86 or PPC? (The latter is not working right yet with Leopard.)
I have both, but I've been using the x86.
- How are you bootstrapping the build of 6.8.2: are you using a pre-built binary of ghc-6.8.1, or some other way?
Yep, a binary distro of 6.8.1 was right. I must have failed to dot an 'i' somewhere before. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. John