I'm having trouble using Haskell and ncurses Mac OS X (10.6.6 to be precise). GHC 6.12.3 gives me a lot of trouble, and GHC 7.0.2 even more. rogue.hs, is a text adventure game in the works. $ cat rogue.hs {-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-} import Data.Text import UI.NCurses main :: IO () main = runCurses $ do win <- defaultWindow updateWindow win $ do moveCursor 10 10 drawText "Hello world! Hit 'q' to exit" render waitForQ win waitForQ :: Window -> Curses () waitForQ win = do ev <- getEvent win Nothing case ev of Just (EventCharacter 'q') -> return () _ -> waitForQ win $ sudo port install ncurses ncursesw $ cabal install ncurses Resolving dependencies... Configuring ncurses-0.2... cabal: c2hs version >=0.15 is required but it could not be found. cabal: Error: some packages failed to install: ncurses-0.2 failed during the configure step. The exception was: ExitFailure 1 Hmm. Cabal couldn't find a solution to the c2hs dependency. So I install it manually. $ cabal install c2hs $ cabal install ncurses Resolving dependencies... Configuring ncurses-0.2... cabal: Missing dependency on a foreign library: * Missing C library: ncursesw This problem can usually be solved by installing the system package that provides this library (you may need the "-dev" version). If the library is already installed but in a non-standard location then you can use the flags --extra-include-dirs= and --extra-lib-dirs= to specify where it is. cabal: Error: some packages failed to install: ncurses-0.2 failed during the configure step. The exception was: ExitFailure 1 MacPorts' ncurses isn't detected by Haskell, so I use Homebrew's. $ brew install ncursesw $ ghc --make -o rogue rogue.hs [2 of 2] Compiling Main ( rogue.hs, rogue.o ) Linking rogue ... ld: warning: in /usr/local/lib/libncursesw.dylib, file was built for unsupported file format which is not the architecture being linked (i386) It appears that the Homebrew ncurses library is x86, and GHC is x86_64, or vice-versa. $ sudo port install ncurses +universal $ sudo port install ncursesw +universal $ brew install --universal ncursesw These don't visibly improve compilation in any way. I thought updating Haskell would fix the problem. $ wget http://lambda.galois.com/hp-tmp/2011.2.0.0/Haskell%20Platform%202011.2.0.0-i... $ sudo installer -pkg "Haskell Platform 2011.2.0.0-i386.pkg" -target / $ ghc --version The Glorious Glasgow Haskell Compilation System, version 7.0.2 $ cabal --version cabal-install version 0.10.2 using version 1.10.1.0 of the Cabal library But it only made the problem worse. Now ncurses won't even build. $ cabal install ncurses Resolving dependencies... Configuring ncurses-0.2... Preprocessing library ncurses-0.2... Building ncurses-0.2... [1 of 4] Compiling UI.NCurses.Enums ( dist/build/UI/NCurses/Enums.hs, dist/build/UI/NCurses/Enums.o ) [2 of 4] Compiling UI.NCurses.Types ( UI/NCurses/Types.hs, dist/build/UI/NCurses/Types.o ) [3 of 4] Compiling UI.NCurses ( dist/build/UI/NCurses.hs, dist/build/UI/NCurses.o ) [4 of 4] Compiling UI.NCurses.Panel ( dist/build/UI/NCurses/Panel.hs, dist/build/UI/NCurses/Panel.o ) UI/NCurses/Panel.chs:49:1: Warning: The import of `UI.NCurses' is redundant except perhaps to import instances from `UI.NCurses' To import instances alone, use: import UI.NCurses() hsncurses-shim.c:5:29: error: ncursesw/curses.h: No such file or directory cabal: Error: some packages failed to install: ncurses-0.2 failed during the building phase. The exception was: ExitFailure 1 I'd settle for using hscurses, but it won't compile with GHC 7, and it has its own internal bugs besides. $ cabal install hscurses Resolving dependencies... Configuring hscurses-1.4.0.0... configure: WARNING: unrecognized options: --with-gcc checking for gcc... gcc checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out checking whether the C compiler works... yes checking whether we are cross compiling... no checking for suffix of executables... checking for suffix of object files... o checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes checking whether gcc accepts -g... yes checking for gcc option to accept ISO C89... none needed checking for addnstr in -lcurses... yes checking for addnstr in -lncurses... yes checking for waddnwstr in -lncursesw... yes checking for iconv in -liconv... yes checking for libiconv in -liconv... yes checking for libiconv... yes checking how to run the C preprocessor... gcc -E checking for grep that handles long lines and -e... /usr/bin/grep checking for egrep... /usr/bin/grep -E checking for ANSI C header files... yes checking for sys/types.h... yes checking for sys/stat.h... yes checking for stdlib.h... yes checking for string.h... yes checking for memory.h... yes checking for strings.h... yes checking for inttypes.h... yes checking for stdint.h... yes checking for unistd.h... yes checking iconv.h usability... yes checking iconv.h presence... yes checking for iconv.h... yes checking curses.h usability... yes checking curses.h presence... yes checking for curses.h... yes checking ncurses.h usability... yes checking ncurses.h presence... yes checking for ncurses.h... yes checking ncursesw/ncurses.h usability... no checking ncursesw/ncurses.h presence... yes configure: WARNING: ncursesw/ncurses.h: present but cannot be compiled configure: WARNING: ncursesw/ncurses.h: check for missing prerequisite headers? configure: WARNING: ncursesw/ncurses.h: see the Autoconf documentation configure: WARNING: ncursesw/ncurses.h: section "Present But Cannot Be Compiled" configure: WARNING: ncursesw/ncurses.h: proceeding with the preprocessor's result configure: WARNING: ncursesw/ncurses.h: in the future, the compiler will take precedence checking for ncursesw/ncurses.h... yes checking locale.h usability... yes checking locale.h presence... yes checking for locale.h... yes checking langinfo.h usability... yes checking langinfo.h presence... yes checking for langinfo.h... yes checking wchar.h usability... yes checking wchar.h presence... yes checking for wchar.h... yes checking limits.h usability... yes checking limits.h presence... yes checking for limits.h... yes checking signal.h usability... yes checking signal.h presence... yes checking for signal.h... yes configure: creating ./config.status config.status: creating hscurses.buildinfo config.status: creating cbits/config.h configure: WARNING: unrecognized options: --with-gcc cabal: Missing dependency on a foreign library: * Missing (or bad) header file: HSCurses.h This problem can usually be solved by installing the system package that provides this library (you may need the "-dev" version). If the library is already installed but in a non-standard location then you can use the flags --extra-include-dirs= and --extra-lib-dirs= to specify where it is. If the header file does exist, it may contain errors that are caught by the C compiler at the preprocessing stage. In this case you can re-run configure with the verbosity flag -v3 to see the error messages. cabal: Error: some packages failed to install: hscurses-1.4.0.0 failed during the configure step. The exception was: ExitFailure 1 Cheers, Andrew Pennebaker www.yellosoft.us