Hi Duncan, thanks a lot for your answers.
however, haskell-hdbc insists on depending on version 1.0.1.
That's because the haskelldb-hdbc depends on exactly HDBC ==1.0.1
http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/haskelldb-hdbc
I haven't been able so far to find what configuration file to modify in order for it to try to build with the latest Cabalized version (I admit I didn't search much).
If you want to update haskelldb-hdbc then just change the .cabal file to adjust the version constraints on the HDBC package and fix any issues arising from the update (eg api changes).
Yes, I finally found that setting and tried to build it against hdbc-1.1.5 : it fails and fixing this code is far above my current capabilities so I wouldn't be able to update it myself yet. This being said, I have found this http://darcs.haskell.org/haskelldb/driver-hdbc/haskelldb-hdbc.cabal which would tend to indicate that someone has already updated haskelldb-hdbc to hdbc 1.1.4+. I assume the person(s) who did these changes has(have) not been able to push them into hackage yet. I'll be trying to work with it. If I can get something out of it, I'll try to contact the last patches authors and discuss pushing that version to hackage.
I'm sure the maintainers would appreciate your patches since they seem not to have any time to do the updates themselves.
I certainly understand that, I will make any patches of mine public as soon as I get something to work.
Are the databases interface for haskelldb still officially maintained and where is this information available ?
I would guess not. The .cabal file lists haskelldb-users@lists.sourceforge.net as the maintainer. You might check the archives for signs of activity or send an email there.
I have subscribed to the list which seems utterly desert, I haven't contacted any past author though yet but will do so.
Is the information that this and that package are compatible (or not) with ghc 6.8.x or 6.10.1 available somewhere without compiling first hand the packages ?
Yes. On the package page it lists build failures for ghc-6.8 and 6.10
Yes, thanks, I noticed that a few minutes after posting my initial mail :)
What would you recommend at this point : fix hsql, or haskelldb-hdbc so it uses 1.1.5 instead of 1.1, try an alternative to haskelldb (are there any ?) ?
If you need the high level api provided by haskelldb then yes fix it. If not then just use HDBC directly.
I will be trying the aforementioned "updated" version first, if it doesn't work, I'll definitely fix the existing one if that doesn't imply more than newbie level haskell skills. The high level API and type safety provided by haskelldb are the reason why I want to experiment with it. My company has just begun to use the C# Entity Framework which notably allows C# programs to manipulate databases using LINQ constructs, and the comparison with haskelldb will probably be very interesting. I have no doubt that the environment provided by Microsoft is much more advanced and complete than what haskelldb can currently provide, yet I have hope that this will lead people here to at least keep an eye on haskell capabilities. Thanks again for your anwsers ! Regards, Laurent