There are some instructions here for building curl with minGW http://haskell.forkio.com/Home/curl-win32 I've never needed curl myself so haven't first hand experience, but the guide is pretty recent thus one might expect it to work.

Henk-Jan van Tuyl wrote:

Curl compiles without problems on my Windows XP system. There is a HaskellWiki page [0] that describes how to compile packages with Unix scripts on Windows systems.

I did once try setting up MinGW and MSYS, just to see if I could make it work. But after many, many hours of trying to comprehend the terse documentation, I finally gave up. It's just too hard to get it to work. (I never even got as far as *trying* to build anything; I just couldn't install the tools.)

gdweber@iue.edu wrote:

I will try my hand at building a Windows binary for Sifflet and making it available for folks to download.

I too was going to have a go at this. I had a Windows VM (so I don't ruin my *real* Windows box) and I was going to set up all the junk which is apparently necessary to make C bindings build. And then I was going to build all the libraries I want but can't have, package them up into nice little installers with NSIS, and make the binary installers available for each version of the Haskell Platform. But, as I say, I utterly failed to make MinGW and MSYS actually work. I never got as far as installing HP at all!

I have recently acquired a Windows 7 system, partly for this very purpose. It's a guest host under Linux/KVM, and I think it's 32-bit Windows so it'll be a 32-bit binary, although my hardware is x86_64. Will that be okay?

Better than nothing, I'd imagine. In fact, I'm not actually sure whether there *is* a 64-bit edition of GHC itself... Anybody know?

I haven't done *anything* with Haskell on Windows yet! So the first step will be installing the Haskell Platform, which I hope will go smoothly, but the rest might take some time, if I succeed at all.

HP installs under Windows just fine from what I've seen. I know GHC used to have an issue where only the current user's search path is updated, not the global one; I haven't tested whether HP does this. (Makes it fun if you have to log in as admin to install things; then only admin can run GHC!) I was surprised and pleased to discover that HP now contains zlib. (And it works!) I was surprised and disappointed to discover that they're planning to remote OpenGL support from HP. Presumably it's impossible to build from source if you want it, so there goes the end of that! Until now, I've held off using HP because Gtk2hs won't work with it. With the new Cabalised, Windows-buildable Gtk2hs, I believe this is no longer an issue. So maybe I'll finally update my main work machine to HP.

Other options seem to be: - Asking for curl and hxt to be included in the Haskell Platform - Asking the author of hxt to split it into parts that do and do not depend on curl. But either of these would also probably take some time, if they are approved at all.

Just including Curl in HP would presumably fix the problem. (I have a vague recollection that the Hackage Darcs package secretly requires libcurl, but doesn't actually depend on the Haskell "curl" package...) It's probably generally useful enough that it could be considered. Alternatively, make it possible to build C bindings on Windows. Yeah, don't hold your breath!

So, don't hold your breath, Andrew, but I'll try.

Good luck... ;-)

Hello! I take it that the problem is that libcurl is a C library with a Unix-like build system, and that is the problem that needs Cygwin, right? I'm not a Windows expert, but having C code is perfectly fine, I guess. My 'hipmunk' library includes a whole C library. When I tried to 'cabal install' it on Windows, it worked flawlessly even if I never really did develop it for Windows. Given that the problem is building libcurl, and not the Haskell curl package, won't a binary distribution of libcurl cut it? I was thinking of [1], where there is an installer for libcurl. http://curl.haxx.se/download.html#Win32 Cheers! =) -- Felipe.

Felipe Lessa wrote:

I take it that the problem is that libcurl is a C library with a Unix-like build system, and that is the problem that needs Cygwin, right?

One needs a compiler and libraries on the one hand, and a bunch of command-line tools on the other hand. On Windows, MinGW provides the former, while Cygwin provides a package manager to install the latter. MinGW seems to be bundled with the Haskell platform on Windows, so that should be ok. The Cygwin tools however have to be installed in addition to the Haskell platform, which is no big deal, but somewhat annoying. There are two steps to be done: (1) Install the core of Cygwin, and put it in the search path after the MinGW bundled with the Haskell platform. (2) If a cabal package fails to install because some tools (bash, perl, sed, make, ...) are missing, install the missing tool using the Cygwin package manager. So a cabal package is better suited for installation on Windows if it does not depend on any command-line tools for building (or operation, of course). In practice, that means that a portable Setup.hs should contain Haskell code, not system calls to command-line tools. Tillmann

Felipe Lessa wrote:

Hello!

I take it that the problem is that libcurl is a C library with a Unix-like build system, and that is the problem that needs Cygwin, right?

No. It's completely possible to download a pre-built binary for libcurl (or just about any other OSS library, for that matter). The problem is that the Haskell "curl" package expects to just run autoconf and this will actually work. Naturally, on Windows it just complains that no such command exists and dies. (Actually, cabal-install is smart enough to detect this situation and exit gracefully, explaining what the problem is in a sane mannar. It still won't build it though.) Similar problems with Haskell packages that expect to be able to use Make, Bash scripts, run Awk and so forth. These tools do not exist on Windows. (Unless you install MSYS / MinGW.)

I'm not a Windows expert, but having C code is perfectly fine, I guess. My 'hipmunk' library includes a whole C library. When I tried to 'cabal install' it on Windows, it worked flawlessly even if I never really did develop it for Windows.

Oh, if you just want to install a library which _includes_ C code, that's usually fine. The problem is if you want to access an external C library. Cabal can't find the header files, can't run autoconf, and general chaos ensues.

Given that the problem is building libcurl, and not the Haskell curl package, won't a binary distribution of libcurl cut it?

Like I say, that part isn't the problem.

Stephen Tetley wrote:

Andrew, I was going to chastise you for being the only Windows developer who has problems with MinGW / MSYS and spreading that unpleasant internet commodity "FUD". However, I've just gone back to mingw.org and its gone from "somewhat confusing" circa the last time I installed (Christmas 2009) to "frankly abysmal". So while is was easy to install MinGW / MSys a year ago I'll willing concede that it is difficult now.

[A side issue - anyone who thinks socializing Hackage is a good idea should pay mingw.org a visit...]

I followed this guide the last time I installed:

http://www.mingw.org/faq/How_do_I_install_MSYS

Having a slightly out-of-date installation shouldn't be a problem for Haskell development.

Well, part of the issue is that it just annoys me as a matter of principle that I have to install a *Unix* emulator in order to write *Windows* software. What's up with that? But anyway, as I say, I figured I could just install the emulator on a VM, build the libraries once, and then use the binaries anywhere. Unfortunately, I was eventually forced to give up after trying to install MSYS / MinGW. You'd think you could just download a file and unzip it, or maybe run an installer... but no. That would be far too easy.

Andrew Coppin wrote:

I too was going to have a go at this. I had a Windows VM (so I don't ruin my *real* Windows box) and I was going to set up all the junk which is apparently necessary to make C bindings build. And then I was going to build all the libraries I want but can't have, package them up into nice little installers with NSIS, and make the binary installers available for each version of the Haskell Platform.

But, as I say, I utterly failed to make MinGW and MSYS actually work. I never got as far as installing HP at all!

I'm going to be a bit of a heretic here and suggest that you attack this problem from the other end. How you ask? Install Debian Testing/Unstable with Wine in a VM and cross compile to Windows. For C libraries that originate on Unix, cross compiling them on from Linux -> Windows is often easier than getting them to compile on Windows. For the Haskell stuff, install the windows version of GHC using Wine (I messed with this a bit and it worked like a charm). Erik -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Erik de Castro Lopo http://www.mega-nerd.com/

I'd agree with Stephen. I've used MinGW / msys for years and would never consider doing any open source development (especially involving C) without it. In the past, installing it has only taken a few minutes. That still looks to be the case for MinGW but it now appears that msys has been split into a confusing and long list of packages. I think that it needs a standard installer as well (in fact the combined MinGW/msys package needs one standard installer as I think it is rare these days to use one without the other.) Kevin On Aug 23, 8:53 am, Stephen Tetley wrote:

On 23 August 2010 06:12, Erik de Castro Lopo wrote:

...

I'm going to be a bit of a heretic here and suggest that you attack this problem from the other end. How you ask?

...

Install Debian Testing/Unstable with Wine in a VM and cross compile to Windows.

No - that's a completely azzback solution.

MinGW / MSYS works fine, the problem is solely that the documentation of the install procedure has gone awry, with conflicting and seemingly out of date guides on the mingw.org website.

The best solution would be to sign up to the mingw-user mailing list and ask what the currently preferred method is for installing. _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-C...@haskell.orghttp://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe