Hi Alfonso,
Probably you've already considered this option but, How about a cabal build-posthook
I considered lots of options with hooks at loads of different points, but couldn't figure out what the right point is :-)
a) detects if the database-generating program is present (I asume it's only present in the darcs version)
That's easy enough to do. The other alternative is to detect if the databases I want to install aren't present, and generate them only then.
b) if present, generates the databases and puts them in the location supplied in the cabal file.
I'm not aware though, if configure would complain about the databases not being present at first instance.
That is also what I wondered. Also, as the hoogle binary is required to generate databases (it is called by the database generation program), I will have to find the hoogle binary at this point. Unfortunately it won't have been installed in $PATH, and I'm not sure if Cabal guarantees where it has put the binary. I'll probably try implementing something today. Thanks Neil