The cabal-install package
=========================

See the [Cabal web site] for more information.

The `cabal-install` package provides a command line tool named `cabal`.
It uses the [Cabal] library and provides a user interface to the
Cabal/[Hackage] build automation and package management system. It can
build and install both local and remote packages, including
dependencies.

[Cabal web site]: http://www.haskell.org/cabal/
[Cabal]: ../Cabal/README.md

Installing the `cabal` command-line tool
========================================

The `cabal-install` package requires a number of other packages, most of
which come with a standard GHC installation. It requires the [network]
package, which is sometimes packaged separately by Linux distributions;
for example, on Debian or Ubuntu, it is located in the
"libghc6-network-dev" package.

`cabal` requires a few other Haskell packages that are not always
installed. The exact list is specified in the [.cabal] file or in the
[bootstrap.sh] file. All these packages are available from [Hackage].

Note that on some Unix systems you may need to install an additional
zlib development package using your system package manager; for example,
on Debian or Ubuntu, it is located in the "zlib1g-dev" package; on
Fedora, it is located in the "zlib-devel" package. It is required
because the Haskell zlib package uses the system zlib C library and
header files.

The `cabal-install` package is now part of the [Haskell Platform], so you
do not usually need to install it separately. However, if you are
starting from a minimal GHC installation, you need to install
`cabal-install` manually. Since it is an ordinary Cabal package,
`cabal-install` can be built the standard way; to facilitate this, the
process has been partially automated. It is described below.

[.cabal]: cabal-install.cabal
[network]: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/network
[Haskell Platform]: http://www.haskell.org/platform/

Quick start on Unix-like systems
--------------------------------

As a convenience for users on Unix-like systems, there is a
[bootstrap.sh] script that will download and install each of
`cabal-install`'s dependencies in turn.

    $ ./bootstrap.sh

It will download and install the dependencies. The script will install the
library packages (vanilla, profiling and shared) into `$HOME/.cabal/` and the
`cabal` program into `$HOME/.cabal/bin/`. If you don't want to install profiling
and shared versions of the libraries, use

    $ EXTRA_CONFIGURE_OPTS="" ./bootstrap.sh

You then have the choice either to place `$HOME/.cabal/bin` on your
`$PATH` or move the `cabal` program to somewhere on your `$PATH`. Next,
you can get the latest list of packages by running:

    $ cabal update

This will also create a default configuration file, if it does not
already exist, at `$HOME/.cabal/config`.

By default, `cabal` will install programs to `$HOME/.cabal/bin`. If you
do not want to add this directory to your `$PATH`, you can change
the setting in the config file; for example, you could use the
following:

    symlink-bindir: $HOME/bin


Quick start on Windows systems
------------------------------

For Windows users, a precompiled program ([cabal.exe]) is provided.
Download and put it somewhere on your `%PATH%` (for example,
`C:\Program Files\Haskell\bin`.)

Next, you can get the latest list of packages by running:

    $ cabal update

This will also create a default configuration file (if it does not
already exist) at
`C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Application Data\cabal\config`.

[cabal.exe]: http://www.haskell.org/cabal/release/cabal-install-latest/

Using `cabal`
=============

There are two sets of commands: commands for working with a local
project build tree and those for working with packages distributed
from [Hackage].

For the list of the full set of commands and flags for each command,
run:

    $ cabal help


Commands for developers for local build trees
---------------------------------------------

The commands for local project build trees are almost the same as the
`runghc Setup` command-line interface you may already be familiar with.
In particular, it has the following commands:

  * `cabal configure`
  * `cabal build`
  * `cabal haddock`
  * `cabal clean`
  * `cabal sdist`

The `install` command is somewhat different; it is an all-in-one
operation. If you run `cabal install` in your build tree, it will
configure, build, and install. It takes all the flags that `configure`
takes such as `--global` and `--prefix`.

In addition, `cabal` will download and install any dependencies that are
not already installed. It can also rebuild packages to ensure a
consistent set of dependencies.


Commands for released Hackage packages
--------------------------------------

    $ cabal update

This command gets the latest list of packages from the [Hackage] server.
On occasion, this command must be run manually--for instance, if you
want to install a newly released package.

    $ cabal install xmonad

This command installs one or more named packages, and all their
dependencies, from Hackage. By default, it installs the latest available
version; however, you may specify exact versions or version ranges. For
example, `cabal install alex-2.2` or `cabal install parsec < 3`.

    $ cabal list xml

This does a search of the installed and available packages. It does a
case-insensitive substring match on the package name.


[Hackage]: http://hackage.haskell.org
[bootstrap.sh]: bootstrap.sh