The Cabal library package ========================= See the [Cabal web site] for more information. If you also want the `cabal` command-line program, you need the [cabal-install] package in addition to this library. [cabal-install]: ../cabal-install/README.md Installing the Cabal library ============================ If you already have the `cabal` program --------------------------------------- In this case run: $ cabal install However, if you do not have an existing version of the `cabal` program, you first must install the Cabal library. To avoid this bootstrapping problem, you can install the Cabal library directly as described below. Installing as a user (no root or administrator access) ------------------------------------------------------ ghc -threaded --make Setup ./Setup configure --user ./Setup build ./Setup install Note the use of the `--user` flag at the configure step. Compiling 'Setup' rather than using `runghc Setup` is much faster and works on Windows. For all packages other than Cabal itself, it is fine to use `runghc`. This will install into `$HOME/.cabal/` on Unix and into `Documents and Settings\$User\Application Data\cabal\` on Windows. If you want to install elsewhere, use the `--prefix=` flag at the configure step. Installing as root or Administrator ----------------------------------- ghc -threaded --make Setup ./Setup configure ./Setup build sudo ./Setup install Compiling Setup rather than using `runghc Setup` is much faster and works on Windows. For all packages other than Cabal itself, it is fine to use `runghc`. This will install into `/usr/local` on Unix, and on Windows it will install into `$ProgramFiles/Haskell`. If you want to install elsewhere, use the `--prefix=` flag at the configure step. Using older versions of GHC and Cabal ====================================== It is recommended that you leave any pre-existing version of Cabal installed. In particular, it is *essential* you keep the version that came with GHC itself, since other installed packages require it (for instance, the "ghc" API package). Prior to GHC 6.4.2, however, GHC did not deal particularly well with having multiple versions of packages installed at once. So if you are using GHC 6.4.1 or older and you have an older version of Cabal installed, you should probably remove it by running: $ ghc-pkg unregister Cabal or, if you had Cabal installed only for your user account, run: $ ghc-pkg unregister Cabal --user The `filepath` dependency ========================= Cabal uses the [filepath] package, so it must be installed first. GHC version 6.6.1 and later come with `filepath`, however, earlier versions do not by default. If you do not already have `filepath`, you need to install it. You can use any existing version of Cabal to do that. If you have neither Cabal nor `filepath`, it is slightly harder but still possible. Unpack Cabal and `filepath` into separate directories. For example: tar -xzf filepath-1.1.0.0.tar.gz tar -xzf Cabal-1.6.0.0.tar.gz # rename to make the following instructions simpler: mv filepath-1.1.0.0/ filepath/ mv Cabal-1.6.0.0/ Cabal/ cd Cabal ghc -i../filepath -cpp --make Setup.hs -o ../filepath/setup cd ../filepath/ ./setup configure --user ./setup build ./setup install This installs `filepath` so that you can install Cabal with the normal method. [filepath]: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/filepath More information ================ Please see the [Cabal web site] for the [user guide] and [API documentation]. There is additional information available on the [development wiki]. [user guide]: http://www.haskell.org/cabal/users-guide [API documentation]: http://www.haskell.org/cabal/release/cabal-latest/doc/API/Cabal/Distribution-Simple.html [development wiki]: https://github.com/haskell/cabal/wiki Bugs ==== Please report bugs and feature requests to Cabal's [bug tracker]. Your help --------- To help Cabal's development, it is enormously helpful to know from Cabal's users what their most pressing problems are with Cabal and [Hackage]. You may have a favourite Cabal bug or limitation. Look at Cabal's [bug tracker]. Ensure that the problem is reported there and adequately described. Comment on the issue to report how much of a problem the bug is for you. Subscribe to the issues's notifications to discussed requirements and keep informed on progress. For feature requests, it is helpful if there is a description of how you would expect to interact with the new feature. [Hackage]: http://hackage.haskell.org Source code =========== You can get the master development branch using: $ git clone https://github.com/haskell/cabal.git Credits ======= See the `AUTHORS` file. Authors of the [original Cabal specification](https://www.haskell.org/cabal/proposal/pkg-spec.pdf): - Isaac Jones - Simon Marlow - Ross Patterson - Simon Peyton Jones - Malcolm Wallace [bug tracker]: https://github.com/haskell/cabal/issues [Cabal web site]: http://www.haskell.org/cabal/