Cabal-make

Categories: Tools | Cabal | Libraries | Packages

1 Abstract

Cabal-make is an include file for GNU make files to be used with Cabal in sharing Haskell packages. It is intended mainly for package authors. People who just build & install packages software can do so entirely with Cabal commands. In particular, it's a bit hairy to get the best results from Haddock & hscolour.

2 Features

• Web-based, cross-package links in Haddock docs (documentation generated by Haddock).
• Syntax coloring via hscolour, with per-project CSS.
• Links from the Haddock docs to hscolour'd code (per-module, and per-entity).
• Links from Haddock docs to wiki-based user comment pages (per-project and per-module), with automatic subscription (for email notification).
• Set up with darcs repositories on http://darcs.haskell.org.
• Make distribution tarballs and install on server.
• Automated download and build in a fresh local temp directory for testing.
• Copy Haddock docs to server
• Generate editor tags files (via hasktags).
• Convert source files between dos-style and unix-style line endings.
• Customizable.

3 Packages using cabal-make

To get a concrete sense of the first few of the features listed above, here are some links to docs for packages that use cabal-make. (Please add your own packages to this list when you use cabal-make.)

• Phooey: a simple, arrow-based functional GUI library
• DeepArrow: a framework for composable "editors" of pure values
• TV: combined and separable packaging of functionality and interface
• GuiTV: GUIs for TV

4 Example use

On my Windows system, I've placed cabal-make at c:\Haskell\cabal-make, and I like to install Haskell packages under c:\Haskell\packages. I might write a Makefile for the package TV as follows:

user = conal
configure-dirs=--prefix=c:/Haskell/packages --datadir=c:/Haskell/packages
haddock_interfaces=\
  http://haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/libraries/base,c:/ghc/ghc-6.6/doc/html/libraries/base/base.haddock \
  http://haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/libraries/mtl,c:/ghc/ghc-6.6/doc/html/libraries/mtl/mtl.haddock \
  http://darcs.haskell.org/packages/DeepArrow/doc/html,c:/Haskell/packages/DeepArrow-0.0.1/doc/html/DeepArrow.haddock

include c:/Haskell/cabal-make/cabal-make.inc

I don't like wiring the interface paths (especially with version numbers) into my makefile, but I don't know how to avoid it. Suggestions, please.

To build TV, I run "make" with targets like "configure", "build", "doc", and "install". Or "all" (default) for all of these targets.

Darcs-related targets:

• darcs-repo: makes a repository at http://darcs.haskell.org/packages/TV
• darcs-tag: do "darcs tag" using current version (extracted from project Cabal file)
• darcs-dist: make a tarball and copy to server
• web-doc: copy docs & colored sources to the server
• test-get-build: Test by doing "darcs get", configure, and build in a fresh temp directory

The target "watch-comments" sets up a subscription to the Haskell wiki talk pages that correspond to the package's modules (for the user comment links inserted in the Haddock docs.)

There are a few other targets as well. See the source.

5 Specializing

I use a trick for collecting my favorite setting to be saved across my own packages. The file is called "my-cabal-make.inc":

user = conal
cabal-make = c:/Haskell/cabal-make
configure-dirs = --prefix=c:/Haskell/packages --datadir=c:/Haskell/packages
hscolour-css = $(cabal-make)/hscolour.css

include $(cabal-make)/cabal-make.inc

Then I just have to define haddock_interfaces and include my-cabal-make. My TV Makefile is really

haddock_interfaces=\
  http://haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/libraries/base,c:/ghc/ghc-6.6/doc/html/libraries/base/base.haddock \
  http://haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/libraries/mtl,c:/ghc/ghc-6.6/doc/html/libraries/mtl/mtl.haddock \
  http://darcs.haskell.org/packages/DeepArrow/doc/html,c:/Haskell/packages/DeepArrow-0.0.1/doc/html/DeepArrow.haddock

include ../my-cabal-make.inc

6 Dependencies

• Recent Cabal (1.1.8 or better, or get the latest from Cabal darcs repo)
• Recent Haddock (0.8.1 or better, or latest from Haddock darcs repo)
• Recent hscolour (1.7 or newer, or latest from hscolour darcs repo)
• GNU make

7 Use guidelines

• In order for cabal-make to work, you have to list each of your source modules on a line by itself, including the first one in the list (instead of placing it aside the Cabal directive). You can use "make show-modules" to see if your list of source modules is extracted correctly.
• Cabal-make assumes your source code to be under src.

8 Get it

darcs get --partial http://darcs.haskell.org/cabal-make

9 Customization

There are several customization variables defined in cabal-make that can be overriden. Simply define these variables in your makefile before "cabal-make.inc". See the "Settings" section of the source.

10 To do

• Eliminate hard-wiring the interface paths into my makefile.
• Eliminate the restrictions/assumptions listed in #Use guidelines.

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