Splitting a big Cabal package into small ones

[Henning Thielemann]

 I'm still thinking about how to manage splitting a big Cabal package into
an easily portable core package and sub-packages for special features,
while still presenting everything as a single project.

 People have proposed using the CPP preprocessor, but I want to keep this
out of my Haskell modules. The radical way is splitting a big Cabal
package into smaller ones. But then the Haddock documentation is also
split (namely the contents and index file), the sub-packages must be
downloaded and compiled separately, in the right order (I know that
cabal-get will simplify that). Further on the project will be shipped by
Cabal in separate archives, and I guess I have to duplicate the directory
structure for my project (module A.B.C goes to sub-package X and module
A.B.D goes to sub-package Y) and I have complicated recompilations after
changes in the core package. Even more I always have to install the
recompiled core before I can access it from a sub-package.

 I tried to solve the problem by composing a user dependent Cabal file
from small Cabal files in the configure phase. That is I divide the big
Cabal file into small ones for each sub-package. Then 'Setup.lhs
configure' is implemented that way, that it finds out the dependencies of
the sub-packages and configures them in the right order. If one
configuration fails, the sub-package and all its dependents are excluded.  
I merge the successfully configured sub-packages into a big Cabal file.
 This method let me still handle the project as one unit, the Haddock
documentation is merged and no intermediate installations of packages are
necessary on recompilation. However this technique is not optimal because
foreign packages may depend on special features provided by sub-packages
which are not installed on a particular machine.

To sum it up, what I need is:

Things that shall remain together:
 Haddock documentation
 Files for distributed source archive

Things that shall be split:
 package identifiers for special features

Don't bother:
 compiled files


Any new ideas?