File locations for cabal-install

[Isaac Jones]

Alson Kemp <alson at alsonkemp.com> writes:

>> A question for the group:
>>    Where should cabal-install's various files go?
>> 
>> Note:
>>   None of the cabal-install files is dependent on a particular
>> version
>> of Cabal or GHC, so the files do not need to be stored in
>> versioned-directories (e.g. Cabal-1.1.5 or Cabal-1.1.5/ghc-6.4.2).
>> 
>> Files:
>>    server.list - one line config file with the Hackage server
>> location,
>> basically never modified;
>>    package.list - the listing of packages available on the Hackage
>> server;
>>    packages/ - the directory in which all of the downloaded packages
>> are stored.
>> 
>> Options:
>>    1) Proper: /etc/server.list,

Definitely!

>> /var/local/lib/cabal-install/package.list,
>> /var/local/lib/cabal-install/packages/.  A bit dogmatic and I'm not
>> sure how it maps onto non-*nix systems, but it's the Right Thing to
>> do
>> on *nix.

I don't know about /var/local.  There's nothing in that directory on
my Debian system.  /var/lib maybe, or /var/cache.

>>    2) Easy: everything goes in $lib-prefix/cabal-install.  Isn't the
>> prettiest solution, but it's functional.  Maps onto Windows well. 
>> Users will never directly see or use these files, so
>> $lib-prefix/cabal-install.  (GHC does this with its package.conf.) 

I think that'll be broken for Debian which doesn't want random files
in /usr/lib changing that much.

peace,

  isaac