Cabal API: getting the online package list

[Duncan Coutts]

On 22 March 2011 17:42, Frank Murphy <anirishduck at gmail.com> wrote:
> I was poking around the source for cabal-install while investigating a
> (hopeful) GSoC product. One thing seems a little odd to me: is there a
> reason that, for example, getAvailablePackages isn't in a separate library?
> Or is similar functionality in a different package than Cabal already and I
> just haven't found it (doing a search for "cabal" on Hackage didn't appear
> to turn up anything)?
> For context, I'm trying to build a graph of install dependencies for an
> (uninstalled) package.

It'd be great to split a hackage client library out of cabal-install.
Its certainly been on my (very long) TODO list, and there might be a
ticket for it. It might make a good part of a GSoC project. In
addition to clients that gather statistics, it'd be useful for
automated "build bot" type clients.

Duncan