[Hackage] #880: Honour both --only-dependencies and --reinstall for cabal install command.

[Hackage]

#880: Honour both --only-dependencies and --reinstall for cabal install command.
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  Reporter:  lndbrg              |        Owner:                 
      Type:  defect              |       Status:  closed         
  Priority:  normal              |    Milestone:                 
 Component:  cabal-install tool  |      Version:  1.10.1.0       
  Severity:  normal              |   Resolution:  wontfix        
  Keywords:                      |   Difficulty:  easy (<4 hours)
Ghcversion:                      |     Platform:                 
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Changes (by duncan):

  * status:  new => closed
  * resolution:  => wontfix


Comment:

 Unfortunately it doesn't really make sense to talk about reinstalling all
 dependencies of something. Afterall, that includes base etc which either
 you cannot reinstall or do not want to reinstall. So you don't really mean
 /all/ dependencies. You mean the broken packages.

 Now cabal cannot tell when packages are broken due to missing files, only
 due to missing package dependencies. So the solution to your problem is to
 unregister the packages that have the missing files. Then `cabal install
 -only-dependencies` will do the right thing.

 So for example if you removed your ~/.cabal dir, then you can unregister
 the same packages by removing the ~/.ghc directory.

 Perhaps the proper solution here is for cabal to notice when packages are
 broken due to missing files. That will have to wait 'til cabal does better
 package management (tracking files for uninstall).

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/880#comment:1>
Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/>
Hackage: Cabal and related projects