[HOpenGL] GHC 6.2.1 Binding Completeness

[Sven Panne]

[ I'm cross-posting this, perhaps some kind soul has binary snapshots available. ]

Yann Morvan wrote:
> [...] I recently installed the last version of GHC (6.2.1) that comes
> with the new OpenGL binding. I was just starting to port my code to it,
> but I have trouble finding some basic functionnalities (like glTexImage2D for 
> instance). Is that binding incomplete ?

Alas, no, the OpenGL binding on the release branch is not complete.

> If yes when will it be finished ? If no when will the redbook examples be ported to it ?

The story is quite a bit different on the main branch, the binding is almost
finished there, you get OpenGL 1.5 plus a few dozen extensions. The only missing
bit is currently NURBS, but it's already halfway there. We generally don't
merge new features onto the release branch, only bug fixes, hence the difference.

Currently there are "official" releases including this, but if you can tell a
bit about your intended platform, perhaps somebody else on the GHC/Hugs mailing
lists can help (Linux, WinDoze, MacOS X and Solaris reportedly work). I can offer
bleeding edge snapshots of Hugs and GHC including the latest and greatest OpenGL/GLUT
binding compiled for x86 Linux (SuSE 9.1, don't know if the RPMs work on other platforms).

Another option is building GHC and/or Hugs from CVS for yourself, which is not
that hard nowadays (at least if you have enough GB and GHz :-), see:

    http://haskell.org/ghc/docs/latest/html/building/building-guide.html

> I am reduced to greping the code of the binding for calls to the C openGL
> functions and suspect that I am missing things.

Thanks to Haddock, there is no need for grep-ing. I keep the docs on

    http://haskell.org/HOpenGL/newAPI/

fairly actual, and the GHC packages include similar documentation.

Cheers,
    S.