checking for a working System.Console.Readline

[Bernard James POPE]

Hi all,

In buddha I've started using System.Console.Readline for the command
line (which btw is very nice, thanks to those who made the binding).

Buddha uses autconf to configure itself. I want to check whether the
host supports System.Console.Readline.

One option is to ask ghc-package to list the available packages and
see if readline appears.

Another option is to try to compile a simple Haskell program that
imports the library, and test if it succeeds or fails.

The first option looks simpler, but I have run across machines where
ghc _thinks_ it has readline support, but in fact it is broken.
In other words the package readline is mentioned in the package
configuration, but it is broken (normally because libreadline
isn't where ghc thinks it ought to be).

Are there other (better) ways to test for this?

Cheers,
Bernie.