How do I build GHC 7.6 from source?

[Ian Lynagh]

On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 12:48:13PM -0700, Iavor Diatchki wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I was just trying to build the GHC-7.6 branch from source and the build
> failed with type-errors, because the libraries used by GHC have moved on
> since the release, and "sync all" just gets the most recent version.

Use this:
    http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Building/GettingTheSources#Gettingabranch
to get the ghc-7.6 branch.

Why do you want to build 7.6 but not 7.6.1, OOI?

> More generally, I run into this problem all the time with people trying to
> build the branch I work on, so it really would be nice if we started using
> sub-modules to keep track of this dependency.  I talked to folks at ICFP
> about this, and one idea was that we could check in the "fingerprint" for a
> branch into the repo, and track the dependencies this way, but this is

See
    http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Building/GettingTheSources#Trackingthefullrepositorystate

The nightly build logs include a fingerprint.

> exactly what git's submodule machinery does, so it seems pointless to
> implement the functionality which is already there with a standard
> interface.  Thoughts?

http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/DarcsConversion#Theperspectiveonsubmodules


Thanks
Ian