[Haskell-cafe] trouble building "unix-2.2.0.0" on cygwin

[Claus Reinke]

hi,

with the large number of "just chatting" messages on 
haskell-cafe, it is all too easy to miss problem reports
here. you might have a better chance asking on more
specific lists, eg. for ghc use, or library issues

http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/glasgow-haskell-users
http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/libraries

>      0) All work being done on cygwin. Version 6.8.1 of ghc.

the standard build of ghc uses cygwin tools to build a
no-cygwin ghc. in particular, ghc is not linked with the
posix-emulation libraries of cygwin, nor does it use cygwin's
compiler or linker. so, unless you've made a non-standard 
cygwin-linked ghc, the unix package is unlikely to build 
with that ghc. 

do you really need the unix package? a lot of general
functionality is available in platform-independent haskell
libraries, and some of the unix-package functionality is
available in unix compatibility packages.
 
>     1) I ran "runhaskell Setup.lhs configure" and did a "tail -f config.log"
> in order to follow the config process.
> 
>     2) Next I did the build "runhaskell Setup.lhs build" but there were
> many include files referenced in HsUnix.h that couldn't be found, e.g.
> sys/times.h, sys/resources.h, sys/wait.h, ....
> 
>    3) I went back through the file config.log and all of the so-called
> missing include files had supposedly been found during the config process.
> 
>    4) Next I went to c:/cygwin/usr/include/sys and found all of the
> so-called missing include files.
> 
>    I am trying to get my confidence level up with respect to the
> config/build/install (and along with darcs and haddock) process up high so I
> can make a significant contribution to the Haskell effort. please .. any
> help will be appreciated.

it is quite possible to work with a no-cygwin ghc in
a cygwin environment. the environment supplies the
build tools that some haskell packages and tools
need for configuration and build, then the no-cygwin 
ghc produces a no-cygwin executable (which can
be run from cygwin, or as any other windows-only
program).

that is indeed the default setup for ghc development
on windows, so darcs, haddock, etc. should work in
it, apart from a few rough edges. helping to smooth
those edges, where things that should work don't
quite work on windows, would be a significant
contribution, imho.

ideally, all haskell tools should work on windows
entirely without non-windows tools, and while that 
is not likely in the near future, many of them already
do, and reducing unix-dependencies helps to make
haskell easier to use for windows users (just as 
avoiding windows-dependencies ensures that unix
users are not excluded!-).

claus