Cabal interface changes proposal

[Krasimir Angelov]

--- isaac jones <ijones at syntaxpolice.org> wrote:
> Krasimir suggested that a single cabal package
> should only have one
> executable, but I don't agree.  I can see the
> reasons for keeping a
> one-to-one correspondence between a cabal package
> and a Haskell package,
> but I actually really like the way cabal treats
> executables right now. 
> It's much simpler than libraries since it doesn't
> require a registration
> step or anything.  It just needs to know where to
> find main and what to
> call the binary.  As Duncan and Simon pointed out,
> multiple libraries is
> actually a more complicated story.

   I agree that it is completely safe to keep the
basic structure the same. My proposal just makes the
things even simpler. 
   I would like to know a litle bit more about your
plans about executable tools. Lets imagine that there
is a library and a preprocesor which are bundled in
single package. A good example is the HDirect package
which contains the Com library and the ihc tool. ihc
translates *.idl files to Haskell modules. Is it
possible to add an additional information to the ihc's
stanza in the Setup.description that describes the
executable as a tool? In the install phase this
information can be recorded in a simple database and
after that Cabal will know that to compile the .idl
file it must use ihc tool. If this is the chosen route
then you need to register the executables as well. If
in the package there are multiple executables and some
of them requires any tool that is in the same package
then you will have dependencies between executables as
well as between libraries.
   
Cheers,
  Krasimir



		
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