a cabal/database lib experience

[Claus Reinke]

[narrowed to libraries list]

>> Sounds entirely reasonable to me.  Though configure takes a bunch of arguments;
>> so if configure is run automatically it'll always be with the default settings.
>>   Maybe that's ok.

even with default settings it might help many, though there are users
with special needs, and it would be nice to be able to break off the
process after seeing the configure output (a simple confirmation [y/n]).

it seems that neither build nor install take all that many arguments,
so any combined command could pass everything to the configure
phase (or each phase could simply leave unknown arguments alone,
to be picked up by the next phase, or by an error messager if there
is no next phase).

also, could the usage info (runhaskell Setup --help) please be amended?
something like the two extra lines on usage cycle and home page below.

claus

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
$ runhaskell.exe Setup.lhs --help
Usage: Setup.lhs [GLOBAL FLAGS]
  or:  Setup.lhs COMMAND [FLAGS]

Global flags:
  -h, -?  --help  Show this help text

+Typical usage cycle:  1. configure  2. build  3. install
+
Commands:
  configure     Prepare to build the package.
  build         Make this package ready for installation.
  clean         Clean up after a build.
  install       Copy the files into the install locations. Run register.
  copy          Copy the files into the install locations.
  sdist         Generate a source distribution file (.tar.gz or .zip).
  test          Run the test suite, if any (configure with UserHooks).
  haddock       Generate Haddock HTML code from Exposed-Modules.
  pfe           Generate Programatica Project.
  register      Register this package with the compiler.
  unregister    Unregister this package with the compiler.

For more information about a command, try 'Setup.lhs COMMAND --help'.
+
+This Setup feature has been prepared using the Haskell Cabal infrastructure.
+See http://haskell.org/cabal/ for more information.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------