Adding System.FilePath

[Neil Mitchell]

Hi,

When it comes to adding System.FilePath, we seem to have reached a
concensus of indecision, so I am going to attempt to set out the
various options, and see if we can pick one.

1) Do not let programmers type "import System.FilePath", i.e. do not
include the module

No one seems to be advocating this.

2) Let programmers type "import System.FilePath" and have it work in
Cabal Setup.hs files, and in all Cabal built programs without
requiring the user specify that they are using the filepath package.

This is what everyone wants.  Within this there are two approaches
being advocated:

a) Add to base.

b) Add as a library which we demand all Haskell compilers ship, and
tweak Cabal to automatically use this library at all times.

Option a involves absolutely no additional work for me - the patch has
been posted to this mailing list. Option b involves Cabal hacking,
establishing new procedures, coming up with a definition of libraries
which are always available etc. It is likely that option b will be
required once (if ever) base is split up. I certainly don't have time
to do option b.

So can I propose we add filepath, with this agreement that once
(someone else) gets around to doing option b, we can split it out
afterwards?

The particular argument for upgrading the filepath library I think is
not important - I never intend to do more filepath hacking. Someone
might add one or two functions, but thats about the most I can
invision. It's not a particularly pleasant job, its ugly - the only
reason I started this was because the alternative is having everything
broken on Windows - something I do care about.

Thanks

Neil