Integrating editline with ghc

[Manuel M T Chakravarty]

Ian Lynagh:
> On Sun, Jan 27, 2008 at 04:41:37PM +1100, Manuel M T Chakravarty  
> wrote:
>>
>> My conclusion:
>>
>> * The readline package stays as it is (stays GPL).
>
> I definitely agree with this.
>
>> * We add the new editline package (as a boot package) including
>> Editline.Readline as the compatibility layer (is BSD3).
>
> And this.
>
>> * GHC uses configure magic to pick editline when available and
>> readline otherwise.
>
> I think GHC should just always use editline. We already need to  
> support
> using an in-tree editline for Windows, so we can also use it on other
> platforms where editline isn't easily available or is too old. Also
> supporting readline just makes the build system more complicated for
> little extra benefit, and also means that there are more  
> configurations
> to bitrot.

Sure if you want to add another library into the tree that's an  
option.  However, I am not so sure whether it's going to be as easy as  
with GMP.  AFAIK libedit (which is the editline port used in Linux  
distributions - <http://www.thrysoee.dk/editline/>) needs (n)curses.   
Their web page says somebody managed to compile on cygwin, but there  
is no mention of mingw.  So, before committing to use editline/libedit  
on all platforms, it might be useful to make sure editline compiles  
fine everywhere.

Manuel