HP 2013.2 RC1 Mac OS X Installers

[Mark Lentczner]

Johan asked me a great question about installing HP release candidates on
Mac OS X, and I thought the answer would be of general interest:

On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 8:55 AM, Johan Tibell <johan.tibell at gmail.com> wrote:

> I always want to try out new RCs when they are released, but I'm always
> worried I'll screw up my current install. Can these happily coexist next to
> old versions of the platform and random GHC binary installs I have?
>

Multiple HPs can exist side-by-side *so long as they are different GHC
versions*. Nothing in the older install will get clobbered..... *EXCEPT*,
the "bare" symlinks in /usr/local/bin will point at the newer version. For
example, after installing both the last HP, and this RC1, I now have:

/usr/bin/ghc@           ->
/Library/Frameworks/GHC.framework/Versions/7.6.3-x86_64/usr/bin/ghc
/usr/bin/ghc-7.4.2@     ->
/Library/Frameworks/GHC.framework/Versions/7.4.2-i386/usr/bin/ghc-7.4.2
/usr/bin/ghc-7.6.3@     ->
/Library/Frameworks/GHC.framework/Versions/7.6.3-x86_64/usr/bin/ghc-7.6.3


The following executables in /usr/bin are symlinked in both versioned and
non-versioned forms:

ghc ghc-pkg ghci haddock [set 1]


These executables in /usr/bin and docs are linked only bare, and will end
up pointing to the new ones:

hpps hpc hsc2hs runghc runhaskell [set 2]
alex cabal happy patch-ghc-settings uninstall-hs [set 3]
/usr/share/man/man1/ghc.1
/usr/share/doc/ghc


You can reset the executables in [set 1] and  [set 2], as well as the docs,
to a particular version with:

sudo /Library/Frameworks/GHC.framework/Versions/*<version>*/Tools/create-links
dummy /Library/Frameworks /usr


Note that this will *not* update the links for the executables marked [set
3], though usually using later versions of those executables is no problem.


If I could install a RC without disrupting my current setup (not changing
> the ghc, etc symlinks would be a bonus) I'd be much more likely to try them
> out!
>

This would be a good option for a re-worked installer. However, installers
with user options on Mac OS X are a bit tricky both to develop and for
users to use....

 - Mark
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