View source for Creating Debian packages from Cabal package

<span style="color: red">[WARNING: This page is *extremely* out of date and likely to be obsolete]</span>

== Packaging a Cabal library package with haskell-devscripts for unstable ==

This is a little bit outdated.  For up-to-date information about packaging for Debian, with the Debian Haskell Group, check: http://wiki.debian.org/Haskell/CollabMaint/PackageTemplate

This is the recommended way to package a Cabal library for Debian now.  Example of how a package could be created, using:

* $package as the package name
* $version as the version of the package.
* $maintainerName as the name of the maintainer
* $maintainerEmail as the email of the maintainer
* $packageShortDescription as the Cabal short description of the package
* $packageLongDescription as the Cabal long description of the package

<ol>
<li><tt>wget http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/$package/$version/$package-$version.tar.gz -O haskell-${package}_$version.orig.tar.gz</tt></li>
<li><tt>tar -zxf haskell-$package_$version.orig.tar.gz</tt></li>
<li><tt>cd $package-$version</tt></li>
<li><tt>mkdir debian</tt></li>
<li><tt><pre>cat << EOF > debian/control
Source: haskell-$package
Section: libdevel
Priority: optional
Maintainer: $maintainerName <$maintainerEmail>
Standards-Version: 3.8.1
Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 5), cdbs, dpatch, haskell-devscripts (>= 0.6.15+nmu1), ghc6, ghc6-prof
Build-Depends-Indep: ghc6-doc, haddock, hscolour
Homepage: http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/$package/package/$package

Package: libghc6-$package-dev
Architecture: any
Depends: ${haskell:Depends}, ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}
Suggests: libghc6-$package-doc (= ${binary:Version}), libghc6-$package-prof (= ${binary:Version})
Description: $packageShortDescription
 This package provides a library for the Haskell programming language.
 See http://www.haskell.org/ for more information on Haskell.
 .
 $packageLongDescription

Package: libghc6-$package-prof
Architecture: any
Depends: libghc6-$package-dev (= ${binary:Version}), ${haskell:Depends}, ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}
Description: $packageShortDescription; profiling libraries
 This package provides a library for the Haskell programming language,
 compiled for profiling.
 See http://www.haskell.org/ for more information on Haskell.
 .
 $packageLongDescription

Package: libghc6-$package-doc
Section: doc
Architecture: all
Depends: ${misc:Depends}
Recommends: ghc6-doc (>= 6.8.2)
Suggests: libghc6-$package-dev (= ${binary:Version})
Description: $packageShortDescription; documentation
 This package provides the documentation for a library for the Haskell
 programming language.
 See http://www.haskell.org/ for more information on Haskell.
 .
 $packageLongDescription
EOF</pre>
# echo 5 > debian/compat
# Create debian/copyright with your favorite editor:
<pre>Debianised by ...
Author ...
Copyright: BSD ... /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD ...
EOF</pre></tt></li>
<li><tt><pre>cat << EOF > debian/rules
#!/usr/bin/make -f

include /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/debhelper.mk
include /usr/share/cdbs/1/class/hlibrary.mk
EOF</pre></tt></li>
<li><tt><pre>cat << EOF > debian/watch
version=3
http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/$package/([\d\.]+)/$package-([\d\.]+).tar.gz
EOF</pre></tt></li>
<li><tt>dch --create -D unstable --package haskell-$package --newversion $version-1</tt></li>
<li><tt>debuild -us -uc</tt></li></ol>

== Packaging a Cabal library package in 10 easy steps ==

''This process requires the <tt>haskell-utils</tt> package.''

Here is an example on was created a new Debian package out of an Haskell [[Cabal]] library package: [http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/mtl-1.0 mtl].

<ol>
<li><tt>wget http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/mtl/1.0/mtl-1.0.tar.gz -O haskell-mtl_1.0.1.orig.tar.gz</tt></li>
<li><tt>tar -zxf haskell-mtl_1.0.1.orig.tar.gz</tt></li>
<li><tt>cd mtl-1.0</tt></li>
<li><tt>mkdir -p debian/varfiles</tt></li>
<li>Create <tt>debian/varfiles/varfile</tt> with your favorite editor:
<pre>    maintainer="Ian Lynagh (wibble) <igloo@debian.org>"
    short_description="Haskell monad transformer library for GHC"
    long_description=" MTL is a monad transformer library, inspired by the paper \"Functional
    Programming with Overloading and Higher-Order Polymorphism\",
    by Mark P Jones (<http://www.cse.ogi.edu/~mpj/>), Advanced School
    of Functional Programming, 1995."
    c_dev_libs=""
    extra_build_deps=""</pre>
(Pay attention to the leading space in <tt>long_description</tt>.  It's necessary due to the format of Debian's <tt>control</tt> file.)</li>
<li>Create <tt>debian/copyright</tt> with your favorite editor:
<pre>    Debianised by ...
    Author ...
    Copyright: BSD ... /usr/share/common-licenses/BSD ...
    EOF</pre></li>
<li><tt>dch --create -D unstable --package haskell-mtl --newversion 1.0.1-1</tt></li>
<li><tt>update-debian-haskell-files</tt></li>
<li><tt>debian/rules update-generated-files</tt></li>
<li><tt>debuild -us -uc</tt></li>
</ol>

With luck the <tt>.cabal</tt> file will provide most of the text for steps 5 and 6.

When making future changes, apart from adding a changelog entry (use <tt>dch</tt>), only steps 9 and 10 need to be repeated.

Even if packaging Haskell libraries seems easy, the [http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ Debian Policy] and the [http://www.debian.org/doc/developers-reference/ Developers Reference] contains a lot of valuable informations on how to create a policy compliant Debian package.

Please subscribe to the [http://lists.debian.org/debian-haskell/ debian-haskell] mailling-list if you are interested in creating new Haskell packages for Debian.

== Packaging a Cabal program package in N easy steps ==

TBD

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