Cabal-Install
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The cabal-install package provides the cabal
command-line tool which simplifies the process of managing Haskell software
by automating the fetching, configuration, compilation and installation of Haskell libraries and programs.
Those packages must be prepared using Cabal and should be present at Hackage.
As of 2020-03-15 this page is out of date. Cabal-install 3.0 switched to the v2-* class of commands, while this guide still refers to the v1-ones. See https://cabal.readthedocs.io/en/latest/nix-local-build-overview.html for more info.
Usage
Installing a package
Once you have the tool installed, installing other packages is easy. The first thing to do is to give the command:
cabal update
This will download the most recent list of packages; this must be done from time to time, to get the latest version of each package, when installing.
It is advisable to use a sandbox, to prevent version incompatibility with earlier installed packages. To initiate a sandbox, give command:
cabal sandbox init
To install Cabal packages from Hackage use:
cabal install foo
Other common variations:
cabal install Package in the current directory cabal install foo Package from the Hackage server cabal install foo-1.0 Specific version of a package cabal install 'foo < 2' Constrained package version cabal install foo bar baz Several packages at once cabal install foo --dry-run Show what would be installed cabal install foo --constraint=bar==1.0 Use version 1.0 of package bar
One thing to be especially aware of, is that the packages are installed locally by default, whereas the commands
runhaskell Setup configure runhaskell Setup build runhaskell Setup install
install globally by default. If you install a package globally, the local packages are ignored. The default for cabal-install can be modified by editing the configuration file.
Help about cabal-install can be obtained by giving commands like:
cabal --help cabal install --help
Commands
Usage:
cabal COMMAND [FLAGS]
or:
cabal [GLOBAL FLAGS]
Global flags:
-h --help Show this help text -V --version Print version information --numeric-version Print just the version number --config-file=FILE Set an alternate location for the config file --sandbox-config-file=FILE Set an alternate location for the sandbox config file (default: './cabal.sandbox.config') --default-user-config=FILE Set a location for a cabal.config file for projects without their own cabal.config freeze file. --require-sandbox Enable requiring the presence of a sandbox for sandbox-aware commands --no-require-sandbox Disable requiring the presence of a sandbox for sandbox-aware commands --ignore-sandbox Ignore any existing sandbox --ignore-expiry Ignore expiry dates on signed metadata (use only in exceptional circumstances) --http-transport=HttpTransport Set a transport for http(s) requests. Accepts 'curl', 'wget', 'powershell', and 'plain-http'. (default: 'curl') --enable-nix Enable Nix integration: run commands through nix-shell if a 'shell.nix' file exists --disable-nix Disable Nix integration: run commands through nix-shell if a 'shell.nix' file exists
Commands:
[global] update Updates list of known packages. install Install packages. help Help about commands. info Display detailed information about a particular package. list List packages matching a search string. fetch Downloads packages for later installation. user-config Display and update the user's global cabal configuration. [package] get Download/Extract a package's source code (repository). init Create a new .cabal package file (interactively). configure Prepare to build the package. build Compile all/specific components. clean Clean up after a build. run Builds and runs an executable. repl Open an interpreter session for the given component. test Run all/specific tests in the test suite. bench Run all/specific benchmarks. check Check the package for common mistakes. sdist Generate a source distribution file (.tar.gz). upload Uploads source packages or documentation to Hackage. report Upload build reports to a remote server. freeze Freeze dependencies. gen-bounds Generate dependency bounds. outdated Check for outdated dependencies doctest Run doctest tests. haddock Generate Haddock HTML documentation. hscolour Generate HsColour colourised code, in HTML format. copy Copy the files of all/specific components to install locations. register Register this package with the compiler. reconfigure Reconfigure the package if necessary. [sandbox] sandbox Create/modify/delete a sandbox. exec Give a command access to the sandbox package repository. repl Open interpreter with access to sandbox packages. [new-style projects (beta)] new-build Compile targets within the project. new-configure Add extra project configuration new-repl Open an interactive session for the given component. new-run Run an executable. new-test Run test-suites new-bench Run benchmarks new-freeze Freeze dependencies. new-haddock Build Haddock documentation [other] new-update Updates list of known packages. new-install Install packages. new-exec Give a command access to the store.
For more information about a command use:
cabal COMMAND --help
To install Cabal packages from Hackage, use:
cabal install foo [--dry-run]
If --dry-run
is specified, the packages are not installed, but a list of packages to install is given.
Occasionally you need to update the list of available packages:
cabal update
The cabal-install configuration file
You can edit the cabal configuration file to set defaults, for *nix based systems this is:
~/.cabal/config
The config file on a Windows system is
%appdata%\cabal\config
Things to put in the config file
To turn on --global by default:
user-install: False
The root-cmd configuration parameter can be used to automatically run cabal-install with root privileges on *nix based systems, when needed:
root-cmd: sudo
Installation
If you have the Haskell Platform installed, you already have cabal-install; no further action is needed.
Windows
Get a pre-built cabal.exe
from:
http://www.haskell.org/cabal/download.html
You must put the cabal.exe
in a directory that is on your %PATH%
, for example C:\Program Files\Haskell\bin
.
Unix
Download the latest cabal-install tarball from:
http://www.haskell.org/cabal/download.html
It includes a shell script bootstrap.sh
that you can run to download and install the other dependencies.
Note this assumes you have the zlib C library and its header files installed. Those header files are usually in a native system package like zlib-devel
(On debian-based systems it is zlib1g-dev
). You should also have the Haskell packages parsec
and network
installed. If you installed GHC via your native system package manager then you may also need to use it to install these two packages. (On debian-based systems they are called libghc6-parsec-dev
and libghc6-network-dev
.)
tar -zxf cabal-install-0.14.0.tar.gz cd cabal-install-0.14.0 ./bootstrap.sh
If this completes successfully you will have the cabal binary in ~/.cabal/bin
. You should either add this directory to your $PATH
or copy the cabal program to some location that is on your $PATH
, eg ~/bin
.
to get the current list of package from Hackage you should now run:
cabal update
By default the cabal tool will install programs in ~/.cabal/bin
. If you decided not to put this directory on your $PATH
then you can get cabal to symlink binaries into another directory, eg ~/bin
. To use this feature edit ~/.cabal/config
and see the symlink-bindir field
. Note that the ~/.cabal/config
file is not created until you run a cabal command for the first time, eg cabal update
.
Error reporting
Errors in cabal-install can be reported at the GitHub Cabal issues page
FAQ
I just installed packages, but now the packages are not found
This happens when you install a package globally, and the previous packages were installed locally. Note that cabal-install install locally by default and the "runhaskell Setup" commands install globally by default.
How can I uninstall packages?
There is no "cabal uninstall" command. You can only unregister packages with ghc-pkg:
ghc-pkg unregister
See also
- The Cabal page on GitHub.
- An Introduction to Cabal sandboxes
- The Cabal of Cabal, the undocumented or obscure artifices and intrigues of Cabal.
- Storage and Identification of Cabalized Packages
- Hack-Nix alternative based on the Nix package manager.
- Capri a wrapper over cabal-install and ghc-pkg to operate in project-private mode; similar to Hack-Nix but does not involve any extra software..