Re: [Gtk2hs-devel] move Gtk2HsSetup.hs to gtk2hs-buildtools

[Duncan C. <dun...@go...>]

On Fri, 2010-11-26 at 00:47 +1000, Jens Petersen wrote:
> On 25 November 2010 23:26, Axel Simon <Axe...@in...> wrote:
> > You suggest that Setup.hs fails to compile if the
> > gtk2hs-buildtools package is not installed?
> 
> I hadn't really thought it through when I originally suggested it,
> but yeah pretty much... given that gtk2hs-buildtools is needed
> for nearly all the packages anyway it doesn't seem so big a deal to me.
> Anyway I understand if you prefer to keep copying Gtk2HsSetup for now. :)
> 
> Of course it might faster to write a patch for Cabal. :)

Yes. What is needs is an addition to the Cabal spec and an
implementation in the Cabal lib and cabal-install tool. We need to be
able to specify that the *build system* for the package depends on the
given packages. Currently it is assumed that the Setup.hs will just
magically compile, which means it is assumed that it depends only on the
core libs that are always available (which includes the Cabal lib).
Anyone implementing a totally custom build system runs into this
problem. It's on the TODO list for Cabal 2.x but it would not hurt to do
it sooner. Patches most welcome :-)

Duncan