Welcome to the Cabal User Guide

Getting Started

• 1. Getting Started
  • 1.1. Installing Cabal
  • 1.2. Creating a new application
  • 1.3. Running a single-file Haskell script
  • 1.4. What Next?

Cabal Guide

• 1. How to package Haskell code
  • 1.1. Introduction
  • 1.2. Using cabal init
  • 1.3. Running the program
  • 1.4. About the Cabal package structure
  • 1.5. Editing the .cabal file
  • 1.6. Modules included in the package
  • 1.7. Modules imported from other packages
  • 1.8. Building the package
• 2. How to deal with package source code
  • 2.1. Getting package source code without Cabal
  • 2.2. Fields pointing to source code repositories
  • 2.3. Source code when taking a package dependency
  • 2.4. Source code when dependency vendoring
  • 2.5. Source code as a package author or maintainer
  • 2.6. Source code as a package publisher
• 3. How to build locally like in Nix
  • 3.1. Quickstart
  • 3.2. Cookbook
  • 3.3. How it works
• 4. How to use Cabal in Windows
  • 4.1. Install the Haskell environment
  • 4.2. MSYS2 environments and packages
  • 4.3. Ensure that Cabal can call the tools it needs
  • 4.4. Ensure that Cabal can use system libraries
  • 4.5. Ensure that Cabal can call Haskell tools
  • 4.6. Complete configuration
  • 4.7. Further reading
• 5. How to use Backpack modules
• 6. How to report Cabal bugs and feature requests

Cabal Reference

• 1. Package Description — <package>.cabal File
  • 1.1. Creating a package
  • 1.2. Package descriptions
  • 1.3. Source code repository marker
  • 1.4. Hooks
  • 1.5. Custom setup scripts
  • 1.6. Autogenerated modules and includes
  • 1.7. Accessing data files from package code
  • 1.8. System-dependent parameters
  • 1.9. Conditional compilation
  • 1.10. More complex packages
• 2. Project Description — cabal.project File
  • 2.1. Conditionals and imports
  • 2.2. Specifying the local packages
  • 2.3. Taking a dependency from a source code repository
  • 2.4. Global configuration options
  • 2.5. Phase control
  • 2.6. Solver configuration options
  • 2.7. Package configuration options
  • 2.8. Advanced global configuration options
• 3. Version Control System Fields
  • 3.1. VCS kind
  • 3.2. VCS location
  • 3.3. VCS branch
  • 3.4. VCS tag
  • 3.5. VCS subdirectory
• 4. cabal-install Configuration and Commands
  • 4.1. Configuration
  • 4.2. Commands
• 5. External Commands
• 6. Setup.hs Commands
  • 6.1. Building and installing a system package
  • 6.2. Creating a binary package
  • 6.3. runhaskell Setup.hs configure
  • 6.4. runhaskell Setup.hs build
  • 6.5. runhaskell Setup.hs haddock
  • 6.6. runhaskell Setup.hs hscolour
  • 6.7. runhaskell Setup.hs install
  • 6.8. runhaskell Setup.hs copy
  • 6.9. runhaskell Setup.hs register
  • 6.10. runhaskell Setup.hs unregister
  • 6.11. runhaskell Setup.hs clean
  • 6.12. runhaskell Setup.hs test
  • 6.13. runhaskell Setup.hs bench
  • 6.14. runhaskell Setup.hs sdist
• 7. Package Description Format Specification History
  • 7.1. cabal-version: 3.14
  • 7.2. cabal-version: 3.12
  • 7.3. cabal-version: 3.8
  • 7.4. cabal-version: 3.6
  • 7.5. cabal-version: 3.4
  • 7.6. cabal-version: 3.0
  • 7.7. cabal-version: 2.4
  • 7.8. cabal-version: 2.2
  • 7.9. cabal-version: 2.0
  • 7.10. cabal-version: 1.24
  • 7.11. cabal-version: 1.22
  • 7.12. cabal-version: 1.20
  • 7.13. cabal-version: 1.18
  • 7.14. cabal-version: 1.16
  • 7.15. cabal-version: 1.12
• 8. Field Syntax Reference
  • 8.1. Notation
  • 8.2. Lists
  • 8.3. Non-terminals
  • 8.4. Build info fields
  • 8.5. Package description fields
  • 8.6. Test-suite fields

Cabal Explanation

• 1. What Cabal does
  • 1.1. A tool for working with packages
  • 1.2. What’s in a package
  • 1.3. Cabal featureset
  • 1.4. Similar systems
• 2. Package concepts
  • 2.1. The point of packages
  • 2.2. Package names and versions
  • 2.3. Kinds of package: Cabal vs GHC vs system
  • 2.4. Unit of distribution
  • 2.5. Explicit dependencies and automatic package management
  • 2.6. Portability
• 3. Stability of Cabal interfaces
  • 3.1. Cabal file format
  • 3.2. Command-line interface
  • 3.3. Functions and Types
  • 3.4. Hackage