3. Version Control System Fields

Most of the version control system (VCS) fields types are common to both source-repository and source-repository-package stanzas.

Field Name

source-repository (head|this)

source-repository-package

type

[x]

[x]

location

[x]

[x]

branch

[x]

[x]

tag

[x]

[x]

subdir

[x] (0 or 1)

[x] (0 or 1 for each dependency)

module (CVS only)

[x]

[_]

post-checkout-command

[_]

[x]

3.1. VCS kind

Cabal supports specifying different information for various common source control systems. This is the name of the source control system used for a repository. The currently recognised types are:

  • darcs

  • git

  • svn

  • cvs

  • mercurial (or alias hg)

  • bazaar (or alias bzr)

  • arch

  • monotone

  • pijul

The VCS kind will determine what other fields are appropriate to specify for a particular version control system.

3.2. VCS location

The location of the repository, usually a URL but the exact form of this field depends on the repository type. For example:

  • for Darcs: http://code.haskell.org/foo/

  • for Git: https://github.com/foo/bar.git

  • for CVS: anoncvs@cvs.foo.org:/cvs

3.3. VCS branch

Many source control systems support the notion of a branch, as a distinct concept from having repositories in separate locations. For example CVS, SVN and git use branches while darcs uses different locations for different branches. If you need to specify a branch to identify a your repository then specify it in this field.

3.4. VCS tag

A tag identifies a particular state of a source repository. The exact form of the tag depends on the repository type.

3.5. VCS subdirectory

A field of this type is always optional because it defaults to empty, which corresponds to the root directory of the repository and is the same as specifying . explicitly.

Some projects put the sources for multiple packages inside a single VCS repository. This field lets you specify the relative path from the root of the repository to the top directory for the package, i.e. the directory containing the package’s .cabal file.