Update: for OS X, do have a look at http://ghcformacosx.github.io/
As a (somewhat) newcomer to Haskell, it's super hard for me to fully understand about these things. To be honest, at first, I wanted to just write Haskell code, but that plan didn't really work, because I didn't know how to properly install a package, how to resolve problem when doing so, how to build my Haskell projects...
So, in order to help me remember, and help other newcomers, below is a list of instructions on how to deal with many of those problems:
(For the purpose of this blog post, I had spinned off a fresh (micro small) Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit on AWS.)
As a (somewhat) newcomer to Haskell, it's super hard for me to fully understand about these things. To be honest, at first, I wanted to just write Haskell code, but that plan didn't really work, because I didn't know how to properly install a package, how to resolve problem when doing so, how to build my Haskell projects...
So, in order to help me remember, and help other newcomers, below is a list of instructions on how to deal with many of those problems:
(For the purpose of this blog post, I had spinned off a fresh (
- Installing (latest) GHC
- Go to http://www.haskell.org/ghc/ to download your latest GHC release. For example, for my Ubuntu 12.04 64 bit:
$ wget http://www.haskell.org/ghc/dist/7.6.3/ghc-7.6.3-x86_64-unknown-linux.tar.bz2
$ tar -xvf ghc-7.6.3-x86_64-unknown-linux.tar.bz2
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install libgmp3c2 build-essential # for libgmp and gcc
$ cd ghc-7.6.3/
$ ./configure
$ sudo make install- You should have the latest GHC by now (you might need to open a new terminal):
$ which ghc
/usr/local/bin/ghc
$ ghc --version
The Glorious Glasgow Haskell Compilation System, version 7.6.3- Installing (latest) Cabal
- Starting by installing and updating cabal's package list:
$ sudo apt-get install cabal-install
$ cabal update
$ sudo apt-get install zlib1g-dev # for the below step
$ cabal install cabal cabal-install # updating cabal version
$ cabal --version # might need to open a new terminal- Remember to fix your PATH variable:
$ export PATH=$HOME/.cabal/bin:$PATH # you might want to add this into your ~/.bashrc- Note: Skip this step if you already have the latest cabal version needed from the above commands. For the latest Cabal (currently 1.19x) and cabal-install (1.19x), clone the cabal Repository and install from source:
$ sudo apt-get install git # incase you don't have (g)it yet.
$ git clone https://github.com/haskell/cabal.git
$ cd cabal/
$ cabal install Cabal/ cabal-install/
$ cabal --version
cabal-install version 1.19.2
using version 1.19.2 of the Cabal library- Building your first Haskell Project
- I prefer to use Cabal Sandbox for this purpose.
- Starting with "cabal sandbox init" in your project folder:
$ cd /path/to/project/folder
$ cabal sandbox init- Continue development if needed and use runhaskell for testing / debugging purpose. (Note: there is a bug that prevents runhaskell to work properly within Cabal Sandbox folder, you will need to export GHC_PACKAGE_PATH): (ghc-pkg list for your global package database location, in my case, it's /usr/local/lib/ghc-7.6.3/package.conf.d)
$ export GHC_PACKAGE_PATH=$(pwd)/.cabal-sandbox/x86_64-linux-ghc-7.6.3-packages.conf.d:/usr/local/lib/ghc-7.6.3/package.conf.d
$ runhaskell main.hs- If a new package / dependency needs to be installed:
$ unset GHC_PACKAGE_PATH
$ cabal install <dependency>- Ready to build:
$ cabal init # fill in your project details, update main class in .cabal file, add LICENSE file
$ cabal install- Running your program:
$ .cabal-sandbox/bin/>executable>
Note: cabal install sometimes fails when looking for executables located in ~/.cabal/bin/
For example:
setup: The program happy version >=1.17 is required but it could not be found.
To install those (without touching global package database), you can follow the below steps:
$ mkdir tmp
$ cd tmp/
$ cabal sandbox init
$ cabal install happy --prefix=<PATH_TO_HOME_DIRECTORY>/.cabal/ # Note, you can not use tilde (~) for the path
$ happy --version