How to work together with cabal-3 and ghc (ghc-pkg, too)? - haskell

Question

With the release of cabal-3, the packages from Hackage are installed in a new location that the compiler ghc and ghc-pkg know nothing about.
In other words, packages are installed but not registered for ghc. Ghci, ghc, ghc-pkg cannot work.
For example,
cabal install safe --lib
Create file t1.hs
import Safe
t1 = tailMay [1,2,3]
Let's try:
> ghci t1.hs
GHCi, version 8.10.2: https://www.haskell.org/ghc/:? for help
[1 of 1] Compiling Main (t1.hs, interpreted)
t1.hs: 1: 1: error:
Could not find module `Safe '
Use -v (or `: set -v` in ghci) to see a list of the files searched for.
|
1 | import Safe
| ^^^^^^^^^^^
Failed, no modules loaded.
This bug is described here
https://github.com/haskell/cabal/issues/6262
and here
https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc/-/issues/17341
I use as a temporary solution setting a system variable
GHC_PACKAGE_PATH=C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\cabal\store\ghc-8.10.2\package.db;
(Windwos 10, haskell-dev by chocolatey)
via
On Windows, packages installed with cabal seem to be unavailable in ghc/ghci
but with updates I will have to manually change this system variable.
Are there any more elegant solutions to this problem?
P.S. Unfortunately, this solution (via GHC's environment variable GHC_PACKAGE_PATH) is incompatible with Cabal :(
https://github.com/haskell/cabal/issues/1944

Answer 1

One way to achieve this is to use the --env flag to make the libraries available to GHC whenever you are in the current directory:
~ $ mkdir /tmp/foo
~ $ cd /tmp/foo
/tmp/foo $ cabal install safe --lib --env .
Resolving dependencies...
Build profile: -w ghc-8.8.3 -O1
In order, the following will be built (use -v for more details):
- safe-0.3.19 (lib) (requires build)
Configuring library for safe-0.3.19..
Preprocessing library for safe-0.3.19..
Building library for safe-0.3.19..
…
> Installing library in /home/jojo/.cabal/store/ghc-8.8.3/incoming/new-4056/home/jojo/.cabal/store/ghc-8.8.3/safe-0.3.19-92fbaef88124b4508ce447f6245bc793f7a1748247ae68d10e449150df1069af/lib
t1.hs
/tmp/foo $ cat > t1.hs
import Safe
t1 = tailMay [1,2,3]
/tmp/foo $ ls -a
. .. .ghc.environment.x86_64-linux-8.8.3 t1.hs
/tmp/foo $ ghci t1.hs
GHCi, version 8.8.3: https://www.haskell.org/ghc/ :? for help
Loaded package environment from /tmp/foo/.ghc.environment.x86_64-linux-8.8.3
[1 of 1] Compiling Main ( t1.hs, interpreted )
Ok, one module loaded.
*Main>
Note that you probably shouldn’t do this in a directory where you actually have a foo.cabal file. See the documentation of cabal v2-install for details.

Answer 2

Working with GHC_ENVIRONMENT is better:
setx GHC_ENVIRONMENT C:\Users\me\.ghc\x86_64-mingw32-8.10.2\environments\default
it helps for ghc and ghci.
After, in C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\cabal\config we should add
package-db: C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\cabal\store\ghc-8.10.2\package.db
it helps for cabal.
Unfortunately, ghc-pkg still has problem and works with such flag:
ghc-pkg list --user-package-db="C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\cabal\store\ghc-8.10.2\package.db"
For Linux the steps are similar.