cabal build --ghc-options="-fforce-recomp -Wall -fno-code" fails - haskell

Question

I have some cabal failures after scaffolding my haskell project using the holy-project.
I don't think the issue is related to that plugin (seems more like general cabal question) because I could reproduce it starting from a standard cabal init. I'd be surprised if the issue is related to SublimeHaskell either as many people seem to be using it.
Here is the cabal file that was generated (I simplified/shortened it a bit):
(the holy-project generates some example source files along)
name: test-holy
version: 0.1.0.0
build-type: Simple
cabal-version: >=1.10
library
exposed-modules: TestHoly
, TestHoly.Swallow
, TestHoly.Coconut
build-depends: base >=4.7 && <4.8
ghc-options: -Wall
hs-source-dirs: src
default-language: Haskell2010
cabal build works
The following command does not work:
$ cabal clean && cabal configure && cabal build --ghc-options="-fforce-recomp -Wall -fno-code"
cleaning...
Resolving dependencies...
Configuring test-non-holy2-0.1.0.0...
Building test-non-holy2-0.1.0.0...
Preprocessing library test-non-holy2-0.1.0.0...
[1 of 3] Compiling TestHoly.Coconut ( src/TestHoly/Coconut.hs, nothing )
[2 of 3] Compiling TestHoly.Swallow ( src/TestHoly/Swallow.hs, nothing )
[3 of 3] Compiling TestHoly ( src/TestHoly.hs, nothing )
[1 of 3] Compiling TestHoly.Coconut ( src/TestHoly/Coconut.hs, nothing )
[2 of 3] Compiling TestHoly.Swallow ( src/TestHoly/Swallow.hs, nothing )
[3 of 3] Compiling TestHoly ( src/TestHoly.hs, nothing )
ar: dist/build/TestHoly.o: No such file or directory
ar: dist/build/TestHoly/Swallow.o: No such file or directory
ar: dist/build/TestHoly/Coconut.o: No such file or directory
From what I understand, due to the -fno-code flag (Omit code generation) no object files are generated hence the linker fails. Is that expected? Or should the linker not have been called?
Why am I running that cabal command?
As I said earlier on: I'm using SublimeText to edit my project. It fails on the project-holy generated cabal file with the following message:
Build FAILED
REMAINING STDERR:
Warning: the following files would be used as linker inputs, but linking is not being done: dist/build/TestHoly.dyn_o dist/build/TestHoly/Swallow.dyn_o dist/build/TestHoly/Coconut.dyn_o
ghc: no input files
Usage: For basic information, try the `--help' option.
Through the discussion on SublimeHaskell#158 I followed the suggestion by nh2 to run this cabal command directly (because it's the one used by SublimeHaskell).
I'd appreciate if someone can shed a light on this!
Version info
$ cabal --version
cabal-install version 1.18.0.5
using version 1.18.1.4 of the Cabal library
$ ghc --version
The Glorious Glasgow Haskell Compilation System, version 7.8.3
$ system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType
Software:
System Software Overview:
System Version: OS X 10.10 (14A389)
Kernel Version: Darwin 14.0.0

Answer 1

This is a known issue in cabal.
See https://github.com/haskell/cabal/issues/1176
If you don't pass -fforce-recomp you might be ok for incremental checking and only hit the error when you needed to do a clean build.
But absent that, cabal just doesn't know what to do when ghc doesn't actually compile things...