The Haskell Cabal A Common Architecture for Building Applications and Tools Isaac Jones Simon Peyton Jones Simon Marlow Malcolm Wallace Ross Patterson The Haskell Library and Tools Infrastructure Project is an effort to provide a framework for developers to more effectively contribute their software to the Haskell community. This document specifies the Common Architecture for Building Applications and Tools(Cabal), which contributes to the goals of the Haskell Library and Tools Infrastructure Project. Specifically, the Cabal describes what a Haskell package is, how these packages interact with the language, and what Haskell implementations must to do to support packages. The Cabal also specifies some infrastructure (code) that makes it easy for tool authors to build and distribute conforming packages. The Cabal is only one contribution to the Library Infrastructure project. In particular, the Cabal says nothing about more global issues such as how authors decide where in the module name space their library should live; how users can find a package they want; how orphan packages find new owners; and so on. The Cabal has been discussed by the implementors of GHC, Nhc98, and Hugs, all of whom are prepared to implement it. The proposal is now open for wider debate. Please contribute by emailing <
[email protected]>. 1 The Haskell Cabal 1. The Haskell Package System: goals The Haskell Package System (Cabal) has the following main goal: to specify a standard way in which a Haskell tool can be packaged, so that it is easy for consumers to use it, or re-package it, regardless of the Haskell implementation or installation platform.