Depending on a local package in cabal

Question

I've written a few packages containing some extra functions for dealing with common types that reflect the way I like to use them (for instance, I prefer to treat Bson documents as maps, rather than lists of fields). I keep these packages in local source directories, not on Hackage.

I would like to introduce dependencies between these packages in their .cabal files, using cabal's build-depends system. But this leads to the following error (bson-docmap being a local module):

cabal: At least the following dependencies are missing:
bson-docmap >=0.0

Is it possible to point cabal to a local directory as an alternate repository?

My current workaround is to keep all my modules in a single local package, but I would prefer to break them apart if possible.

Just install the `bson-docmap` package. Once it's installed, cabal doesn't care about its origin. — Daniel Wagner, Oct 27 '13 at 23:27

score 21 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 27 '13 at 20:12

21

If you're using Cabal sandboxes then you can add a local Cabalized directory as a source

cabal sandbox add-source path/to/project/dir

After this point it'll be available for build-depends.

answered Oct 27 '13 at 20:12

J. Abrahamson

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What if I'm not? – Filip Haglund Dec 26 '17 at 19:26
1

`cabal` does not have a `sandbox` subcommand anymore – Federico Apr 26 '23 at 11:02

score 10 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 21 '18 at 23:23

You may be able to create a ./cabal.project file with content like:

packages:
  common/
  backend/
  frontend/

And then run $ cabal new-build all.

An example of this can be seen here: https://github.com/ElvishJerricco/reflex-project-skeleton/blob/11c1feb/cabal.project

score 2 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 11 '22 at 21:48

In your cabal.project file add a new section:

source-repository-package
  type: git
  -- Normally this is a git URL, but a local path works too (but I think it must be absolute?):
  location: /path/to/your/local/bson-docmap
  -- Replace this with the commit you want to check out:
  tag: e1a47b8802d12cd221eead508c5b4d9ccd65feb4

[Note that source-repository-package is a keyword, not the name of the package you're referring to.]

Depending on a local package in cabal

3 Answers3

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