CODEWITHSUNDEEP
haskellcabal
user1721780
user1721780

Reputation: 349

Cabal irretrievably broken; what can I try next?

I can neither install or update packages using cabal, in fact, I get the message that Cabal is 'unusable'. I am stuck at Cabal-1.10.

So, I had the idea to manually install some packages.

First I tried 'directory': but no, that requires Distribution.Simple which is reported as 'missing'.

That issue can be resolved by installing a new version of Cabal manually: 1.16.0.1.

But no, that fails because it can't find 'directory'.

Therefore to install 'directory' I must have Cabal; to install Cabal I must have 'directory'.

This is recursion, but not the way we want it!

Are there any options to resolve this cyclic dependency other than a complete uninstall and reinstall of the Haskell Platform?

(I'm running Windows 7, by the way)

Upvotes: 3

Views: 403

Answers (1)

Daniel Wagner
Daniel Wagner

Reputation: 152682

If you have been installing everything locally (the recommended way), just nuke the GHC directory. I don't know where this is on Windows, but in *nix it's ~/.ghc, if that gives a hint. If you've been installing packages globally, then yes, reinstall the Platform (or just GHC).

In the future, you will have a much better time if you don't let cabal (re)install any of the packages in this list. You might consider upgrading cabal-install, as newer versions are much more conservative about reinstalls.

Upvotes: 5

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