MacOSX - cabal install: built failed during the building phase. The exception was: ExitFailure 1 - dist/package.conf.inplace: inappropriate type

Question

using cabal; came accross this error.

did cabal install and this happened.

failed during the building phase. The exception was: ExitFailure 1

checked my log; it said:

dist/package.conf.inplace: inappropriate type

I have 0 ideas what's going on. cabal build works though. #STRANGE

CURRENTLY:

CABAL version: 1.22.0.0. Glorious Glasgow Haskell Compilation version: 7.8.4

Answer 1

You can get this error if you previously built your package with an older (or newer) version of Cabal and now are building with a newer (or older) version.

Not enough information to determine whether this is the problem in your case.

If it is, I think cabal clean should fix it (though I usually just rm -rf dist).

Answer 2

Possible explanation: you have upgraded GHC to 7.10, which does things a bit differently I gather, but not upgraded cabal-install. If this is the problem, running

cabal install cabal-install -w ghc-7.8.4 # or whatever other version of GHC you have

may fix the problem.