Compiling Haskell (.hs) in windows to a exe

Question

Is it possible to compile a set of .hs haskell files into a exe in windows? .hs -> .exe

Answer 1

Absolutely. Install the Haskell Platform, which gives you GHC, a state-of-the-art compiler for Haskell.

By default it compiles to executables, and it works the same on Linux or Windows. E.g.

Given a file:

$ cat A.hs
main = print "hello, world"

Compile it with GHC:

$ ghc --make A.hs
[1 of 1] Compiling Main             ( A.hs, A.o )
Linking A.exe ...

Which you can now run:

$ ./A.exe
"hello, world"

Note, this was under Cygwin. But the same holds for native Windows:

C:\temp>ghc --make A.hs
[1 of 1] Compiling Main             ( A.hs, A.o )
Linking A.exe ...

C:\temp>A.exe
"hello, world"

Answer 2

For people who never compiled anything at all, it also might be useful to know that "C:\temp>" in the example by Don Stewart points to the folder in which .hs should be. For example, if you have a folder under your user account, say "C:\Users\Username\Haskell\" in which you have your hello.hs file, you open command prompt by typing cmd, when it opens, you'll see "C:\Users\Username>". To compile you file type the following:

ghc Haskell\hello.hs

So the entire line should look like:

C:\Users\Username>ghc Haskell\hello.hs

Provided you have no any mistypes, you should be able to see the result in the same folder as you have your hello.hs file.