installing dependencies in haskell

Question

I was trying to install cabal-dev in my mac. After cloing, I tried to run ./bin/build. to get this error message.

cabal: cannot configure cabal-dev-0.9.1. It requires MonadRandom ==0.1.*, tar
==0.3.*, test-framework >=0.3 && <0.6 and test-framework-hunit >=0.2
There is no available version of MonadRandom that satisfies ==0.1.*
There is no available version of tar that satisfies ==0.3.*
There is no available version of test-framework that satisfies >=0.3 && <0.6
There is no available version of test-framework-hunit that satisfies >=0.2

What's wrong with this? How do I install the dependency files in Haskell? I downloaded and installed from Haskell platform.

Answer 1

You don't have to use that build script; you can install cabal-dev just by running cabal install cabal-dev, which will automatically download and install cabal-dev and its dependencies.

But if you do want to use it, try cabal install --only-dependencies in cabal-dev's source directory first (the one with cabal-dev.cabal in it). That script's purpose is to avoid avoid installing into the global and user package databases — basically, it uses the same sandboxing cabal-dev itself does. It's probably not worth the effort, since cabal-dev installs just fine like every other program.

Answer 2

Issue the command cabal install cabal-dev. It will resolve the dependencies for you, assuming you have the standard cabal dist.