Is it possible to package c code with Haskell using cabal?

Question

I have a c library that I'd like to provide an FFI interface for. This is easy enough, but I can't figure out how to get the packaging right. It would be nice to just be able to

cabal install librarybindings

and have cabal automatically build it with gcc, generate the .o file, and include that with the distribution. Right now, I can the package to compile fine, but when you go to build an executable using the bindings you have to explicitly pass ghc the .o file on the command line. Yuck.

Answer 1

Yes, you can ship C code with Haskell. See e.g.

• bytestring
• zlib
• download

By convention the C bits are put in a cbits/ directory.