Readme for cabal-bounds-0.3
cabal-bounds
A command line program for managing the bounds/versions of the dependencies in a cabal file.
cabal-bounds
is able to do two things:
- drop the bounds of the dependencies in the cabal file
- update the bounds of the dependencies in the cabal file using the cabal build information
Example: Raise the upper Bounds
If you have several cabalized projects, then it can be quite time consuming to keep the bounds of your dependencies up to date. Especially if you're following the package versioning policy, then you want to raise your upper bounds from time to time, to allow the building with newer versions of the dependencies.
cabal-bounds
tries to automate this update process to some degree. So a typical update process might look like:
# update the version infos of all libraries
$> cabal update
# drops the upper bound of all dependencies in 'myproject.cabal', most likely you want to ignore 'base'
$> cabal-bounds drop --upper --ignore=base myproject.cabal
# create a cabal sandbox for building of 'myproject'
$> cabal sandbox init
# build 'myproject'
$> cabal install
# update the upper bound of all dependencies in 'myproject.cabal' by the cabal build information
$> cabal-bounds update --upper --ignore=base myproject.cabal dist/dist-sandbox-*/setup-config
Example: Bound Changes
The =>
shows what the result is of the operation for every dependency. Left is the dependency before
calling the command, right the one after calling.
$> cabal-bounds drop ...
lens >=4.0.1 && <4.1 => lens
$> cabal-bounds drop --upper ...
lens >=4.0.1 && <4.1 => lens >=4.0.1
If the cabal build (the setup-config) uses lens 4.1.2
, then the results of the update
command would be:
$> cabal-bounds update ...
lens >=4.0.1 && <4.1 => lens >=4.1.2 && <4.2
lens => lens >=4.1.2 && <4.2
$> cabal-bounds update --lower ...
lens >=4.0.1 && <4.1 => lens >=4.1.2
lens <4.1 => lens >=4.1.2
lens => lens >=4.1.2
$> cabal-bounds update --upper ...
lens >=4.0.1 && <4.1 => lens >=4.0.1 && <4.2
lens >=4.0.1 => lens >=4.0.1 && <4.2
lens => lens >=4.1.2 && <4.2
You can also specify which component of the version number should be updated:
$> cabal-bounds update --lowercomp=minor ...
lens >=4.0.1 && <4.1 => lens >=4.1.2
$> cabal-bounds update --lowercomp=major2 ...
lens >=4.0.1 && <4.1 => lens >=4.1
$> cabal-bounds update --lowercomp=major1 ...
lens >=4.0.1 && <4.1 => lens >=4
$> cabal-bounds update --uppercomp=minor ...
lens >=4.0.1 && <4.1 => lens >=4.0.1 && <4.1.3
$> cabal-bounds update --uppercomp=major2 ...
lens >=4.0.1 && <4.1 => lens >=4.0.1 && <4.2
$> cabal-bounds update --uppercomp=major1 ...
lens >=4.0.1 && <4.1 => lens >=4.0.1 && <5
Options
You can restrict the modification to certain sections in the cabal file by specifing the type and the name of the section:
--library
--executable=name
--testsuite=name
--benchmark=name
If you omit these options, then all sections are considered and modified.
You can also restrict the modification of dependencies by specifing which dependencies should only or shouldn't be modified:
--only=name
--ignore=name
If you omit these options, then all dependencies are considered and modified.
All options taking a name can be specified multiple times:
e.g. --executable=exe1 --executable=exe2
or --ignore=base --ignore=whatever
Please consult cabal-bounds --help
for a complete list of options.
Installation
You have to ensure, that the Cabal
library of cabal-bounds
matches the one used by the cabal
binary:
$> cabal --version
cabal-install version 1.18.0.2
using version 1.18.1 of the Cabal library
$> cabal install --constraint="Cabal == 1.18.1" cabal-bounds
If you update the cabal
binary and the used Cabal
library changes, then you have to rebuild cabal-bounds
.
Issues
Perhaps the currently most annoying thing is, that you have to live with the reformating of your
cabal
file done by the pretty printer of the Cabal
library.
To reformat your cabal
file without changing any bounds you can call cabal-bounds
with the name of
a section that isn't present in the cabal
file:
$> cabal-bounds drop --executable=blub myproject.cabal