Haskell packaging questions

[Andrew McNabb]

I recently came across an issue in a package review where I would
appreciate guidance.  In particular, I have never dealt with Haskell
packages before, and I haven't been able to find enough detail in the
Haskell Packaging Guidelines to answer my questions:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Haskell

It seems that there's a tool called cabal2spec that autogenerates spec
files for Haskell programs.  However, the spec files that it outputs are
a little unusual.

The spec file I'm reviewing has no %package sections and no %files
sections.  Instead, there is a reference to a "%{?ghc_lib_package}"
macro that implicitly defines the package and two subpackages.  The
Haskell Packaging Guidelines don't seem to describe how all of the magic
works, so I'm not quite sure what standards I'm supposed to use in my
review.  Here's a link to the package request:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=662258

It looks like other Haskell libraries are packaged in a similar way, but
it's enough different from most packages that the Package Review
Guidelines don't seem to cleanly apply.  I would appreciate advice on
how to proceed.  Thanks.

-- 
Andrew McNabb
http://www.mcnabbs.org/andrew/
PGP Fingerprint: 8A17 B57C 6879 1863 DE55  8012 AB4D 6098 8826 6868

[Lakshmi Narasimhan T V]

Hi Andrew,

Please have a look at the review template here
[1]<http://narasim.fedorapeople.org/haskell_review_template.txt>;. Some
items from the Package review guidelines which do not apply are
marked [NA].

The cabal2spec program generates the template for the .spec file from the
.cabal file. Then the packager modifies certain values and thats about it.
The macros used in the template come from /etc/rpm/macros.ghc. There are
cases were there is a need to add some files not picked by the macros and
that has been done. Eg
[2]<http://petersen.fedorapeople.org/ghc-gtk/ghc-gtk.spec>

For haskell packaging/review related queries ,  you could also mail to
fedora-haskell-list(a)redhat.com  or ask at #fedora-haskell .

-Thanks

On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 12:38 AM, Andrew McNabb <amcnabb(a)mcnabbs.org&gt; wrote:

>  I recently came across an issue in a package review where I would
>  appreciate guidance.  In particular, I have never dealt with Haskell
>  packages before, and I haven't been able to find enough detail in the
>  Haskell Packaging Guidelines to answer my questions:
>
>  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Haskell
>
>  It seems that there's a tool called cabal2spec that autogenerates spec
>  files for Haskell programs.  However, the spec files that it outputs are
>  a little unusual.
>
>  The spec file I'm reviewing has no %package sections and no %files
>  sections.  Instead, there is a reference to a "%{?ghc_lib_package}"
>  macro that implicitly defines the package and two subpackages.  The
>  Haskell Packaging Guidelines don't seem to describe how all of the magic
>  works, so I'm not quite sure what standards I'm supposed to use in my
>  review.  Here's a link to the package request:
>
>  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=662258
>
>  It looks like other Haskell libraries are packaged in a similar way, but
>  it's enough different from most packages that the Package Review
>  Guidelines don't seem to cleanly apply.  I would appreciate advice on
>  how to proceed.  Thanks.
>
>  --
>  Andrew McNabb
>  http://www.mcnabbs.org/andrew/
>  PGP Fingerprint: 8A17 B57C 6879 1863 DE55  8012 AB4D 6098 8826 6868
>  --
>  devel mailing list
>  devel(a)lists.fedoraproject.org
>  https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
>  


-- 
Regards
Lakshmi Narasimhan T V

[Andrew McNabb]

On Sat, Jan 29, 2011 at 08:33:13AM +0530, lakshminaras2002(a)gmail.com wrote:
>  
>  The cabal2spec program generates the template for the .spec file from the
>  .cabal file. Then the packager modifies certain values and thats about it.
>  The macros used in the template come from /etc/rpm/macros.ghc. There are
>  cases were there is a need to add some files not picked by the macros and
>  that has been done. Eg
>  [2]<http://petersen.fedorapeople.org/ghc-gtk/ghc-gtk.spec> 
Wouldn't it be more clear if cabal2spec generated the %files and
%packages sections rather than using a really complicated macro?  As a
reviewer, I feel like there is no way to tell what the spec file is
doing.  I can't even tell which packages it's going to create unless I
actually run rpmbuild and look at what files show up.

-- 
Andrew McNabb
http://www.mcnabbs.org/andrew/
PGP Fingerprint: 8A17 B57C 6879 1863 DE55  8012 AB4D 6098 8826 6868

[Jens-Ulrik Petersen]

Very late reply... sorry it took me rather longer
finally to finish the new packaging draft than I had hoped.

>  Wouldn't it be more clear if cabal2spec generated the %files and
>  %packages sections rather than using a really complicated macro? As a
>  reviewer, I feel like there is no way to tell what the spec file is
>  doing. I can't even tell which packages it's going to create unless I
>  actually run rpmbuild and look at what files show up. 
Perhaps it would but the downside to that is that every time
we want to change the packaging we then have to edit and
update 100+ .spec files which is not so fun.  Refactoring
it into the macros makes maintenance a lot easier:
essentially it is all just boilerplate since the packaging
of every Haskell Cabal-based library is essentially the same.

I hope the new revised draft helps to make things clearer:

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingDrafts/Haskell

I have also updated cabal2spec to add more comments
and links to the Packaging Guidelines pages to make
things more transparent.

Thanks, Jens