`cabal sdist` contains the generated C files

[bitonic]

Currently, we put the C files generated by inline-c in the c-sources field in .cabal files. This means that the generated files end up in the tarballs, which does not make sense. I can't think of a simple way of avoiding this, if we want to keep abusing cabal to compile the C sources.

[mboes]

See #30 for a wider discussion. Of relevance here: cabal sdist does sometimes include generated files, so I think we should close this issue.

[bitonic]

The cases where they are included seem to be when the source can then be compiled again without being pre-processed, which is not the case here. Besides, even if this is happening already, I don't think it's the right thing to do.

[ekmett]

Would a custom Setup.hs that added them only in certain cabal steps be the ultimate right answer? Alternately, the cabal sdist hook could remove them if there was an associated haskell source file?

[bitonic]

@ekmett , I quickly looked at the facilities provided by Default.Simple in the Cabal library and couldn't find an easy way to do that. Did you have something specific in mind?

[ekmett]

Not off hand.

On Tue, Aug 2, 2016 at 3:11 AM, Francesco Mazzoli notifications@github.com
wrote:

@ekmett https://github.com/ekmett , I quickly looked at the facilities
provided by Default.Simple in the Cabal library and couldn't find an easy
way to do that. Did you have something specific in mind?

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[ekmett]

What about something like...

import Distribution.Simple (defaultMainWithHooks, UserHooks(..), simpleUserHooks)
import Distribution.Simple.LocalBuildInfo (LocalBuildInfo(..))
import Distribution.PackageDescription (BuildInfo(..), Library(..))

extraCSources :: [FilePath]
extraCSources = []

main = defaultMainWithHooks simpleUserHooks
  { preConf = \a cf -> do
    (l,es) <- preConf simpleUserHooks a cf
    return (Just mempty { cSources = extraCSources } `mappend` l, es)
  }

This is entirely untested, just the first thing that came to mind.

[ekmett]

That should in theory hack them into the BuildInfo for the library right before configuration. To do the other executables, you'd have to modify es appropriately.

[bitonic]

@ekmett , thanks.

I'm wondering how best to do this -- I've never used a Setup.hs that was not defaultSimple.

Is the best way to do this to provide a function ourself to use as main in Setup.hs?

Maybe we could also automatically check which C files are to be generated and add them.

[mboes]

Recent versions of Cabal allow Setup.hs to depend on packages. So you can provide such a default main function in inline-c so that users don't need to copy/paste (and get the benefit of bug fixes in the future for free).

See haskell/cabal#2515.

Stack has a way of emulating this: https://github.com/commercialhaskell/stack/blob/master/doc/yaml_configuration.md#explicit-setup-deps.

[bitonic]

this is not true anymore since we use addForeignFile