The Cabal (common architecture for building applications and libraries) is a type of

package manager A package manager or package management system is a collection of software tools that automates the process of installing, upgrading, configuring, and removing computer programs for a computer in a consistent manner. A package manager deals wi ...

to aid in packaging and distributing software packages, in the forms of

application software Application software is any computer program that is intended for end-user use not operating, administering or programming the computer. An application (app, application program, software application) is any program that can be categorized as ...

and

libraries A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

, for the

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

Haskell Haskell () is a general-purpose, statically typed, purely functional programming language with type inference and lazy evaluation. Designed for teaching, research, and industrial applications, Haskell pioneered several programming language ...

History

Cabal was introduced to simplify packaging of Haskell software and modules. It was added to the

Glasgow Haskell Compiler The Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC) is a native or machine code compiler for the functional programming language Haskell. It provides a cross-platform software environment for writing and testing Haskell code and supports many extensions, libra ...

in version 6.4 as the default package manager, alongside GHC's internal manager ''ghc-pkg''. Its approach has changed significantly over the course of its development, moving from global package installation to sandboxed builds, and eventually a Nix-inspired solution of local builds with global caching, which became the default in 2019.

Use

Cabal packages provide a standard set of

metadata Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive ...

and build process; thus, it is possible to develop tools to upload Cabal packages to the

CPAN The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) is a software repository of over 220,000 software modules and accompanying documentation for 45,500 distributions, written in the Perl programming language by over 14,500 contributors. ''CPAN'' can de ...

-like community repository of software, Hackage, or even allow automated

download In computer networks, download means to ''receive'' data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar systems. This contrasts with uploading, where data is ''sent to'' a remote ...

ing,

compiling In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs tha ...

, and installing of desired packages from Hackage.

References

External links

* {{Haskell programming Free software programmed in Haskell Free package management systems Software using the BSD license