Just released: cabal 3.8.1.0

[Mikolaj]

I’m proud to announce 3.8.1.0 version of Cabal the library and cabal-install the tool. It’s the fruit of concerted effort of innumerous collaborators, from users, through developers, to mentors, caretakers and administrators of our linked community and infrastructure sections. You, people, rock.

This version works with the just released GHC 9.4.1 (in fact, for Windows it’s probably necessary) and is already available from GHCup and other channels. More technical details, APIs, changelogs and regressions can be found at Release cabal v3.8.1.0 · haskell/cabal · GitHub.

The release is huge, so let me mention only a few random highlights:

• public/private sublibraries are fully supported and no longer experimental (6. Package Description — Cabal 3.8.1.0 User's Guide)
• you can now put in your cabal.project something like import: https://www.stackage.org/lts-18.5/cabal.config and it works (7. cabal.project Reference — Cabal 3.8.1.0 User's Guide)
• new Cabal-syntax and cabal-install-solver packages have been split off
• there’s no more confusion of compiler options for the local code and for the dependencies (https://github.com/haskell/cabal/pull/7973)
• one can now define code generators in test stanzas, which is one more principled step away from Custom Setups (https://github.com/haskell/cabal/pull/7688)

Cabal badly needs your feedback and your contributions. Please keep them coming.

[carbolymer]

Awesome! I was looking forward to cabal run scripts caching:

$ cat ./script.hs          
#!/usr/bin/env cabal
{- cabal:
build-depends: base
             , shell-conduit
default-extensions:
-}

import           Data.Conduit.Shell

main :: IO ()
main = run $ do
  pacman "-Q" $| wc "-l"
  date
$ time ./script.hs 
1390
Fri 12 Aug 09:55:37 CEST 2022
./script.hs  0.56s user 0.14s system 99% cpu 0.712 total
$ time ./script.hs
1390
Fri 12 Aug 09:55:39 CEST 2022
./script.hs  0.03s user 0.02s system 96% cpu 0.053 total

[andreabedini]

I just wanted to add that cabal 3.8.1.0 includes my very first (modest) contribution to the project. It has been a pleasure working with the team! Go find 'em on GitHub!

[Mikolaj]

Actually, it includes more than one contribution from you, not counting the dev env improvements. Both much appreciated.

[janus]

@hasufell I noticed GHCup still recommends Cabal 3.6.2.0 and not 3.8.1.0. I am wondering why that is, is there some serious problem with the 3.8.1.0 release?

[Kleidukos]

Yes, there are many user-visible regressions

[Mikolaj]

The good news is that cabal 3.10, to be released RSN, fixes all major and many minor regression of 3.8.1.0, many older bugs and many new and unique regressions that cropped up between 3.8 and 3.10 and got revealed in pre-releases.