Re: hackage importer problem

[Federico Beffa]

John J Foerch <address@hidden> writes:

> Hello,
>
> I'm seeing a problem with the hackage importer with the git-annex
> package:
>
>   $ guix import hackage git-annex
>   Syntax error: unexpected token : custom-setup (at line 316, column 0)
>   Syntax error: unexpected end of input
>   guix import: error: failed to download cabal file for package 'git-annex'
>
> git-annex.cabal is here:
>
>   http://hackage.haskell.org/package/git-annex-6.20160808/git-annex.cabal
>
> Is it a bug in the importer?

Hi,

the hackage importer only support packages using 'Build-type' of
type 'Simple'.  The packages in question uses a 'Build-type' of type
'Custom'.  See

https://www.haskell.org/cabal/users-guide/developing-packages.html#package-descriptions

I've not studied the variant 'Custom' of 'Build-type', so I could be
wrong.  But, looking at the 'git-annex' Cabal file the only offending
part is the section starting with the header 'custom-setup' on line
316.  Making the parser recognize this type of section should not be
too difficult.  If you are interested, take a look at the file
'guix/build/cabal.scm', line 149.  That's where we define the tokens for
the supported section types and where a new section of type
'custom-build' would have to be added (with related functions).

Regards,
Fede