Cabal init fails with 'no package name provided' if name is already taken on hackage

[Mistuke]

Describe the bug
When I do cabal init this doesn't prompt me for anything and just dies.

Guessing dependencies...

Generating LICENSE...
Warning: unknown license type, you must put a copy in LICENSE yourself.
Generating Setup.hs...
Generating CHANGELOG.md...
Generating Main.hs...
Error: no package name provided.

explicitly specifying interactive mode gets:

Should I generate a simple project with sensible defaults? [default: y] y

Guessing dependencies...

Generating LICENSE...
Warning: unknown license type, you must put a copy in LICENSE yourself.
Generating Setup.hs...
Warning: Setup.hs already exists, backing up old version in Setup.hs.save0
Generating CHANGELOG.md...
Warning: CHANGELOG.md already exists, backing up old version in CHANGELOG.md.save0
Error: no package name provided.

and the cabal file is never created. Only

CHANGELOG.md  Main.hs  Setup.hs

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

$ cabal init

Please use version-prefixed commands (e.g. v2-build or v1-build) to avoid ambiguity.

Expected behavior
A clear and concise description of what you expected to happen.

System information

• Operating system: Windows 10 (bash or powershell)
• cabal, ghc versions: 3.2.0.0 and 8.8.4

Additional context
Add any other context about the problem here.

[fgaz]

Does this happen in any directory or just in ones with specific names?

[Mistuke]

@fgaz wow.. it's... very interesting... I've tried in a number of directories and they work, but if I create a directory named monarch anywhere... cabal init fails with the error above..

[jhrcek]

It's probably because there already is package with the name like that on hackage: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/monarch
I saw issue like that in the past: #6236

[Mistuke]

Oh wow, that does sound like the issue indeed

[Mistuke]

The fix seems relatively recent. I'll try cabal 3.4 rc5

[emilypi]

Yeah, this is the dumb "if the package name already exists, it'll crap out with no reasonable error" workflow. I'm adding this to my work on #7265

[andreasabel]

Please update the title of this issue to something less generic, e.g. "Cabal init fails with 'no package name provided' if name is already taken on hackage".

[KristianBalaj]

This issue is still appearing with cabal 3.4.1.0

I named the directory streaming and the cabal init failed with the error.

[Mikolaj]

Hi @KristianBalaj,

Hi! It works fine on master branch (to be released as 3.8; I haven't tried with 3.6.2). It asks you whether you want to name the package so anyway and then proceeds fine. Please confirm.

[KristianBalaj]

@Mikolaj
The following is the behaviour with cabal 3.4.1.0, it does not ask for anything:

[Mikolaj]

@KristianBalaj: thank you for checking. I guess you need to upgrade?

[KristianBalaj]

Yeah sure, I was just reporting that in that version of cabal it is still an issue.

[Mikolaj]

Thank you again. I guess you may need (regardless of upgrading) to run cabal init in interactive mode to enable the choice. No needed on the master branch, which is interactive by default now.