Cabal-install 3.8.1.0 no longer passes through ghc-options on install

[lierdakil]

Describe the bug

As per title, cabal install ignores --ghc-options. This is changed from 3.6.

To Reproduce
Compare:

$ cabal-3.6.2.0 v2-install --ghc-option=-foo hello --verbose 
// irrelevant...
/home/livid/.ghcup/bin/cabal-3.6.2.0 act-as-setup --build-type=Simple --
configure --verbose=2 --builddir=dist --ghc
// boilerplate...
--ghc-option=-hide-all-packages --ghc-option=-foo // <== here! the option is passed through
// more irrelevant
ghc: unrecognised flag: -foo // <== as expected

Usage: For basic information, try the `--help' option.

cabal-3.6.2.0: Failed to build
hello-1.0.0.2-0dbbae9b57058f3d4ff9f9e497f74f6444d6d82befb75c49e4ce49000b6f36a7.
The failure occurred during the configure step.

$ cabal-3.8.1.0 v2-install --ghc-option=-foo hello --verbose
// irrelevant...
/home/livid/.ghcup/bin/cabal-3.8.1.0 act-as-setup --build-type=Simple --
configure --verbose=2 --builddir=dist --ghc
// boilerplate...
--ghc-option=-hide-all-packages // <== here! the option is not passed through!
// irrelevant
Completed    hello-1.0.0.2 (all, legacy fallback)

Expected behavior

I don't know if this change is intentional, but as I couldn't find anything mentioning this specifically in the changelog, I'm guessing not.

System information

• Operating system: Linux x86_64
• cabal, ghc versions: cabal 3.8.1.0, ghc 9.0.2.

Additional context

Passing --ghc-options=-optl-static etc is actually pretty convenient in some cases. Besides, it's rather surprising that configuration options are ignored on install in the first place.

[jneira]

Hi, many thanks for the report.
TBH i cant believe such a bug had not been catched by the test suite, but i just reproduced it locally 🤦

Possible workarounds (the usual ones):

• Add ghc-options field in the cabal file (using common stanzas if you want to apply them to various components)
• Add cabal.project with

package package-to-apply-options
  ghc-options: -foo

or

package *
  ghc-options: -foo

Of course those workarounds do not work to install remote packages.

I wonder if #7973 is related
//cc @patrickdoc

[gbaz]

@patrickdoc did you get a chance to look at this?

[patrickdoc]

Reviewing my notes on #7998 , I believe the root issue here is that "hello" is not a local package.

Internally, options are applied:

• globally (all packages in the build)
• locally (all packages being built from sources referenced in the current cabal.project)
• per-package (i.e. apply X to package Y)

In this case, "hello" is classified as a "remote" package instead of "local", so the command-line flags are not applied.

[gbaz]

Hrm. Do you think that we should change cabal install to record ghc-options and other program options as per-package scoped to the package the install command is run on?

I think that would be the least surprising behavior, and hopefully a fairly minimally invasive change (since it just affects the single command).

[Mikolaj]

@patrickdoc: ping?

[Mikolaj]

@patrickdoc: hopeful ping again?

[Mikolaj]

A fix in progress: #8779.

[Mikolaj]

@patrickdoc: thank you!

We hope this is fixed in #8779, which I'm backporting to 3.10 right now. Please reopen if not.