running 'cabal build' in an empty directory creates directories before erroring.

[julialongtin]

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

$ cabal build

Expected behavior
The production of the normal error output, and no dist-newstyle folder created.

Undesired behavior

$ find dist-newstyle/
dist-newstyle/
dist-newstyle/cache
dist-newstyle/cache/compiler

System information

• debian unstable
• cabal 3.8.1.0, ghc 9.4.6

[geekosaur]

I can't reproduce with cabal 3.10.1.0 and ghc 9.6.3:

skkukuk Z$ ls
skkukuk Z$ cabal build 
Error: cabal: There is no <pkgname>.cabal package file or cabal.project file.
To build packages locally you need at minimum a <pkgname>.cabal file. You can
use 'cabal init' to create one.

For non-trivial projects you will also want a cabal.project file in the root
directory of your project. This file lists the packages in your project and
all other build configuration. See the Cabal user guide for full details.

zsh: exit 1     cabal build
skkukuk Z$ find .
.

[geekosaur]

I can't easily test 3.8.1.0 because I use XDG paths and I have a dummy file ~/.cabal in place for those rare times when I have to reinstall ghcup (I run a prerelease) and it switches me back to the "recommended" version.

[ulysses4ever]

I have a feeling that’s a dup of an old issue that was subsequently fixed. Let’s close until there’s a reproducer with the latest release?

[gbaz]

indeed should be fixed by #8627

[ffaf1]

f@x270:/tmp/prova$ cabal build
Warning: this is a debug build of cabal-install with assertions enabled.
Error: [Cabal-7136]
There is no <pkgname>.cabal package file or cabal.project file. To build packages locally you need at minimum a <pkgname>.cabal file. You can use 'cabal init' to create one.

For non-trivial projects you will also want a cabal.project file in the root directory of your project. This file lists the packages in your project and all other build configuration. See the Cabal user guide for full details.

f@x270:/tmp/prova$ cabal --version
cabal-install version 3.11
compiled using version 3.11.0.0 of the Cabal library
f@x270:/tmp/prova$

So it should be ok in master. I am closing this, reopen if needed.