Building cabal-helper-0.8.1.2 with Stack failed with 'Dependency cycle detected' error. It seems to be https://github.com/commercialhaskell/stack/issues/4265 Stack bug. As a temporary solution I added source code of cabal-helper package to vendor directory and commented out 'build-tool-depends: cabal-helper:cabal-helper-wrapper' line in the cabal-helper.cabal file. |
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app | ||
javascript | ||
src/HaskellCodeExplorer | ||
test | ||
vendor/cabal-helper-0.8.1.2 | ||
.gitignore | ||
haskell-code-explorer.cabal | ||
LICENSE | ||
README.md | ||
Setup.hs | ||
stack-8.0.2.yaml | ||
stack-8.4.3.yaml | ||
stack.yaml |
Haskell code explorer
Haskell code explorer is a web application for exploring and understanding Haskell codebases. It provides IDE-like code intelligence features such as types and documentation on hover, "go to definition", "find references" and semantic highlighting.
Examples :
- https://haskell-code-explorer.mfix.io/package/stm-2.4.5.0/show/Control/Concurrent/STM/TQueue.hs#L87
- https://haskell-code-explorer.mfix.io/package/async-2.1.1.1/show/Control/Concurrent/Async.hs#L251
- https://haskell-code-explorer.mfix.io/package/haxl-0.5.1.0/show/Haxl/Core/Monad.hs#L569
Haskell code explorer consists of an indexer, an HTTP server, and a JavaScript application. The indexer uses GHC API to create a data structure that contains detailed information about the source code of a Cabal package. The HTTP server reads that data structure into memory and responds to HTTP requests from the JavaScript application.
Motivation
Reading and understanding code is an essential part of the software development process. Understanding code in any statically typed language is much easier when code intelligence features (types on hover, go-to-definition, etc.) are available. Code intelligence for Haskell is especially useful because types are informative and precise (thanks to Haskell's purity and global type inference).
Features
-
Types (actual type, instantiated type, instance resolution tree) and documentation on hover. Types are interactive : left-click on type constructor -> go to definition, right click on type constructor -> show kind signature.
-
Go to definition
-
Find references
-
Type of each expression
Select a piece of text to get the type of each Haskell expression inside the selection. -
Semantic highlighting
Installation
git clone https://github.com/alexwl/haskell-code-explorer
cd haskell-code-explorer
To build Haskell code explorer Stack (https://docs.haskellstack.org/en/stable/README/) is needed.
At the moment Haskell code explorer supports GHC 8.2.2 and 8.0.2.
For GHC 8.2.2:
stack install
For GHC 8.0.2:
stack --stack-yaml=stack-8.0.2.yaml install
Indexing source code of a Cabal package
haskell-code-indexer
executable is responsible for indexing packages (by default index is saved to .haskell-code-explorer
directory).
A package should be built using either cabal-install or stack before indexing (cabal new-build
,cabal build
, or stack build
command should be executed).
haskell-code-indexer
requires globally installed GHC and cabal-install (cabal
). The reason for this is that haskell-code-indexer
uses cabal-helper
library https://hackage.haskell.org/package/cabal-helper to get package build information. cabal-helper
builds (at runtime) an executable linked against a version of Cabal library that was used to configure the package.
If there is no globally installed GHC on the system, then it is possible to use stack exec
command (https://docs.haskellstack.org/en/stable/GUIDE/#exec) that adds a path to GHC binaries installed by Stack to PATH
environment variable :
stack --resolver=lts-11.3 exec haskell-code-indexer -- INDEXER_OPTIONS
Examples :
Show all indexer options:
haskell-code-indexer -h
Index package :
haskell-code-indexer --package PATH
Index package with specific dist
directory:
haskell-code-indexer --package PATH --dist dist-newstyle/build/x86_64-linux/ghc-8.2.2/hpath-0.9.2
Index package built by Stack:
haskell-code-indexer --package PATH --dist $(stack path --dist-dir)
Starting HTTP Server
haskell-code-server
executable reads the package index created by haskell-code-indexer
and starts the HTTP server. The HTTP server responds to API requests and serves static assets (JavaScript files that are in haskell-code-explorer/javascript/release
directory).
Examples :
Show all server options :
haskell-code-server -h
Load the indexed package and start the server :
haskell-code-server --package PATH --port 8080 --js-path haskell-code-explorer/javascript/release
Load multiple indexed packages and start the server :
haskell-code-server --package PATH1 --package PATH2 --package PATH3 --port 8080 --js-path haskell-code-explorer/javascript/release
Open http://localhost:8080 in a browser to explore source code of the package.