Haskell Platform

Release Notes:

• Works on 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, and even 10.10 beta!
• Works with both gcc and clang based systems.
• Distributed with a build of GHC 7.8.3 that differs from the released bindist in two ways: a) it was built split-objs for smaller resulting executables, b) it includes Cabal-1.18.1.4 which fixes a particularly nasty problem with haddock, -XCPP, and clang based systems. This ghc-7.8.3 bindist is already incorporated into the installer above, but for reference is available here: ghc-7.8.3-x86_64-apple-darwin-r3.tar.bz2
• Includes a new experimental activate-hs command that can switch between multiple installed versions of the platform
• The cabal command is wrapped to provide a smoother file layout on the Mac. The wrapping only updates the

/.cabal/config file the first time you run it. Please pay attention to its output. If you have a custom config file, you’ll want to update it, as Cabal’s defaults have changed.

General Notes:

The command line development tools are required prior to installation.
If you have /usr/bin/ld available in a shell, you should be good to go. If not:

On OS 10.7 or later, choose one of the following:

Download and install Command Line Tools for Xcode. Despite the name, you don’t need Xcode installed!

After installing Xcode (4.3 or later), choose Preferences, then pick the Downloads panel. There you can download and install the Command Line Tools as an optional component. This installs the same package as listed in the above option.

If you have Xcode prior to 4.3, depending on how you installed it, you may already have the command line tools. If not, consider the first option above.

On OS 10.6, 32-bit, use Xcode 3.2 or later: Choose the «Customize…» button during installation and choose UNIX Development. 64-bit version requires Xcode 4.1 or later.

The command line tools and/or Xcode can be downloaded for free from Apple’s developer website, you do need to register as a developer (also free).

Windows

Release Notes:

• Works on 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, and even 10.10 beta!
• Works with both gcc and clang based systems.
• Distributed with a build of GHC 7.8.3 that differs from the released bindist in two ways: a) it was built split-objs for smaller resulting executables, b) it includes Cabal-1.18.1.4 which fixes a particularly nasty problem with haddock, -XCPP, and clang based systems. This ghc-7.8.3 bindist is already incorporated into the installer above, but for reference is available here: ghc-7.8.3-x86_64-apple-darwin-r3.tar.bz2
• Includes a new experimental activate-hs command that can switch between multiple installed versions of the platform
• The cabal command is wrapped to provide a smoother file layout on the Mac. The wrapping only updates the

/.cabal/config file the first time you run it. Please pay attention to its output. If you have a custom config file, you’ll want to update it, as Cabal’s defaults have changed.

Linux

Release Notes:

• Works on 10.6, 10.7, 10.8, 10.9, and even 10.10 beta!
• Works with both gcc and clang based systems.
• Distributed with a build of GHC 7.8.3 that differs from the released bindist in two ways: a) it was built split-objs for smaller resulting executables, b) it includes Cabal-1.18.1.4 which fixes a particularly nasty problem with haddock, -XCPP, and clang based systems. This ghc-7.8.3 bindist is already incorporated into the installer above, but for reference is available here: ghc-7.8.3-x86_64-apple-darwin-r3.tar.bz2
• Includes a new experimental activate-hs command that can switch between multiple installed versions of the platform
• The cabal command is wrapped to provide a smoother file layout on the Mac. The wrapping only updates the

/.cabal/config file the first time you run it. Please pay attention to its output. If you have a custom config file, you’ll want to update it, as Cabal’s defaults have changed.

Downloads

There are three widely used ways to install the Haskell toolchain on supported platforms. These are:

Minimal installers: Just GHC (the compiler), and build tools (primarily Cabal and Stack) are installed globally on your system, using your system’s package manager.

Stack: Installs the stack command globally: a project-centric build tool to automatically download and manage Haskell dependencies on a project-by-project basis.

Haskell Platform: Installs GHC, Cabal, and some other tools, along with a starter set of libraries in a global location on your system.

These options make different choices as to what is installed globally on your system and what is maintained in project-specific environments. Global installations allow more sharing across users and projects, but at the cost of potential conflicts between projects. To avoid these conflicts, each option has a lightweight sandboxing feature that creates largely self-contained, per-project environments. With Minimal you can optionally sandbox the libraries, avoiding most conflicts. Stack sandboxes the compiler, tools and libraries, so avoids nearly all kinds of conflicts between projects. With Platform you can also optionally sandbox libraries, but not the globally installed platform libraries.

Haskell IDEs & other distributions

In addition to the generic, cross-platform Haskell toolchain described above, there are also easy-to-use, platform-specific distributions and IDEs. The Haskell Wiki contains a list of the most popular ones.

Minimal installers

What they are

Minimal installers provide centrally the GHC compiler and the Cabal and Stack tools for installing packages. Some may install further build tools (i.e.В for parsing and lexing) as well.

What you get

• Only the core libraries necessary for each platform are included.
• Cabal or Stack must be used to download and install packages after installation.

How to get them

• Linux
• OS X (via the core platform)
• Windows (via the core platform)

Where to get help

• For help learning Haskell itself, start with the Documentation page on the Haskell Wiki.
• If you need help with GHC—the Haskell compiler—there is a comprehensive GHC User Manual.
• For help using Cabal to download or create additional packages (see below), there is the Cabal User Guide.
• For help using Stack to download or create packages, see the stack documentation below.
• Finally, you can ask questions of other Haskell users and experts on the #haskell IRC channel on the Freenode IRC network.

Stack

What it is

Stack is a cross-platform build tool for Haskell that handles management of the toolchain (including the GHC compiler and MSYS2 on Windows), building and registering libraries, and more.

What you get

• Once downloaded, it has the capacity to download and install GHC and other core tools.
• Project development is isolated within sandboxes, including automatic download of the right version of GHC for a given project.
• It manages all Haskell-related dependencies, ensuring reproducible builds.
• It fetches from a curated repository of over a thousand packages by default, known to be mutually compatible.
• It can optionally use Docker to produce standalone deployments.

How to get it

The install and upgrade page describes how to download Stack on various platforms, although the main three are repeated here:

Instructions for other Linux distributions, including Debian, Fedora, Red Hat, Nix OS, and Arch Linux, are also available.

Where to get help

For help with Haskell and GHC in general, see the links mentioned above. For Stack itself there are also the following resources:

• The README offers a general overview, and help with installation.
• There is an in-depth guide to using Stack.
• Getting started with Stack introduces how to build new projects using Stack.
• You may post issues and feature requests on its GitHub issue tracker.
• There is a mailing list for Stack
• There is a dedicated #haskell-stack IRC channel on the Freenode IRC network.
• The StackOverflow haskell-stack tag has many stack-specific questions and answers.

Haskell Platform

What it is

The Haskell Platform is a self-contained, all-in-one installer. After download, you will have everything necessary to build Haskell programs against a core set of useful libraries. It comes in both core versions with tools but no libraries outside of GHC core, or full versions, which include a broader set of globally installed libraries.

What you get

• The Glasgow Haskell Compiler
• The Cabal build system, which can install new packages, and by default fetches from Hackage, the central Haskell package repository.
• the Stack tool for developing projects
• Support for profiling and code coverage analysis
• 35 core & widely-used packages

How to get it

The Platform is provided as a single installer, and can be downloaded at the links below.

Where to get help

• You can find a comprehensive list of what the Platform offers.
• See the general help mentioned above, which covers the usage of GHC, as well as the Cabal and Stack tools.

Additional Libraries

In Haskell, packages are configured and built with the Cabal package system built into GHC (and other compilers). For more specific details, see The Cabal User Guide. The command line tools to download and install packages are either cabal or stack , each having different workflows. For details on their usage, see the documentation above.

Hackage

Hackage is a repository of packages to which anyone can freely upload at any time. The packages are available immediately and documentation will be generated and hosted there. It can be used by cabal install.

You can install a package using cabal by running:

Note that if you are not in a sandbox, this will install the package globally, which is often not what you want, so it is recommended to set up sandboxes in your project directory by running cabal sandbox init .

LTS Haskell

LTS Haskell is a stackage-based long-term support set of packages which build and pass tests together, with backported bug fixes.

Stackage Nightly

Stackage is a nightly generated stable repository of snapshots of package sets in which only packages which build and pass tests together are bundled together into a snapshot.

From source control repositories

Installing from a source repository is also possible. For example, to clone and install the network package from source, you would run:

Haskell platform windows 32 bit

designed to get you up and running quickly, making it easy to focus on using Haskell. You get:

• the Glasgow Haskell Compiler
• the Cabal build system
• the Stack tool for developing projects
• support for profiling and code coverage analysis
• 35 core & widely-used packages

Let’s get started

Note: Users who wish to make use of stack and want to ensure they are running the latest version may want to consider running «stack upgrade» and ensuring the proper path for stack-installed binaries is in their environment.

Other Operating Systems

Mac OS X

The recommended way to install the components of the mac platform is using ghcup to install ghc and cabal-install, and following the instructions at haskellstack.org to install stack.

Homebrew Cask

To install Haskell Platform with Homebrew Cask, simply run,

Windows

The recommended way to install the components of the windows platform is using Chocolatey to install ghc and cabal-install, and following the instructions at haskellstack.org to install stack. Further details for Chocolatey usage are available here.

To get started perform these steps:

Linux

Note that distribution-packaged versions are typically behind the current platform release. If you prefer to use the latest version rather than the distribution-packaged version, then you may want to use the generic Linux installer.

• Generic
• Ubuntu
• Debian
• Redhat
• Fedora
• Mint
• Gentoo
• From Source

If you can’t find your distribution then select Generic.

Select your distribution

Please select your distribution on the right.

Generic Linux

This is a generic distribution of the Haskell Platform. While it should work on most modern Linux distributions, you may want to use one of the distribution-specific options listed on the right. As GHC links against libgmp, you may need to install «libgmp-dev» using your package manager of choice.

The recommended way to install the components of the generic platform is using ghcup to install ghc and cabal-install, and following the instructions at haskellstack.org to install stack.

Ubuntu

Haskell Platform is available in your distribution’s package repository. Note that distribution-packaged versions are typically behind the current platform release. If you prefer to use the latest version rather than the distribution-packaged version, then you may want to use the generic Linux installer.

Debian

Haskell Platform is already available in your distribution’s package repository. Note that distribution-packaged versions are typically behind the current platform release. If you prefer to use the latest version rather than the distribution-packaged version, then you may want to use the generic Linux installer.

Linux Mint

Haskell Platform is already available in your distribution’s package repository. Note that distribution-packaged versions are typically behind the current platform release. If you prefer to use the latest version rather than the distribution-packaged version, then you may want to use the generic Linux installer.

Redhat

Haskell Platform is already available in your distribution’s package repository. Note that distribution-packaged versions are typically behind the current platform release. If you prefer to use the latest version rather than the distribution-packaged version, then you may want to use the generic Linux installer.

Fedora

Haskell Platform is already available in your distribution’s package repository. Note that distribution-packaged versions are typically behind the current platform release. If you prefer to use the latest version rather than the distribution-packaged version, then you may want to use the generic Linux installer.

Gentoo

Haskell Platform is already available in your distribution’s package repository. Note that distribution-packaged versions are typically behind the current platform release. If you prefer to use the latest version rather than the distribution-packaged version, then you may want to use the generic Linux installer.

While there is a haskell-platform ebuild included in the main Portage tree, it is recommended that one uses the more up-to-date gentoo-haskell overlay. This can be done using layman ,

More details can be found in the Wiki.

Build from source

If we don’t have a binary package suitable for your distribution you can build the Haskell Platform from source.

Download and extract the source tarball,

See the README file for build instructions.