Cabal (software)

The Haskell Cabal (common architecture for building applications and libraries) aids in the packaging and distribution of software packages.

History
Cabal was introduced to simplify packaging of Haskell software and modules. It was added to the Glasgow Haskell Compiler in version 6.4 as the default package manager, (alongside GHC's internal manager "ghc-pkg"). Its approach has changed significantly over the course of its development, moving from global package installation to sandboxed builds, and eventually a Nix-inspired solution of local builds with global caching, which became the default in 2019.

Use
Cabal packages provide a standard set of metadata and build process; thus, it is possible to develop tools to upload Cabal packages to the CPAN-like community repository of software, Hackage, or even allow for automated downloading, compilation, and installation of desired packages from Hackage.