Installing the Haskell Network library on Windows

Summary: This post describes how to install the Haskell network library on Windows, again.

I recently bought a new computer, and tried to install GHC 8.0.1 then upgrade the network library using Cabal. As I have come to expect, it didn't work. Using Git Bash, I got the error:

$ cabal install network-2.6.3.1
Resolving dependencies...
Configuring network-2.6.3.1...
Failed to install network-2.6.3.1
Build log ( C:\Users\Neil\AppData\Roaming\cabal\logs\network-2.6.3.1.log ):
Configuring network-2.6.3.1...
configure: WARNING: unrecognized options: --with-compiler
checking for gcc... C:\ghc\GHC-80~1.1┼║
checking whether the C compiler works... no
configure: error: in `C:/Neil':
configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details
cabal: Leaving directory '.'
cabal.exe: Error: some packages failed to install:
old-time-1.1.0.3 failed during the configure step. The exception was:
ExitFailure 77

Running -v3 shows the CC variable is being set to C:\ghc\GHC-80~1.1┼║, which looks like a buffer corruption or encoding issue. I tried my previous solution, but it didn't work. My new solution is:

$ cabal unpack network-2.6.3.1
$ cd network-2.6.3.1
$ cabal configure
... fails with a similar error to above ...
$ sh ./configure
$ cabal build
$ cabal copy
$ cabal register

I had to repeat the same pattern for the latest version of old-time, and the same pattern worked.

Another way that works is to use Stack.