No build report UI for package candidates

[edsko]

Because cabal-install does not support package candidates explicitly, the only way for the doc builder to install a package candidate (in order to build its docs) is to do

cabal-install ... http://example.com/package/package-name-X.Y.Z/candidate/package-name-X.Y.Z.tar.gz

rather than simply

cabal-install package-name-X.Y.Z

That works ok, but when cabal-install is invoked like that it does not generate a build report, and hence we don't get build reports for candidates. We might fix this in the doc builder somehow, or else in cabal-install.

[hvr]

...according to @dcoutts, that reports are not being created for candidates, also causes candidate docs not to be uploaded (even though a proper docs tarball results from the build). Moreover, the failed-list isn't updated for candidates either, causing candidates with build failures to be rebuild over and over again.

[selinger]

Do I understand correctly, from the above thread, that when I upload a package candidate, there is currently no way of checking whether it (and in particular, the documentation) builds correctly? Because one of the main reasons for me for using package candidates in the first place is that I would like to check that everything builds correctly before officially publishing the package. Haddock is one of the most finicky components of the build process, and I also use a custom Setup.hs (mostly to work around bugs in Haddock and HsColour), so I would in particular like to check that the documentation builds correctly.

However, package candidates that I have uploaded (see e.g. http://hackage.haskell.org/package/newsynth-0.1.0.0/candidate and http://hackage.haskell.org/package/fixedprec-0.2/candidate) seem to have neither any documentation generated (even after waiting 24 hours just in case), nor any report showing the outcome of the build process.

[JoeyEremondi]

Any progress on this? I'm having the same problem.

[lambda-fairy]

Looks like this bug depends on haskell/cabal#1189.

[dcoutts]

Ok, haskell/cabal#1189 is fixed (thanks @lfairy), so we're closer to fixing this for candidates.

[gbaz]

This is half done -- build reports are being generated as are docs, but there's no link or html rendering for the build report info. So instead we see e.g. https://hackage-origin.haskell.org/package/multi-except-0.3.0.0/candidate/reports/ as

[kcsmnt0]

How long is it expected to take for the build report to show up? I uploaded a candidate a few days ago that seems to still have no reports or module docs. Apologies if this is the wrong place to ask, but this is my first time uploading to Hackage and it's very hard to locate any reliable information about this issue!

[gbaz]

If docs build properly they should show up within the hour, usually. Its not clear to me why the builder doesn't seem to have picked up this package, I intend to debug it in the next few days. But given the dodginess of the candidate builder, you shouldn't let that influence your decision to publish the package properly one way or the other...

One hunch I have is that the candidate builder might not work for packages who are not in the main index at all yet, but only uploaded as candidates...