The Glasgow Haskell Compiler User's Guide, Version 4.01

The GHC Team, Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, G12 8QQ Email: glasgow-haskell-{bugs,users}-request@dcs.gla.ac.uk

1. Introduction to GHC

• 1.1 The (batch) compilation system components
• 1.2 What really happens when I ``compile'' a Haskell program?
• 1.3 Meta-information: Web sites, mailing lists, etc.
• 1.4 Release notes for version 4.01---11/98

2. Using GHC

• 2.1 Overall command-line structure
• 2.2 Meaningful file suffixes
• 2.3 Help and verbosity options
• 2.4 Running the right phases in the right order
• 2.5 Re-directing the compilation output(s)
• 2.6 Warnings and sanity-checking
• 2.7 Separate compilation
• 2.8 Optimisation (code improvement)
• 2.9 Options related to a particular phase
• 2.10 Using Concurrent Haskell
• 2.11 Using Parallel Haskell
• 2.12 Running a compiled program
• 2.13 Debugging the compiler

3. Profiling

• 3.1 How to profile a Haskell program
• 3.2 Compiling programs for profiling
• 3.3 How to control your profiled program at runtime
• 3.4 What's in a profiling report?
• 3.5 Producing graphical heap profiles
• 3.6 Using ``ticky-ticky'' profiling (for implementors)

4. Advice on: sooner, faster, smaller, stingier

• 4.1 Sooner: producing a program more quickly
• 4.2 Faster: producing a program that runs quicker
• 4.3 Smaller: producing a program that is smaller
• 4.4 Stingier: producing a program that gobbles less heap space

5. GHC Language Features

• 5.1 Unboxed types
• 5.2 Primitive state-transformer monad
• 5.3 Primitive arrays, mutable and otherwise
• 5.4 Calling C directly from Haskell
• 5.5 Multi-parameter type classes
• 5.6 Explicit universal quantification
• 5.7 Existentially quantified data constructors
• 5.8 Concurrent and Parallel Haskell
• 5.9 Haskell 1.4 vs. Glasgow Haskell 4.00: language non-compliance

6. The GHC prelude and libraries

• 6.1 Prelude extensions
• 6.2 The module PrelGHC: really primitive stuff
• 6.3 GHC/Hugs Extension Libraries
• 6.4 GHC-only Extension Libraries
• 6.5 The Posix library
• 6.6 Miscellaneous libraries
• 6.7 Interfaces to C libraries

7. What to do when something goes wrong

• 7.1 When the compiler ``does the wrong thing''
• 7.2 When your program ``does the wrong thing''
• 7.3 How to report a bug in the GHC system
• 7.4 Hard-core debugging of GHC-compiled programs

8. Other Haskell utility programs

• 8.1 Makefile dependencies in Haskell: using mkdependHS
• 8.2 Emacs `TAGS' for Haskell: hstags
• 8.3 ``Yacc for Haskell'': happy
• 8.4 Pretty-printing Haskell: pphs