@hackage pretty-ghci0.2.0.0

Functionality for beautifying GHCi

pretty-ghci Travis Status Appveyor Status Hackage

This library will make your GHCi experience colourful in 3 steps:

  1. Install the executable globally with cabal v2-install pretty-ghci

  2. Modify your ~/.ghc/ghci.conf

    :set prompt      "λ> "
    :set prompt-cont "|> "
    
    -- Typing `:pretty` will turn on the pretty-printing
    :set -package process
    :{
    :def pretty \_ -> pure $ unlines $
      [ ":{"
      , "let pprint x = System.Process.withCreateProcess cp' $ \\(Just i) _ _ ph -> do"
      , "        System.IO.hPutStrLn i (show x)"
      , "        System.IO.hClose i"
      , "        _ <- System.Process.waitForProcess ph"
      , "        pure ()"
      , "      where cp = System.Process.proc \"pp-ghci\" [\"--value\", \"--smarter-layout\"]"
      , "            cp' = cp{ System.Process.std_out = System.Process.Inherit"
      , "                    , System.Process.std_err = System.Process.Inherit"
      , "                    , System.Process.std_in  = System.Process.CreatePipe }"
      , ":}"
      , ":set -interactive-print pprint"
      ]
    :}
    
    -- Typing `:no-pretty` will turn off the pretty-printing
    :def no-pretty \_ -> pure (":set -interactive-print System.IO.print")
    
    -- Make things pretty by default!
    :pretty
    
  3. Enjoy!

Advantages over existing alternatives

  • One stop-solution for formatting and coloring with a small dependency graph
  • Takes your terminal width into account during the layout step
  • Works for values whose Show instance don't produce valid Haskell (ex: Show (->))
  • Handles unboxed literals (ex: MyTriple 1# 2.0# "hello"#)
  • Your output will be coloured according to its lexical structure even if parsing fails
  • Install one global executable, not one library per GHC version
  • Works in cabal repl (although you need to call :pretty once at the start)