Also build executables when running tests

[mgsloan]

This issue has come up in the context of ide-backend.

The problem is that currently I need to run stack build before stack test. Otherwise, the ide-backend-server executable can be out of date. It seems that stack test doesn't build things that aren't directly required by packages which contain test-suites.

For now, stack build ide-backend-server && stack test is ok, but it requires an expensive reconfigure + rebuild.

[snoyberg]

I found this description confusing, and had to reread it about 4 times before I realized what's actually happening (or what I actually think is happening): there's no way in a Cabal file to state a dependency on an executable-only package. Therefore, stack has no way of knowing that you want it to build/install ide-backend-server before testing ide-backend.

There may be something else occurring that I'm not getting (the title of this issue implies there is), but I'm not certain what it is. I can guess that there's also the fact that the runghc Setup.hs install comes after tests finish, but that's intentional and correct: we shouldn't be doing any installing of something which fails tests.

[mgsloan]

Sorry for the confusion!

there's no way in a Cabal file to state a dependency on an executable-only package

Yes, that is a contributing problem, but I'm not seeking to solve that here.

I can guess that there's also the fact that the runghc Setup.hs install comes after tests finish, but that's intentional and correct: we shouldn't be doing any installing of something which fails tests.

That makes sense, and explains the behavior I'm seeing. The problem stands, though, which is if I only use stack test, we'll be testing against an old version of ide-backend-server. The recompilation actually doesn't seem to be as redundant as I'd thought. Having to do stack build && stack test isn't so bad.