Clean but avoiding cloning the source repository packages again?

[philderbeast]

Is there a way to cabal clean without the next cabal build having to clone the source repository packages again? Can these clones be preserved?

$ cabal clean
$ cabal build
...
Cloning into '/.../dist-newstyle/src/amazonka...'
remote: Enumerating objects: 941841, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (171/171), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (101/101), done.
remote: Total 941841 (delta 66), reused 151 (delta 59), pack-reused 941670
Receiving objects: 100% (941841/941841), 1.22 GiB | 28.97 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (785798/785798), done.

I checked the help:

$ cabal clean --help
Clean the package store and remove temporary files.

Usage: cabal new-clean [FLAGS]

Removes all temporary files created during the building process (.hi, .o,
preprocessed sources, etc.) and also empties out the local caches (by
default).


Flags for clean:
 -h, --help                     Show this help text
 -v, --verbose[=n]              Control verbosity (n is 0--3, default
                                verbosity level is 1)
 --builddir=DIR                 The directory where Cabal puts generated build
                                files (default dist)
 --project-file=FILE            Set the name of the cabal.project file to
                                search for in parent directories
 -s, --save-config              Save configuration, only remove build
                                artifacts

Shouldn't this help now say (default dist-newstyle) now that the v2 commands are the default?

I tried --save-config but this didn't help.

[ulysses4ever]

Shouldn't this help now say (default dist-newstyle) now that the v2 commands are the default?

Absolutely. A PR would be welcome.

[michaelpj]

Perhaps related: #7506

(So you can avoid doing a full cabal clean in more circumstances)