Improve error message about stanzas

[chrissound]

I've just added the following lines in my .cabal file:

source-repository    head
  type:              git
  location:          https://github.com/exampleabc

And get an error message of:

FromString "Plain fields are not allowed in between stanzas: F 15 \"data-files\" \"templates/*\\n, templates/heist/*\\n, templates/cache/.keepme\"" (Just 15)

"Stanza" is mentioned only briefly within the cabal user guide (https://www.haskell.org/cabal/users-guide/installing-packages.html). Could we add documentation for this or improve the error message?

It works correctly if I move those lines to the end of the .cabal file.

[ezyang]

@chrissound It's hard to tell because you haven't posted the whole Cabal file, but I'm guessing you did something like:

source-repository    head
  type:              git
  location:          https://github.com/exampleabc
data-files: blah blah blah
...

Which, apparently, the parser doesn't know how to handle.

[chris-martin]

I just got this error, and I'm still confused about what I did wrong.

[chris-martin]

It is trying to say that plain fields aren't allowed after stanzas?

[hvr]

@chris-martin exactly that, yes

And btw, the new parsec parser would emit a warning like

Warning: test.cabal:9:1: Ignoring trailing fields after sections: "data-files"

[phadej]

I close this, as error message is improved