3.9. The `.ghci` file
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## 3.9. The `.ghci` file

When it starts, unless the `-ignore-dot-ghci` flag is given, GHCi reads and executes commands from the following files, in this order, if they exist:

<enumeratedlist> <listitem>

`./.ghci`

</listitem> <listitem>

``appdata`/ghc/ghci.conf`, where `appdata` depends on your system, but is usually something like `C:/Documents and Settings/`user`/Application Data`

</listitem> <listitem>

On Unix: `$HOME/.ghc/ghci.conf`

</listitem> <listitem>

`$HOME/.ghci`

</listitem> </enumeratedlist>

The `ghci.conf` file is most useful for turning on favourite options (eg. `:set +s`), and defining useful macros. Placing a `.ghci` file in a directory with a Haskell project is a useful way to set certain project-wide options so you don't have to type them everytime you start GHCi: eg. if your project uses GHC extensions and CPP, and has source files in three subdirectories A, B and C, you might put the following lines in `.ghci`:

    :set -fglasgow-exts -cpp
    :set -iA:B:C

(Note that strictly speaking the `-i` flag is a static one, but in fact it works to set it using `:set` like this. The changes won't take effect until the next `:load`, though.)

Once you have a library of GHCi macros, you may want to source them from separate files, or you may want to source your `.ghci` file into your running GHCi session while debugging it

    :def source readFile

With this macro defined in your `.ghci` file, you can use `:source file` to read GHCi commands from `file`. You can find (and contribute!-) other suggestions for `.ghci` files on this Haskell wiki page: GHC/GHCi

Two command-line options control whether the startup files files are read:

`-ignore-dot-ghci`

  Don't read either `./.ghci` or the other startup files when starting up.

`-read-dot-ghci`

  Read `./.ghci` and the other startup files (see above). This is normally the default, but the `-read-dot-ghci` option may be used to override a previous `-ignore-dot-ghci` option.

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