The Glasgow Haskell Compiler User's Guide, Version 6.2
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# 3.5. Invoking GHCi

GHCi is invoked with the command `ghci` or `ghc ––interactive`. One or more modules or filenames can also be specified on the command line; this instructs GHCi to load the specified modules or filenames (and all the modules they depend on), just as if you had said `:load `modules`` at the GHCi prompt (see Section 3.6). For example, to start GHCi and load the program whose topmost module is in the file `Main.hs`, we could say:

    $ ghci Main.hs

Most of the command-line options accepted by GHC (see Chapter 4) also make sense in interactive mode. The ones that don't make sense are mostly obvious; for example, GHCi doesn't generate interface files, so options related to interface file generation won't have any effect.

## 3.5.1. Packages

Most packages (see Section 4.8.1) are available without needing to specify any extra flags at all: they will be automatically loaded the first time they are needed.

For non-auto packages, however, you need to request the package be loaded by using the `-package` flag:

    $ ghci -package data
       ___         ___ _
      / _ \ /\  /\/ __(_)
     / /_\// /_/ / /  | |      GHC Interactive, version 5.05, for Haskell 98.
    / /_\\/ __  / /___| |      http://www.haskell.org/ghc/
    \____/\/ /_/\____/|_|      Type :? for help.

    Loading package base ... linking ... done.
    Loading package haskell98 ... linking ... done.
    Loading package lang ... linking ... done.
    Loading package concurrent ... linking ... done.
    Loading package readline ... linking ... done.
    Loading package unix ... linking ... done.
    Loading package posix ... linking ... done.
    Loading package util ... linking ... done.
    Loading package data ... linking ... done.
    Prelude>

The following command works to load new packages into a running GHCi:

    Prelude> :set -package name

But note that doing this will cause all currently loaded modules to be unloaded, and you'll be dumped back into the `Prelude`.

## 3.5.2. Extra libraries

Extra libraries may be specified on the command line using the normal `-l`lib`` option. (The term library here refers to libraries of foreign object code; for using libraries of Haskell source code, see Section 3.2.1.) For example, to load the “m” library:

    $ ghci -lm

On systems with `.so`-style shared libraries, the actual library loaded will the `lib`lib`.so`. GHCi searches the following places for libraries, in this order:

- Paths specified using the `-L`path`` command-line option,

- the standard library search path for your system, which on some systems may be overriden by setting the `LD_LIBRARY_PATH` environment variable.

On systems with `.dll`-style shared libraries, the actual library loaded will be ``lib`.dll`. Again, GHCi will signal an error if it can't find the library.

GHCi can also load plain object files (`.o` or `.obj` depending on your platform) from the command-line. Just add the name the object file to the command line.

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