[Haskell-beginners] Immutable refs for the functional code to get emulation of o.o. inner/nested classes

31 Jan 2012

      I have worked out a solution with System.IO.Unsafe.unsafePerformIO /
unsafeDupablePerformIO.

I would like any criticism in order to get a good solution.

The idea is to have immutable refs readable safely from the functional code.

Possible use:

--------------------------
import Data.ImmIORef (ImmIORef, newImmIORef, readImmIORef)

data Framework = Framework {prop :: Int} 
  deriving (Eq, Show)

-- ''Inner'' element with ref. to the framework
data FrameworkElement = FrameworkElement {dta::Int, 
                             frameworkRef :: (ImmIORef Framework)}  
  deriving (Eq, Show)

getElement'sFramework_Prop :: FrameworkElement -> Int
getElement'sFramework_Prop elem = k
  where 
    k = prop $ readImmIORef $ frameworkRef elem

--------------------------
-- Data.ImmIORef adapted from GHC.IORef
--

module Data.ImmIORef (
        ImmIORef,
        newImmIORef, readImmIORef
    ) where

import GHC.Base
import GHC.STRef
import GHC.IO
import Text.Show (Show, show)
import System.IO.Unsafe 

-- |An immutable variable in the 'IO' monad
newtype ImmIORef a = ImmIORef (STRef RealWorld a)

-- explicit instance 
instance Eq (ImmIORef a) where
  ImmIORef x == ImmIORef y = x == y

-- |Build a new 'ImmIORef'
newImmIORef    :: a -> IO (ImmIORef a)
newImmIORef v = stToIO (newSTRef v) >>= \ var -> return (ImmIORef var)

-- |Read the value of an 'ImmIORef' via unsafePerformIO
{-# NOINLINE readImmIORef #-}           -- recommended in System.IO.Unsafe doc
readImmIORef   :: ImmIORef a -> a

#if __GLASGOW_HASKELL__>=721
readImmIORef  (ImmIORef var) = unsafeDupablePerformIO $ stToIO (readSTRef var)
#else
readImmIORef  (ImmIORef var) = unsafePerformIO $ stToIO (readSTRef var)
#endif

instance (Show a) => Show (ImmIORef a) where
  show xRef = "ImmIORef->(" ++ show (readImmIORef xRef) ++ ")"

[Haskell-beginners] Immutable refs for the functional code to get emulation of o.o. inner/nested classes

Gabriel Riba