David Place wrote:
On Jun 28, 2011, at 8:39 AM, Heinrich Apfelmus wrote:
There is still a return value, but withFile makes sure that it's evaluated to WHNF. If you choose a = (), then you're fine, otherwise it's not entirely foolproof.
Yes, I was wondering about this. Since it is still possible to get in trouble in exactly the same way, why is this an improvement over withFile? If you return () from withFile, you have the same benefit.
The improvement is that my variant of withFile absorbs a few more moving parts, namely calling hGetContents and forcing the result. It is still possible to write programs that return unexpected _|_, but they violate a clear conceptual guideline ("only fully evaluated values may escape the scope of withFile "). Granted, Iteratees make it impossible to write such programs, but they come with the terrible price of code duplication. Best regards, Heinrich Apfelmus -- http://apfelmus.nfshost.com