Max Vasin wrote:

Wouldn't it be more correct to separate binary IO, which return [Word8] (or ByteString) and text IO which return [Char] and deal with text encoding? IIRC that was done in Bulat Ziganshin's streams library.

That's exactly what I meant. Text IO could be then implemented on top of binary IO. Would it be possible to envision a solution that enables composition of IO low level strategies vs binary <-> text conversion strategies? Pao