[Haskell-cafe] Re: why does "iterateNTimes (10^6) (ap . liftM (:) . return $ 0) (return [])" produce output in the IO monad, but stack overflow in the maybe monad?

correction, should be: iterateNTimes i f x = foldr (.) id (replicate i f) $ x tntIO :: IO Int -- same as replicateM (10^6) $ return 0 tntIO = return . head =<< (iterateNTimes (10^6) (ap . liftM (:) . return $ 0) (return [])) -- produces output tntMb :: Maybe Int -- overflows tntMb = return . head =<< (iterateNTimes (10^6) (ap . liftM (:) . return $ 0) (return [])) -- stack overflow which now compiles. 2009/10/13 Thomas Hartman :

Can someone explain why the one stack overflows and the other one doesn't?

iterateNTimes i f x = foldr (.) id (replicate i f) $ x tntIO :: IO Int -- same as replicateM (10^6) $ return 0 , and same as sequence . replicate (10^6) $ return 0 tntIO = iterateNTimes (10^6) (ap . liftM (:) . return $ ) (return []) -- produces output tntMb :: Maybe Int -- overflows tntMb = iterateNTimes (10^6) (ap . liftM (:) . return $ ) (return []) -- stack overflow