Re: [Haskell-cafe] Writing binary files?

David Menendez wrote:

...

I'd like to see the following:

- Duplicate the IO library. The duplicate should work with [Byte] everywhere where the old library uses String. Byte is some suitable unsigned integer, on most (all?) platforms this will be Word8

- Provide an explicit conversion between encodings. A simple conversion of type [Word8] -> String would suit me, iconv would provide all that is needed.

I like this idea, but I say there should be a bit-oriented layer beneath everything.

The byte stream is inherent, as that's (usually) what the OS gives you. Everything else is synthesised. -- Glynn Clements