Tomasz Zielonka writes:
AFAIK, Handles have finalisers which close them, but I don't know if GHC triggers garbage collection when file descriptors run out. If not, you will have problems if you manage to run out of fds between GCs.
Thank you for answering. Now there is only one problem: Assuming I could _not_ use 'bracket', 'withFile', 'finally' or any of the other usual scope-guarding techniques, what would I do? (The handle has to be passed up to the outside of the scope in which it was opened.) If I stored the handle in an 'MVar' and attached an MVar-finalizer to that, would that work better? Would the MVar's finalizer be run any sooner than the one attached to the handle anyway? Or can I explicitly trigger garbage collection somehow? Say, in case I receive an exception telling me that file descriptors are running out? Which exception would I even get in this case? Peter