i have this function: -- this function will return th N°BD from Sidonie for a given name -- note: names have been standardized between Sidonie and WDS getBD :: Connection -> String -> IO Float getBD conn name = trace "Entering getBD" noBDfp where qry_head = "select `N° BD` from Coordonnées where Nom = ?" :: Query bd_rows :: IO [Only Text] bd_rows = query conn qry_head (Only (name::String)) -- noBDtxt :: [Text] -- noBDtxt = fromOnly (Prelude.head bd_rows) -- noBDtxt :: IO [Text] -- lg = fmap Prelude.length bd_rows -- lg2 = fmap show lg noBDtxt :: IO Text -- noBDtxt = trace "lg " (fmap (fromOnly . Prelude.head) bd_rows) noBDtxt = trace "assigning noBDtxt" (fmap (fromOnly . Prelude.head) bd_rows) -- noBDstr :: String -- noBDstr = Text.unpack noBDtxt noBDstr :: IO String noBDstr = trace "assigning noBDstr" (fmap Text.unpack noBDtxt) -- noBDfp = read $ noBDstr :: Float noBDfp :: IO Float noBDfp = fmap read noBDstr call by : let lstBD = Prelude.map (\elem -> getBD conn (Text.unpack (fst elem))) rows it works ok, in fact at some point it fails due to NULL sql value not again handle correctly , i have inserted trace statement that output variable, i understand it's not really good becaus it breaks the purity of haskell function, perheaps for this reason i have strange behavior of output: ... Entering getBD assigning noBDstr assigning noBDtxt Entering getBD assigning noBDstr assigning noBDtxt Entering getBD assigning noBDstr assigning noBDtxt *** Exception: UnexpectedNull {errSQLType = "VarString", errHaskellType = "Text", errFieldName = "N\194\176 BD", errMessage = "unexpected null in table Coordonn\195\169es of database sidonie"} *Main> you will notice noBDstr seems to be assigned before noBDtxt, but in the code i have the statements in this order: noBDtxt = trace "assigning noBDtxt" (fmap (fromOnly . Prelude.head) bd_rows) noBDstr :: IO String noBDstr = trace "assigning noBDstr" (fmap Text.unpack noBDtxt) i just want to understand wht's happening, this is not critical for code as it works... any idea? Damien