Hi. I was wondering what would be the best way to create a polymorphic function over any possible string library (Text, String, Bytestring, etc). For instance, imagine I have to read a file with text, transform this text in some way and output it to another file, or to the console. If I wanted to use String, I'd just do this: / transform :: String -> String main = readFile "input.txt" >>= writeFile "output.txt" . transform / But if I wanted to use Text instead, I'd have to use this: / import qualified Data.Text.IO as T transform :: Text -> Text main = T.readFile "input.txt" >>= T.writeFile "output.txt" . transform / Idem for ByteString. I was wondering if there was a way to create these computations in a generic way, for any kind of string library, something like this: / class StringLibrary s where: sReadFile :: FilePath -> IO s sWriteFile :: FilePath -> s -> IO () ... / So then I'd just have this: / transform :: StringLibrary s => s -> s main = sReadFile "input.txt" >>= sWriteFile "output.txt" . transform / Now I can perform the computation I want without being tied down to a specific library. At times when I create some quick scripts, I find myself using one library (for example using String to get it finished more quickly, since I have less experience with the other ones), but find that it's too slow or has some problem that is solved by using one of the other libraries. Yet swapping from one to the other is more cumbersome than expected at times. In the example above, I could easily swap between them, just by forcing the compiler to typecheck to a specific one (for instance by changing the type of "transform"). Or if I wanted to, I could leave it as it is and export it as a library of my own. Is there a way to do something like this in Haskell, with existing libraries? In terms of using the string datatype as some sort of container of characters, I think there are libraries like Lens and mono-traversable that allow you to do stuff like this. But I'm not too familiar with them (at least using them in this way). -- View this message in context: http://haskell.1045720.n5.nabble.com/Polymorphic-functions-over-string-libra... Sent from the Haskell - Haskell-Cafe mailing list archive at Nabble.com.