This thing is giving me fits. I need a global variable of sorts for an implementation of Syslog. (Yes, I really do.) It seems the right way to do that is the state monad. But I can't figure out how to do two simple things: * Read what is in there without modifying it * Modify it appropriately I looked at the examples in Control.State.Monad. We see: tick :: State Int Int tick = do n <- get put (n+1) return n Add one to the given number using the state monad: plusOne :: Int -> Int plusOne n = execState tick n Which looks nice enough, but completely useless. tick seems to be a very complex way to say ((+) 1) in this example. Oddly enough, I get a type error if I try this: tick :: Int -> State Int Int tick newval = do put newval return newval Or this: tick :: State Int Int tick = do n <- get return n That is even more incomprehensible to me -- why would removing a line before the return cause a type error?