On Thu, 2009-02-26 at 22:45 +0100, Johan Tibell wrote:
Hi all,
I find it quite inconvenient to use the `recv` function in Network.Socket as it throws an exception when reaching EOF and there's no way to check whether EOF has been reached before calling `recv`. This means that all calls to `recv` needs to be wrapped in an exception handler.
NB: tryJust (guard . isEOFError) $ recv ... with base-4 or tryJust (ioErrors >=> guard . isEOFError) $ recv ... with base-3, right?
I've been thinking about changing the version of `recv` that's included in the network-bytestring library [1] so it behaves differently from the one in the network library. Before I do so I thought I should see if we can reach a consensus on what a nicer definition of `recv` would look like. My current thinking is that it would mimic what C/Python/Java does and return a zero length ByteString when EOF is reached.
+1 In the interest of totality. Also, Prelude.getChar/System.IO.hGetChar should have return type IO (Maybe Char) in the interest of totality.
I'm also interested in understanding the reasons behind the design of the `recv` function in the network library. More generally, I'm interested in discussing the pros and cons of the current Haskell I/O library design where the different read functions throw EOF exceptions and you have to call e.g. hIsEOF before reading from a Handle.
jcc