Re: Deep confusion about monads

That's embarrassing - I hit 'send' before I finished. Sorry. ): On Thu, 16 Aug 2001, Mark Carroll wrote:

I should add that I do seem to have written something that sort of works:

firstChar :: [a] -> IO a firstChar xs = return head xs

I mean firstChar xs = return $ head xs

then,

readFile "/tmp/foo" >>= firstChar >>= putChar (snip)

...what's surprising me is that do I really have to turn everything into an IO action like this just to do things with the String hidden in the IO String? -- Mark