The current readHistory and writeHistory bindings are defined as: -- |Read in a history file. Returns 'False' on failure -- (for example, if the file does not exist). readHistory :: FilePath -- ^ The file to read (if null, read ~\/.history) -> IO Bool readHistory fp = do ok <- withCString fp read_history return (ok==0) foreign import ccall unsafe read_history :: Ptr CChar -> IO CInt -- |Write out a history file. Returns 'False' if there was a problem writing the file. writeHistory :: FilePath -- ^ The file to write (if null, write ~\/.history) -> IO Bool writeHistory fp = do ok <- withCString fp write_history return (ok==0) foreign import ccall unsafe write_history :: Ptr CChar -> IO CInt Note the comments "(if null, write ~/.history)"! This is supported in the original C API but in Haskell the filepath cannot be null. In the best case it can be empty string. Either the type signatures have to be changed to accept (Maybe FilePath) or the comments have to be changed because the Haskell binding currently doesn't support this functionality. Comments? I hope that this will not start another endless discussion. Regards, Krasimir