[Haskell-beginners] STM and IO

[emmanuel.delaborde]

Hello list

I am trying to use STM for shared access to a file

I first used a TVar to to accumulate the text returned by the threads
and write TVar's content to a file after a delay (how do you ensure  
all threads have terminated by the way, that would be more robust than  
using an arbitrary delay)


-- this works
main = do
     let fname = "store.txt"
     store <- atomically $ newTVar ""
     forkIO $ 10 `replicateM_` (thread store)
     threadDelay 800000
     txt <- atomically (readTVar store)
     writeFile fname txt

thread :: TVar (String) -> IO ()
thread store = atomically ( readTVar store >>= writeTVar store . (++ "  
some text "))


But when I try to concurrently write to the file, I get into troubles.
I keep the file handle in a TMVar, hoping than just one thread at a  
time will be able to use that handle
but nothing gets written to "store.txt" ? Is my IO too lazy ?


-- this does not work
main = do
    let fname = "store.txt"
    fh <- openFile fname ReadWriteMode
    store <- atomically $ newTMVar fh
    forkIO $ 10 `replicateM_` (writeTo store)

writeTo :: TMVar (Handle) -> IO ()
writeTo store = do
    fh <- atomically $ takeTMVar store
    text <- hGetContents fh
    hPutStr fh (text ++ " some text ")
    atomically $ putTMVar store fh


Thank you

--
Emmanuel Delaborde

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