[Haskell-beginners] Tips for a FFI-wrapped C library?

[Stephen Tetley]

Hi Patrick

One thing you can do is use `bracket` to manage the lifetime of
objects created on the C side:


withNewThing :: Init_param1 -> Init_param2 -> (Thing -> IO a) -> IO a
withNewThing param1 param2 funAction =
  bracket (newThing param1 param2) destroyThing
          (\thing -> do { check_null <- isNullThing thing
                        ; if check_null
                            then do  -- SOME FAILURE --
                            else funAction face })

-- newThing destroyThing isNullThing are defined somewhere.

This might be appropriate for the Context, Language etc. objects in
your library.

For the documentation on bracket see Control.Exception.Base.

Best wishes

Stephen