[Haskell-beginners] Re: How to import the Data.Char library in Hugs?

[Daniel Fischer]

Am Freitag 18 September 2009 08:05:46 schrieb Benjamin L.Russell:
> Incidentally, if WinHugs cannot have multiple loaded modules unless
> they are put in a file and loaded therein, then what is the difference
> between the ":l" (a colon followed by a lowercase 'L') and ":a" (a
> colon followed by a lowercase 'A') commands?

The difference is that :load loads one module (and its imports) and forgets previously 
loaded modules, while :also doesn't forget the previously loaded modules.
So if you first load a large project (A), evaluate some expressions in that context, then 
switch to a different project (B), and then switch back, if you use
A> :a B
B> some expression
some result
B> :m A
A>
the last A> prompt should be there pretty immediately, while in
A> :l B
B> some expression
some result
B> :l A
A>
the last A> prompt will take a while, since the entire project has to be lexed, parsed and 
compiled (to whatever intermediate representation Hugs uses) again.