re-opening a closed stdin?

[Bernard James POPE]

Simon Marlow writes:
> I've been thinking about duplicating/replacing Handles for a while.
> Here's  a possible interface:
> 
>   -- |Returns a duplicate of the original handle, with its own buffer
>   -- and file pointer.  The original handle's buffer is flushed,
> including
>   -- discarding any input data, before the handle is duplicated.
>   hDuplicate :: Handle -> IO Handle
>   -- |Makes the second handle a duplicate of the first handle.  The
>   -- second handle will be closed first, if it is not already.
>   hDuplicateTo :: Handle -> Handle -> IO ()

I'm not too sure of the issues here. Some examples that use them would be
helpful. 

The only suggestion I'd make is that the names be something with handle in
them:

   huDupHandle, hDupHandleTo

> The remaining questions are:
>  - Should you be allowed to duplicate a Handle which refers
>    to a file opened in WriteMode?  Haskell 98 forbids having
>    two Handles pointing to the same file opened for writing,
>    but IMHO it's quite a reasonable thing to do.  If we don't allow
>    this, then there needs to be another version of hDuplicateTo
>    which invalidates the original Handle.

Why does Haskell 98 make this restriction (I don't think that the library
report says why)?

Thanks,
Bernie.