bracket, (un)block and MonadIO

[John Meacham]

On Thu, Sep 04, 2003 at 10:45:17AM +0100, Simon Marlow wrote:
> > However, the definition of bracket relies on block and 
> > unblock, which have the
> > following types:
> > > bracket :: IO a -> (a -> IO b) -> (a -> IO c) -> IO c
> > > block :: IO a -> IO a
> > > unblock :: IO a -> IO a
> > 
> > This forces f to be an IO action in the above withQuery 
> > function.  If bracket,
> > block, and unblock had these types, my helper function would 
> > be well typed:
> > 
> > > bracket :: MonadIO m => m a -> (a -> m b) -> (a -> m c) -> m c
> > > block :: MonadIO m => m a -> m a
> > > unblock :: MonadIO m => m a -> m a
> >
> > Would anything prevent block, unblock, bracket (and other 
> > similar functions
> > working on IO actions) from being generalized to all intances 
> > of MonadIO?
> 
> I'm afraid I can't see a way to generalise the types of block and
> unblock, since they are based on underlying primitives that really do
> have type (IO a -> IO a).  Perhaps if your monad is isomorphic to IO, it
> could be done, but otherwise I don't think it's possible.  Unless I'm
> missing something.

this is a problem I have noticed too. I posted something to the
libraries list asking for 'catch' to be added to MonadIO. however it was
unclear how to best go about it, although a suitable catch can be
written for most all mondads it was not certain whether there were some
for which it couldn't be. 
 
http://haskell.org/pipermail/libraries/2003-February/000774.html

-- 
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John Meacham - California Institute of Technology, Alum. - john@foo.net
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