[Haskell-cafe] Implementing tryReadMVar

[Jan-Willem Maessen - Sun Labs East]

MR K P SCHUPKE wrote:
>>tryReadMVar mv = do mc <- tryTakeMVar mv
> 
> 
> 
> The normal reason people want tryRead is to do something 
> like unix's 'select' function, where you want to wait on
> one of several signals...

Combining the channels into one is certainly a bit nicer, but there 
might be a reason to want to prefer one event over another.

But wouldn't it be better to write this using just tryTakeMVar, rather 
than tryRead followed by blocking take?  This would guarantee that the 
events matched, and that the code would continue to work as expected 
in the multiple-reader case.

-Jan-Willem Maessen