[Haskell-cafe] Writing binary files?

[David Menendez]

Glynn Clements writes:

> > The problem is that API for that yet is not even designed, so
> > programs can't be written such that they will work after the
> > default encoding change.
> 
> Personally, I would take the C approach: redefine Char to mean a byte
> (i.e. CChar), treat string literals as bytes, keep the existing type
> signatures on all of the existing Haskell98 functions, and provide a
> completely new wide-character API for those who wish to use it.

I really don't like having a type called "Char" that's defined to be a
byte, rather than a character. On the other hand, I don't know how much
of a pain it would be to replace Char with Word8 in the file IO library,
which would be my preferred temporary solution.

> Given the frequency with which this issue crops up, and the associated
> lack of action to date, I'd rather not have to wait until someone
> finally gets around to designing the new, improved,
> genuinely-I18N-ised API before we can read/write arbitrary files
> without too much effort.

Any I18N-ized API would need a bit-level layer underneath, right? In
fact, a good low-level IO library could support multiple higher-level
APIs. Has there been any progress on something like that?
-- 
David Menendez <zednenem at psualum.com> | "In this house, we obey the laws
<http://www.eyrie.org/~zednenem>      |        of thermodynamics!"