[Haskell] Re: [Haskell-cafe] SimonPJ and Tim Harris explain STM - video

[Chris Kuklewicz]

I was inspired by Simon's post to kludge up a working prototype that does what
is discussed:

Simon Peyton-Jones wrote:
> | The basic idea is to provide a way for a transaction to call into transaction-aware libraries.  The libraries
> | can register callbacks for if the transaction commits (to actually do any "O") and for if the transaction
> | aborts (to re-buffer any "I" that the transaction has consumed).  In addition, a library providing access
> | to another transactional abstraction (e.g. a database supporting transactions) can perform a 2-phase
> | commit that means that the memory transaction and database transaction either both commit or both
> | abort.
> 
> Yes, I have toyed with extending GHC's implementation of STM to support
> 
> onCommit :: IO a -> STM ()
> 
> The idea is that onCommit would queue up an IO action to be performed when
> the transaction commits, but without any atomicity guarantee.  If the
> transaction retries, the action is discarded.  Now you could say
> 
> I have also toyed with adding
> 
> retryWith :: IO a -> STM ()
> 
> The idea here is that the transction is undone (i.e. just like the 'retry'
> combinator), then the specified action is performed, and then the transaction
> is retried.  Again no atomicity guarantee.  If there's an orElse involved,
> both actions would get done.
> 
> It would also make it possible to count how many retries happened: atomic
> (<transaction> `orElse` retryWith <increment retry counter>)
> 
> I have not implemented either of these, but I think they'd be cool.
> 
> Simon

The prototype is:

{- November 24th, 2006

  Demonstration Code by Chris Kuklewicz <haskell at list.mightyreason.com>
  Usual 3 clause BSD Licence
  Copyright 2006

  This is inspired by a post by Simon Peyton-Jones on the haskell-cafe
  mailing list, in which the type and semantics of onCommit and
  withRetry were put forth.

  The semantics of printing the contents of the TVar "v" created in
  test via retryWith may or may not be well defined.  With GHC 6.6 I get

*AdvSTM> main
"hello world"
"retryWith Start"
("retryWith v",7)
"Flipped choice to True to avoid infinite loop"
"onCommit Start"
("onCommit v",42)
("result","foo")
"bye world"

  Aside from that I think the unsafeIOToSTM is not really unsafe here
  since it writes to privately created and maintained variables.

  Since the implementation is hidden it could be changed from ReaderT
  to some other scheme.

  Once could also use MonadBase from
  http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/New_monads/MonadBase to help with the
  lifting, but this has been commented out below.

  TODO: figure out semantics of catchAdv.  At least it compiles...
-}

module AdvSTM(MonadAdvSTM(..),AdvSTM,retryWith) where

-- import MonadBase
import Control.Exception(Exception)
import Control.Monad(MonadPlus(..),liftM)
import Control.Monad.Reader(MonadReader(..),ReaderT,runReaderT,lift,asks)
import Control.Concurrent.STM(STM,orElse,retry,catchSTM,atomically)
import Control.Concurrent.STM.TVar(TVar,newTVarIO,newTVar,readTVar,writeTVar)
import GHC.Conc(unsafeIOToSTM)
import Data.IORef(IORef,newIORef,readIORef,writeIORef,modifyIORef)
import Data.Typeable(Typeable)
import Data.Generics(Data)

class MonadAdvSTM m where
  onCommit :: IO a -> m ()
  onRetry :: IO a -> m ()
  orElseAdv :: m a -> m a -> m a
  retryAdv :: m a
  atomicAdv :: m a -> IO a
  catchAdv :: m a -> (Exception -> m a) -> m a
  liftAdv :: STM a -> m a

-- Export type but not constructor!
newtype AdvSTM a = AdvSTM (ReaderT (CommitVar,RetryVar) STM a) deriving
(Functor,Monad,MonadPlus,Typeable)
type CommitVar = TVar ([IO ()]->[IO ()])
type RetryVar = IORef ([IO ()]->[IO ()])

{- Since lifting retry and `orElse` gives the semantics Simon wants, use
deriving MonadPlus instead
instance MonadPlus AdvSTM where
  mzero = retryAdv
  mplus = orElseAdv
-}

-- instance MonadBase STM AdvSTM where liftBase = AdvSTM . lift

retryWith :: IO a -> AdvSTM b
retryWith io = onRetry io >> retryAdv

instance MonadAdvSTM AdvSTM where
  onCommit io = do
    cv <- AdvSTM $ asks fst
    old <- liftAdv $ readTVar cv
    liftAdv $ writeTVar cv (old . ((io >> return ()):))
  onRetry io = do
    rv <- AdvSTM $ asks snd
    liftAdv $ unsafeIOToSTM $ modifyIORef rv (\ old -> old . ((io >> return ()):) )
{-
  orElseAdv (AdvSTM a) (AdvSTM b) =
    {- If a retries then its onRetry commands are kept on the list of
       actions to do if the whole command fails. It would be possible
       to save the "rv" and use unsafeIOToSTM to implement a different
       policy here -}
    AdvSTM $ do env <- ask
                lift $ (runReaderT a env) `orElse` (runReaderT b env)
-}
  orElseAdv = mplus
  retryAdv = liftAdv retry -- the same as retryAdv = mzero
  atomicAdv = runAdvSTM
  catchAdv (AdvSTM action) handler =
    let h env error = let (AdvSTM cleanup) = handler error
                      in runReaderT cleanup env
    in AdvSTM $ do env <- ask
                   lift $ catchSTM (runReaderT action env) (h env)
  liftAdv = AdvSTM . lift

-- This replaces "atomically"
runAdvSTM :: AdvSTM a -> IO a
runAdvSTM (AdvSTM action) = do
  cv <- newTVarIO id
  rv <- newIORef id
  let wrappedAction = (runReaderT (liftM Just action) (cv,rv))
                      `orElse` (return Nothing)
      loop = do
        result <- atomically $ wrappedAction
        case result of
          Just answer -> do
            cFun <- atomically (readTVar cv)
            sequence_ (cFun [])
            return answer
          Nothing -> do
            rFun <- readIORef rv
            writeIORef rv id  -- must reset the list
            sequence_ (rFun [])
            loop
  loop

-- Example code using the above:

test :: TVar Bool -> AdvSTM String
test todo = do
  onCommit (print "onCommit Start")
  onRetry (print "onRetry Start")
  v <- liftAdv $ newTVar 7
  liftAdv $ writeTVar v 42
  onCommit (atomically (readTVar v) >>= \x->print ("onCommit v",x))
  onRetry (atomically (readTVar v) >>= \x->print ("onRetry v",x))
  choice <- liftAdv $ readTVar todo
  case choice of
    True -> return "foo"
    False -> retryWith $ do
      atomically (writeTVar todo True)
      print "Flipped choice to True to avoid infinite loop"

-- Example similar to Simon's suggested example:

countRetries :: IORef Int -> AdvSTM a -> AdvSTM a
countRetries ioref action =
  let incr = do old <- readIORef ioref
                writeIORef ioref $! (succ old)
  in action `orElseAdv` (retryWith incr)

-- Load this file in GHCI and execute main to run the test:
main = do
  print "hello world"
  todo <- newTVarIO False
  counter <- newIORef 0
  result <- runAdvSTM (test todo)
  print ("result",result)
  print "bye world"