[Haskell-cafe] Automatic file closing after readFile

[Matthew Brecknell]

Magnus Therning:
> Just out of curiosity, how would I go about finding this myself?
> (Ideally it'd be an answer other than "read the source for the libraries
> you are using". :-)

Well, I can at least try to expand a little on "read the source". :-)

You'll first need a solid understanding of lazy evaluation in the
context of pure computations. Read about normal evaluation order, WHNF
(weak head normal form), and which contexts force WHNF. Use pen and
paper to manually derive the evaluation order for some pure computations
of your choice (folds over infinite lists would be a good start).
Experiment with "seq". Experiment with the various causes of stack
overflows. Next, understand that while the IO monad is quite strict
about sequencing actions, its "return" is not strict in its argument.
Observe that the combinators in Control.Monad generally do not force
returned computations. Browse the source of GHC's IO library to
understand how it sequences IO actions. Read the source for
unsafePerformIO and unsafeInterleaveIO to understand how and for what
purposes they allow you to break that sequencing. Next, read the source
for hGetContents. After all that, you should be a little better equipped
to diagnose problems with lazy IO!

Magnus:
> Another question that came up when talking to a (much more clever)
> colleague was whether the introduction of either of the solutions in
> fact means that only a single file is open at any time?

You program is single-threaded, so it's probably safe to conclude that
either:

a) it has only one file open at a time, or
b) it has all the files open at once, or
c) leaked handles are being garbage collected or are insufficient to
cause exhaustion.

Perhaps you can use your newly discovered understanding of lazy IO to
select the correct answer. :-)