[Haskell-cafe] Caching the Result of a Transaction?

[Jake Mcarthur]

On Apr 27, 2008, at 9:36 AM, Conal Elliott wrote:

> First, I think we want readTMVar instead of takeTMVar in newTIVal.

I don't see any reason it would hurt to use takeTMVar, and I suspect  
the garbage collector might be slightly happier this way since it  
potentially means once less reference to the data stored in the TMVar.

> I think we *do* want unsafeNewEmptyTMVar inlined.  Here's a  
> convenient caching wrapper:
>
>     cached :: STM a -> TIVal a
>     cached m = TIVal m (unsafePerformIO newEmptyTMVarIO)
>
> The instances are then lovely:
>
>     instance Functor TIVal where
>     f `fmap` tiv = cached (f `fmap` force tiv)
>
>     instance Applicative TIVal where
>     pure x      = cached (pure x)
>     ivf <*> ivx = cached (force ivf <*> force ivx)
>
>     instance Monad TIVal where
>     return x  = cached (return x)
>     tiv >>= k = cached (force tiv >>= force . k)

Yes, this is essentially what I am working with in Reaction at the  
moment. It seems to be working great, but I have not specifically  
tested the caching behavior yet, only that it doesn't screw up what I  
had working in the first place.

I must admit that I think I don't fully understand the implications of  
inlining vs. not inlining unsafePerformIO.

- Jake