[Haskell-cafe] synchronous channels in STM

[Claus Reinke]

>I was wondering if it was possible to implement synchronous channels
> within STM. In particular, I'd like to have CSP-like send and recv primitives
> on a channel that each block until the other side arrives to complete
> the transaction.

Assuming that retry blocks until something changes, you could associate
a channel with a thread that encapsulates the transaction. Somewhat like this?

import Control.Concurrent.STM
import Control.Concurrent

sender write confirm = do
  atomically $ putTMVar write "hi"
  atomically $ takeTMVar confirm
  putStrLn "sender done"
  
receiver read = do
  r <- atomically $ takeTMVar read
  putStrLn $ "receiver done: "++r

channel read write confirm = atomically $ do
  w <- takeTMVar write
  putTMVar read w
  putTMVar confirm ()

main = do 
  (read,write,confirm) <- atomically $ do
    read <- newEmptyTMVar
    write <- newEmptyTMVar
    confirm <- newEmptyTMVar
    return (read,write,confirm)
  forkIO (channel read write confirm)
  forkIO (threadDelay 3000000 >> receiver read)
  threadDelay 5000000 >> sender write confirm

You might also be interested in 
http://hackage.haskell.org/cgi-bin/hackage-scripts/package/chp

Claus