[Haskell-cafe] Consequences of implementing a library in Haskell for C consumption?

[Don Stewart]

jgbailey:
> I am thinking of writing a simple library in Haskell which would be
> useful in a number of different scenarios, and not always with
> programs written in Haskell. That makes me think the library should be
> C-compatible and able to link with C programs. Reading over chapter 9
> of the GHC manual ("Foreign function interface"), it seems simple to
> do.
> 
> However, what are the consequences of such an implementation? Would
> any program using my library need to link the entire GHC runtime? The

Yes.

> library will not expose any higher-order functions or other business.

You still need the GHC runtime support for the Haskell code (GC,
scheduler et al).

> It would be straightforward but tedious to write in C, which is why
> I'd rather use Haskell.

Easy enough to do,

    http://haskell.org/haskellwiki/Calling_Haskell_from_C

Would be great to hear how you find the experience.

-- Don