[Haskell-cafe] Can we come out of a monad?

[Anton van Straaten]

C K Kashyap wrote:
> In the code here - 
> http://hpaste.org/fastcgi/hpaste.fcgi/view?id=28393#a28393
> If I look at the type of modifiedImage, its simply ByteString - but 
> isn't it actually getting into and back out of the state monad? I am of 
> the understanding that once you into a monad, you cant get out of it? Is 
> this breaking the "monad" scheme?

modifiedImage uses the execState function, which has the following type:

   execState :: State s a -> s -> s

In other words, it applies a State monad value to a state, and returns a 
new state.  Its entire purpose is to "run" the monad and obtain the 
resulting state.

A monadic value of type "State s a" is a kind of delayed computation 
that doesn't do anything until you apply it to a state, using a function 
like execState or evalState.  Once you do that, the computation runs, 
the monad is "evaluated away", and a result is returned.

The issue about not being able to escape that (I think) you're referring 
to applies to the functions "within" that computation.  A State monad 
computation typically consists of a chain of monadic functions of type 
(a -> State s b) composed using bind (>>=).  A function in that composed 
chain has to return a monadic value, which constrains the ability of 
such a function to escape from the monad.

Within a monadic function, you may deal directly with states and 
non-monadic values, and you may run functions like evalState or 
execState which eliminate monads, but the function still has to return a 
monadic value in the end, e.g. using "return" to lift an ordinary value 
into the monad.

Anton