[Haskell-cafe] Long-running request/response protocol server using enumerator/iterator/iterIO/pipes/conduits/...

[Nicolas Trangez]

Hello Cafe,

Some time ago I tried to implement a network service using iteratee (or
enumerator, can't remember), but gave up in the end. More recently I
wanted to create something similar (a similar protocol), but failed
again.

So I'm looking for some example code or something similar (Google only
helped slightly).

First of all, I don't care which API/library to use, I guess for my
purpose all of enumerator, iteratee, iterIO, pipes, conduits,... are OK,
so all feedback is welcome.

Here's the catch. Most examples out there implement some server which
accepts a single client request, interprets it, creates a response,
returns this, and closes the connection (or something alike, think
HTTP).

The protocol I'd like to implement is different: it's long-running using
repeated requests & responses on a single client connection. Basically,
a client connects and sends some data to the server (where the length of
this data is encoded in the header). Now the server reads & parses this
(binary) data, sets up some initial state for this client connection
(e.g. opening a file handle), and returns a reply. Now the client can
send another request, server parses/interprets it using the connection
state, sends a reply, and so on.

Might sound easy (and actually it's pretty easy in most other languages
I know, including an OCaml implementation), yet I fail to figure out how
to get this done using some enumerator-style library.

Thanks for any help, I'll most likely write up something if I get things
working for future reference.

Nicolas