[Haskell] Re: Global Variables and IO initializers

[Keean Schupke]

The problem I see here is how to proove the IO in safeIO is indeed
safe. Perhaps "UnsafeIO" is a better name, as infact the IO is still
unsafe - the compiler has to take special notice of this type and
not inline its definitions.

Your oneShot function has the same problem - if the compiler
inlines the funtion you get two 'oneShot' functions.

Keean.

Adrian Hey wrote:

>On Friday 05 Nov 2004 7:03 pm, MR K P SCHUPKE wrote:
>  
>
>>Could someone give an example of what these things are that need to be
>>initialised and that are safe.
>>    
>>
>
>Here's a utility I've concocted for dealing with partial ordering
>constraints on initialisation of foreign libraries..
>
> oneShot :: IO a -> IO (IO a)
> oneShot io = mdo mv <- newMVar $ do a <- io
>                                     let loop = do putMVar mv loop
>                                                   return a
>                                     loop
>                  return $ do act <- takeMVar mv
>                              act
>
>The idea being that oneShot takes a real initialising action
>as argument and returns a new action which will perform the
>real initialisation at most once, no matter how many times it's
>used.
>
>Suppose I want to use this to create a userInit (which is exported)
>from a realInit (which isn't exported).
>
>Currently I have to write..
>
> userInit :: IO <whatever>
> userInit = unsafePerformIO $ oneShot realInit
>
>but I think what I would really like is something like
>this perhaps..
>
> -- For use from SafeIO monad
> oneShotSafeIO :: IO a -> SafeIO (IO a)
> <same definition>
>
> -- For use from IO monad
> oneShotIO :: IO a -> IO (IO a)
> oneShotIO io = liftSafeIO $ oneShotSafeIO io
>
> userInit :: IO <whatever>
> userInit <- oneShotSafeIO realInit
>
>Though this could be simplified if SafeIO could be made a
>sub-type of IO I guess (but I don't know a way to do this).
>
>Regards
>--
>Adrian Hey
>
>_______________________________________________
>Haskell mailing list
>Haskell at haskell.org
>http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell
>  
>