Bug in Control.Monad.State
Udo Stenzel
u.stenzel at web.de
Wed Nov 23 04:58:55 EST 2005
Hello Yitzchak,
> > If an operation is too strict... you can always
> > wrap the offending data in another constructor.
>
> I have seen this claim several times, but I am
> not yet convinced.
>
> In my case, the unwanted strictness is coming from
> the bind method of a monad from the standard
> libraries. I don't see how to get rid of that
> strictness by wrapping something in a constructor.
as Iavor already pointed out, theres the fine difference between being
string in some implementation detail (the pair of state and result) or
in the state itself, which I missed.
I was thinking of the state component, and I maintain that it should be
strict. Rationale: if the state is some primitive type, you want it
strict anyway. If it isn't, the strictness doesn't cost much anyway.
If it's still wrong, wrapping in a constructor helps.
Your problem however is the strict match against a pair you don't even
know is there. Indeed, a strict match against a single constructor
datatype is probably always pointless. So it's really a bug in the
library, after all.
> Here is an example. How would you fix this by
> wrapping something in a constructor?
You can't, since you don't have access to the offending pair.
> createItems :: RandomGen g => State g [Item]
> createItems =
> liftM catMaybes $ runListT $
> flip evalStateT initialState $ runMaybeT $
> do
> item <- liftRandom $ repeatM randomItem
> updateState item
> needMoreItems >>= guard
> return item
> where
> liftRandom = lift . lift . lift
...but this is probably broken anyway. After (repeatM randomItem)
presumably the state (the RandomGen) is _|_, but the type of createItems
would suggest it is still usable. I wouldn't do that. Other than that
it's a bit hard to see what you're trying to accomplish here.
Udo.
--
"Gadgets are not necessarily an improvement, vide the succession:
Blackboard -> Overhead Projector -> PowerPoint"
-- E. W. Dijkstra
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