Proposal: Add getFullProgName

[Heinrich Apfelmus]

Johan Tibell wrote:
> 
> getProgName is only useful in case you want to print the program name
> to the screen. You cannot actually use it to do anything interesting
> programmatically (like execv:ing the program.) I suggest we add
> getFullProgName which does the sensible thing of returning argv[0].
> Here's an implementation:
> 
> getFullProgName :: IO String
> getFullProgName =
>     alloca $ \ p_argc ->
>     alloca $ \ p_argv -> do
>         getFullProgArgv p_argc p_argv
>         peek p_argv >>= peek >>= peekCString
> 
> foreign import ccall unsafe "getFullProgArgv"
>     getFullProgArgv :: Ptr CInt -> Ptr (Ptr CString) -> IO ()

While  getFullProgramName  is a very useful function, I don't think that 
  the proposed implementation is any good.

-1

The trouble is that  getFullProgramName  needs to be portable across 
different platforms. If it works on UNIX platforms but not on any other 
platform (Windows? Android?), we will just end up with Haskell code that 
works correctly only on UNIX, and subtly breaks everywhere else. I don't 
think that this is a good idea.

Also, the package

   http://hackage.haskell.org/package/executable-path

provides a portable way to get the path of an executable. If more 
standardization is required, I would argue that we should include it in 
the Haskell Platform or integrate the source code into base.


Best regards,
Heinrich Apfelmus

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