Is traceIO unnecessarily specialised to the IO monad?

[Patrick Palka]

Note that traceM won't work correctly for monads that are not strict in the
first argument of >>=, e.g. the Identity monad.

For example, this will not print anything: runIdentity $ traceM "test" >>
return ()

On Mon, Jan 21, 2013 at 11:48 AM, Chris Seaton <chris at chrisseaton.com>wrote:

> I use printf-style debugging a lot, so I am always adding and removing
> applications of trace. There is the Debug.Trace.traceIO function that makes
> this easy to do in the IO monad (it just applies hPutStrLn stderr), but
> is that specialisation to IO unnecessary?
>
> I find myself always using this utility function:
>
> traceM :: (Monad m) => String -> m ()
> traceM message = trace message $ return ()
>
> Which can be used to implement traceIO.
>
> traceIO :: String -> IO ()
> traceIO = traceM
>
> That way I can traceM in whatever monad I am in. It is easier to add and
> remove an application of trace, because I do not have to wrap it around
> something, and I do not have to remember the return. Of course, you are
> still subject to however your monad chooses to order the execution of these
> traces, but that is what people expect when using trace.
>
> Would traceM be a wanted addition to Debug.Trace?
>
> Regards,
>
> Chris Seaton
>
>
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