On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 12:27:17 +0000, Ben Rudiak-Gould
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> On the other hand, these are perfectly safe:
>
> once' :: IO a -> IO (IO a)
> oncePerString :: String -> IO a -> IO a
> oncePerType :: Typeable a => IO a -> IO a
>
> once' seems virtually useless unless you have top-level <-, but the
> other two don't need it. I'm not sure which would be preferable. I lean
> toward oncePerString as more flexible and predictable, though it
> requires a certain discipline on the part of its users.
>
Reflecting on the matter, I don't think that oncePerString is
type-safe. For example, it allows us to create the following:
ref :: IO (IORef a)
ref = oncePerString "foo" (newIORef undefined)
Here's an example in which we subvert the type system (and probably
crash the program) by writing a String and reading an Int from the
same IORef:
do
ref >>= writeIORef ("foo")
(x :: Int) <- ref >>= readIORef
print x
This is similar to the reason for ML's value monomorphism restriction.
In contrast, oncePerType
preserves monomorphism nicely, since all instances of Typeable are monomorphic.
Thoughts? Am I missing something?
-Judah
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