Documentation

A mirror image of first.

The default definition may be overridden with a more efficient version if desired.

Creates a new thread to run the IO computation passed as the first argument, and returns the ThreadId of the newly created thread.

The new thread will be a lightweight, unbound thread. Foreign calls made by this thread are not guaranteed to be made by any particular OS thread; if you need foreign calls to be made by a particular OS thread, then use forkOS instead.

The new thread inherits the masked state of the parent (see mask).

The newly created thread has an exception handler that discards the exceptions BlockedIndefinitelyOnMVar, BlockedIndefinitelyOnSTM, and ThreadKilled, and passes all other exceptions to the uncaught exception handler.

WARNING: Exceptions in the new thread will not be rethrown in the thread that created it. This means that you might be completely unaware of the problem if/when this happens. You may want to use the async library instead.

killThread raises the ThreadKilled exception in the given thread (GHC only).

killThread tid = throwTo tid ThreadKilled

Fork a thread and call the supplied function when the thread is about to terminate, with an exception or a returned value. The function is called with asynchronous exceptions masked.

forkFinally action and_then =
  mask $ \restore ->
    forkIO $ try (restore action) >>= and_then

This function is useful for informing the parent when a child terminates, for example.

Since: base-4.6.0.0

Create an MVar which is initially empty.

Return the contents of the MVar. If the MVar is currently empty, takeMVar will wait until it is full. After a takeMVar, the MVar is left empty.

There are two further important properties of takeMVar:

• takeMVar is single-wakeup. That is, if there are multiple threads blocked in takeMVar, and the MVar becomes full, only one thread will be woken up. The runtime guarantees that the woken thread completes its takeMVar operation.
• When multiple threads are blocked on an MVar, they are woken up in FIFO order. This is useful for providing fairness properties of abstractions built using MVars.

Atomically read the contents of an MVar. If the MVar is currently empty, readMVar will wait until it is full. readMVar is guaranteed to receive the next putMVar.

readMVar is multiple-wakeup, so when multiple readers are blocked on an MVar, all of them are woken up at the same time.

Compatibility note: Prior to base 4.7, readMVar was a combination of takeMVar and putMVar. This mean that in the presence of other threads attempting to putMVar, readMVar could block. Furthermore, readMVar would not receive the next putMVar if there was already a pending thread blocked on takeMVar. The old behavior can be recovered by implementing 'readMVar as follows:

 readMVar :: MVar a -> IO a
 readMVar m =
   mask_ $ do
     a <- takeMVar m
     putMVar m a
     return a

Put a value into an MVar. If the MVar is currently full, putMVar will wait until it becomes empty.

There are two further important properties of putMVar:

• putMVar is single-wakeup. That is, if there are multiple threads blocked in putMVar, and the MVar becomes empty, only one thread will be woken up. The runtime guarantees that the woken thread completes its putMVar operation.
• When multiple threads are blocked on an MVar, they are woken up in FIFO order. This is useful for providing fairness properties of abstractions built using MVars.

The SomeException type is the root of the exception type hierarchy. When an exception of type e is thrown, behind the scenes it is encapsulated in a SomeException.

When you want to acquire a resource, do some work with it, and then release the resource, it is a good idea to use bracket, because bracket will install the necessary exception handler to release the resource in the event that an exception is raised during the computation. If an exception is raised, then bracket will re-raise the exception (after performing the release).

A common example is opening a file:

bracket
  (openFile "filename" ReadMode)
  (hClose)
  (\fileHandle -> do { ... })

The arguments to bracket are in this order so that we can partially apply it, e.g.:

withFile name mode = bracket (openFile name mode) hClose

Bracket wraps the release action with mask, which is sufficient to ensure that the release action executes to completion when it does not invoke any interruptible actions, even in the presence of asynchronous exceptions. For example, hClose is uninterruptible when it is not racing other uses of the handle. Similarly, closing a socket (from "network" package) is also uninterruptible under similar conditions. An example of an interruptible action is killThread. Completion of interruptible release actions can be ensured by wrapping them in in uninterruptibleMask_, but this risks making the program non-responsive to Control-C, or timeouts. Another option is to run the release action asynchronously in its own thread:

void $ uninterruptibleMask_ $ forkIO $ do { ... }

The resource will be released as soon as possible, but the thread that invoked bracket will not block in an uninterruptible state.

Executes an IO computation with asynchronous exceptions masked. That is, any thread which attempts to raise an exception in the current thread with throwTo will be blocked until asynchronous exceptions are unmasked again.

The argument passed to mask is a function that takes as its argument another function, which can be used to restore the prevailing masking state within the context of the masked computation. For example, a common way to use mask is to protect the acquisition of a resource:

mask $ \restore -> do
    x <- acquire
    restore (do_something_with x) `onException` release
    release

This code guarantees that acquire is paired with release, by masking asynchronous exceptions for the critical parts. (Rather than write this code yourself, it would be better to use bracket which abstracts the general pattern).

Note that the restore action passed to the argument to mask does not necessarily unmask asynchronous exceptions, it just restores the masking state to that of the enclosing context. Thus if asynchronous exceptions are already masked, mask cannot be used to unmask exceptions again. This is so that if you call a library function with exceptions masked, you can be sure that the library call will not be able to unmask exceptions again. If you are writing library code and need to use asynchronous exceptions, the only way is to create a new thread; see forkIOWithUnmask.

Asynchronous exceptions may still be received while in the masked state if the masked thread blocks in certain ways; see Control.Exception.

Threads created by forkIO inherit the MaskingState from the parent; that is, to start a thread in the MaskedInterruptible state, use mask_ $ forkIO .... This is particularly useful if you need to establish an exception handler in the forked thread before any asynchronous exceptions are received. To create a new thread in an unmasked state use forkIOWithUnmask.

A variant of throw that can only be used within the IO monad.

Although throwIO has a type that is an instance of the type of throw, the two functions are subtly different:

throw e   `seq` ()  ===> throw e
throwIO e `seq` ()  ===> ()

The first example will cause the exception e to be raised, whereas the second one won't. In fact, throwIO will only cause an exception to be raised when it is used within the IO monad.

The throwIO variant should be used in preference to throw to raise an exception within the IO monad because it guarantees ordering with respect to other operations, whereas throw does not. We say that throwIO throws *precise* exceptions and throw, error, etc. all throw *imprecise* exceptions. For example

throw e + error "boom" ===> error "boom"
throw e + error "boom" ===> throw e

are both valid reductions and the compiler may pick any (loop, even), whereas

throwIO e >> error "boom" ===> throwIO e

will always throw e when executed.

See also the GHC wiki page on precise exceptions for a more technical introduction to how GHC optimises around precise vs. imprecise exceptions.

Similar to catch, but returns an Either result which is (Right a) if no exception of type e was raised, or (Left ex) if an exception of type e was raised and its value is ex. If any other type of exception is raised then it will be propagated up to the next enclosing exception handler.

 try a = catch (Right `liftM` a) (return . Left)

This is the simplest of the exception-catching functions. It takes a single argument, runs it, and if an exception is raised the "handler" is executed, with the value of the exception passed as an argument. Otherwise, the result is returned as normal. For example:

  catch (readFile f)
        (\e -> do let err = show (e :: IOException)
                  hPutStr stderr ("Warning: Couldn't open " ++ f ++ ": " ++ err)
                  return "")

Note that we have to give a type signature to e, or the program will not typecheck as the type is ambiguous. While it is possible to catch exceptions of any type, see the section "Catching all exceptions" (in Control.Exception) for an explanation of the problems with doing so.

For catching exceptions in pure (non-IO) expressions, see the function evaluate.

Note that due to Haskell's unspecified evaluation order, an expression may throw one of several possible exceptions: consider the expression (error "urk") + (1 `div` 0). Does the expression throw ErrorCall "urk", or DivideByZero?

The answer is "it might throw either"; the choice is non-deterministic. If you are catching any type of exception then you might catch either. If you are calling catch with type IO Int -> (ArithException -> IO Int) -> IO Int then the handler may get run with DivideByZero as an argument, or an ErrorCall "urk" exception may be propagated further up. If you call it again, you might get the opposite behaviour. This is ok, because catch is an IO computation.

Like finally, but only performs the final action if there was an exception raised by the computation.

A specialised variant of bracket with just a computation to run afterward.

A variant of bracket where the return value from the first computation is not required.

Conditional execution of Applicative expressions. For example,

when debug (putStrLn "Debugging")

will output the string Debugging if the Boolean value debug is True, and otherwise do nothing.

Left-to-right composition of Kleisli arrows.

'(bs >=> cs) a' can be understood as the do expression

do b <- bs a
   cs b

Right-to-left composition of Kleisli arrows. (>=>), with the arguments flipped.

Note how this operator resembles function composition (.):

(.)   ::            (b ->   c) -> (a ->   b) -> a ->   c
(<=<) :: Monad m => (b -> m c) -> (a -> m b) -> a -> m c

replicateM n act performs the action act n times, and then returns the list of results:

Examples

>>> import Control.Monad.State
>>> runState (replicateM 3 $ state $ \s -> (s, s + 1)) 1
([1,2,3],4)

Like replicateM, but discards the result.

Examples

>>> replicateM_ 3 (putStrLn "a")
a
a
a

The reverse of when.

Reverse all the bits in the argument

Bitwise "and"

Bitwise "or"

Selects alphabetic Unicode characters (lower-case, upper-case and title-case letters, plus letters of caseless scripts and modifiers letters). This function is equivalent to isLetter.

Selects the first 128 characters of the Unicode character set, corresponding to the ASCII character set.

Convert a letter to the corresponding lower-case letter, if any. Any other character is returned unchanged.

Convert a letter to the corresponding upper-case letter, if any. Any other character is returned unchanged.

Map each element of a structure to an Applicative action, evaluate these actions from left to right, and ignore the results. For a version that doesn't ignore the results see traverse.

traverse_ is just like mapM_, but generalised to Applicative actions.

Examples

>>> traverse_ print ["Hello", "world", "!"]
"Hello"
"world"
"!"

for_ is traverse_ with its arguments flipped. For a version that doesn't ignore the results see for. This is forM_ generalised to Applicative actions.

for_ is just like forM_, but generalised to Applicative actions.

Examples

>>> for_ [1..4] print
1
2
3
4

on b u x y runs the binary function b on the results of applying unary function u to two arguments x and y. From the opposite perspective, it transforms two inputs and combines the outputs.

((+) `on` f) x y = f x + f y

Typical usage: sortBy (compare `on` fst).

Algebraic properties:

• (*) `on` id = (*) -- (if (*) ∉ {⊥, const ⊥})

• ((*) `on` f) `on` g = (*) `on` (f . g)

• flip on f . flip on g = flip on (g . f)

The fromMaybe function takes a default value and a Maybe value. If the Maybe is Nothing, it returns the default value; otherwise, it returns the value contained in the Maybe.

Examples

>>> fromMaybe "" (Just "Hello, World!")
"Hello, World!"

>>> fromMaybe "" Nothing
""

>>> import Text.Read ( readMaybe )
>>> fromMaybe 0 (readMaybe "5")
5
>>> fromMaybe 0 (readMaybe "")
0

The maybeToList function returns an empty list when given Nothing or a singleton list when given Just.

Examples

>>> maybeToList (Just 7)
[7]

>>> maybeToList Nothing
[]

>>> import Text.Read ( readMaybe )
>>> sum $ maybeToList (readMaybe "3")
3
>>> sum $ maybeToList (readMaybe "")
0

The catMaybes function takes a list of Maybes and returns a list of all the Just values.

Examples

>>> catMaybes [Just 1, Nothing, Just 3]
[1,3]

>>> import Text.Read ( readMaybe )
>>> [readMaybe x :: Maybe Int | x <- ["1", "Foo", "3"] ]
[Just 1,Nothing,Just 3]
>>> catMaybes $ [readMaybe x :: Maybe Int | x <- ["1", "Foo", "3"] ]
[1,3]

An associative operation.

>>> [1,2,3] <> [4,5,6]
[1,2,3,4,5,6]

Identity of mappend

>>> "Hello world" <> mempty
"Hello world"

Fold a list using the monoid.

For most types, the default definition for mconcat will be used, but the function is included in the class definition so that an optimized version can be provided for specific types.

>>> mconcat ["Hello", " ", "Haskell", "!"]
"Hello Haskell!"

A mutable variable in the IO monad

Build a new IORef

Read the value of an IORef

Write a new value into an IORef

for is traverse with its arguments flipped. For a version that ignores the results see for_.

The member functions of this class facilitate writing values of primitive types to raw memory (which may have been allocated with the above mentioned routines) and reading values from blocks of raw memory. The class, furthermore, includes support for computing the storage requirements and alignment restrictions of storable types.

Memory addresses are represented as values of type Ptr a, for some a which is an instance of class Storable. The type argument to Ptr helps provide some valuable type safety in FFI code (you can't mix pointers of different types without an explicit cast), while helping the Haskell type system figure out which marshalling method is needed for a given pointer.

All marshalling between Haskell and a foreign language ultimately boils down to translating Haskell data structures into the binary representation of a corresponding data structure of the foreign language and vice versa. To code this marshalling in Haskell, it is necessary to manipulate primitive data types stored in unstructured memory blocks. The class Storable facilitates this manipulation on all types for which it is instantiated, which are the standard basic types of Haskell, the fixed size Int types (Int8, Int16, Int32, Int64), the fixed size Word types (Word8, Word16, Word32, Word64), StablePtr, all types from Foreign.C.Types, as well as Ptr.

A value of type Ptr a represents a pointer to an object, or an array of objects, which may be marshalled to or from Haskell values of type a.

The type a will often be an instance of class Storable which provides the marshalling operations. However this is not essential, and you can provide your own operations to access the pointer. For example you might write small foreign functions to get or set the fields of a C struct.

The constant nullPtr contains a distinguished value of Ptr that is not associated with a valid memory location.

alloca f executes the computation f, passing as argument a pointer to a temporarily allocated block of memory sufficient to hold values of type a.

The memory is freed when f terminates (either normally or via an exception), so the pointer passed to f must not be used after this.

with val f executes the computation f, passing as argument a pointer to a temporarily allocated block of memory into which val has been marshalled (the combination of alloca and poke).

The memory is freed when f terminates (either normally or via an exception), so the pointer passed to f must not be used after this.

Advances the given address by the given offset in bytes.

allocaBytes n f executes the computation f, passing as argument a pointer to a temporarily allocated block of memory of n bytes. The block of memory is sufficiently aligned for any of the basic foreign types that fits into a memory block of the allocated size.

The memory is freed when f terminates (either normally or via an exception), so the pointer passed to f must not be used after this.

allocaBytesAligned size align f executes the computation f, passing as argument a pointer to a temporarily allocated block of memory of size bytes and aligned to align bytes. The value of align must be a power of two.

The memory is freed when f terminates (either normally or via an exception), so the pointer passed to f must not be used after this.

Converts a withXXX combinator into one marshalling a value wrapped into a Maybe, using nullPtr to represent Nothing.

Temporarily allocate space for the given number of elements (like alloca, but for multiple elements).

Temporarily store a list of storable values in memory (like with, but for multiple elements).

A C string is a reference to an array of C characters terminated by NUL.

Haskell type representing the C time_t type. (The concrete types of Foreign.C.Types are platform-specific.)