[Haskell-cafe] HaXmL and the IO Monad

[Malcolm Wallace]

John Goerzen <jgoerzen at complete.org> writes:

> type CFilter = Content -> [Content]
> 
> Try as I might, I could not figure out a nice way to integrate I/O into
> this system.  A simple IO CFilter wouldn't work, since there has to be
> input available when it runs.  Content -> IO [Content] didn't work
> either, since the IO ripples up all the way to the top, messing up the
> nice code everywhere.

I have been toying with the idea that the CFilter type is nearly a
monad itself (return = keep, bind = o).  If it can be re-formulated as
such, then there is a possibility that one could use monad transformers
(liftM etc) to compose the CFilter and IO monads easily.

However, recasting the HaXml combinator library monadically is rather
more work than I have time for at the moment...

Regards,
    Malcolm