[Haskell-cafe] two problems with Data.Binary and Data.ByteString

[Tim Newsham]

> Should the file be closed when the last byte is read (in this
> case its definitely reading all four bytes) or when the first
> byte after that is read (in this case it probably doesn't
> attempt to read more than 4 bytes)?

I'll answer my own question.  Both Prelude.readFile and
Data.ByteString.Lazy.Char8.readFile will keep the file open
after reading the last byte and close it when trying to
read further.  Proof:

   module Main where
   import Control.Applicative
   -- import qualified Data.ByteString.Lazy.Char8 as B
   import Prelude as B

   stateFile = "1word32.bin"
   main = do
       x <- B.take 4 <$> B.readFile stateFile
       -- x <- B.take 5 <$> B.readFile stateFile
       print x
       B.writeFile stateFile x

This works for Prelude and ByteString when taking 5 (there are
exactly 4 bytes in "1word32.bin") and fail when taking 4.

I'm not sure that this behavior is so bad..  there might be some
advantages...  but it might be nice to have it close after the last
byte is read...

However, I think probably the real blame here should probably go
to Data.Binary which doesn't attempt to check that it has consumed
all of its input after doing a "decode".  If "decode" completes
and there is unconsumed data, it should probably raise an error
(it already raises errors for premature EOF).  There's no reason
for it not to, since it does not provide the unconsumed data to
the caller when its done, anyway...

Thoughts?

Tim Newsham
http://www.thenewsh.com/~newsham/