bug in hGetPS?

[David Roundy]

On Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 11:32:53AM +0100, Simon Marlow wrote:
>  
> > I'm not sure if this counts as a bug or a feature...
> > 
> > If hGetPS h len encounters an EOF before len, it returns a PackedString
> > containing the remainder of the file.  However, if h is already at the
> > end of the file, an exception is raised rather than returning an empty
> > string.  To me this is rather counter-intuitive.
> 
> It matches the behaviour of System.IO.hGetLine.
> 
> Data.PackedString.hGetPS behaves in the way you're suggesting: it just
> returns short reads instead of flagging EOF.  Unfortuantely this is
> inconsistent with hGetLine, so I'm not sure if the behaviour should stay
> that way.

I don't see that hGetPS should be consistent with hGetLine.  If hGetLine
returns and empty string, you assume the file has two newlines in a row,
while if hGetPS returns an empty string, since you asked for a given number
of chars, you know that you've reached the end of the file.
-- 
David Roundy
http://www.abridgegame.org