Exceptions vs. Errors (Re: Readline read_history and write_history addition)

[Simon Marlow]

Isaac Dupree wrote:
> 
>>> It should really be:
>>>
>>> block x = do
>>>   IO blockAsyncExceptions#
>>>   ret <- x
>>>   IO unblockAsyncExceptions#
>>>   return ret
>>>
>>> in which case we could then supply implementations for
>>> other monads as well.
>>
>> blockAsyncExceptions# has some tricks to restore tail-recursion in 
>> some cases (see the paper).  But apart from losing that optimisation, 
>> I can't think of any reasons why the above couldn't work - one thing 
>> you have to worry about is what happens when x raises an exeption, but 
>> I think that is handled by the way we save and restore the blocked 
>> state in catch.
> 
> what about if the monad is a transformed one with its own error handling 
> methods (e.g. ErrorT IO) and so (IO blockAsyncExceptions#) is run but 
> (IO unblockAsyncExceptions#) is not? Is that a problem?

Yes, in that case you'd need an exception handler in the above code to 
ensure that unblockAsyncExceptions# was called.

Cheers,
	Simon