Haskell Design Patterns

Imperative I/O

Even though Haskell I/O code is purely functional, this does not prevent us from writing imperative style I/O code. Let's start by printing all the lines of the file:

import System.IO
import qualified Data.ByteString as B
import qualified Data.ByteString.Char8 as B8
import Data.Char (chr)

main = do
  h <- openFile "jabberwocky.txt" ReadMode
  loop h
  hClose h
  where
    loop h' = do   
     isEof <- hIsEOF h'
     if isEof
      then putStrLn "DONE..."
      else do
        line  <- hGetLine h'
        print $ words line
        loop h'

Instead of the hGetLine function, let's use a Data.ByteString.hGet function to read from the file in chunks of 8 bytes:

  chunk  <- B.hGet h' 8
  
  print . words $ show chunk
  –- vs
  –- line  <- hGetLine h'
  –- print $ words line

The splitting of a chunk into words ...