How to run IO inside ScottyM - haskell

I'm using Scotty to write a small web apps.
I need to run IO inside the ScottyM type.
There are several difficulties:
First I can't automatically derive type synonyms from MonadIO in order to run liftIO:
type ScottyM = ScottyT Text IO
Second, I don't know how to derive ScottyT from MonadIO:
newtype ScottyT e m a
Constructors
ScottyT
runS :: State (ScottyState e m) a
What are my options?
Thanks

Is it necessary for you to run your IO inside ScottyM instead of before you start scotty?
{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
import Web.Scotty
import Data.Monoid (mconcat)
main = do
print "Hello world!" -- Or your IO action of choice
scotty 3000 $
get "/:word" $ do
beam <- param "word"
html $ mconcat ["<h1>Scotty, ", beam, " me up!</h1>"]
Another option is to abuse notFound and next to run IO in ActionM, which is more straightforward:
{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
import Web.Scotty
import Control.Monad.Trans.Class (lift)
import Data.Monoid (mconcat)
main = scotty 3000 $ do
notFound $ do
lift $ print "Hello world!" -- Or some other IO action
next
get "/:word" $ do
beam <- param "word"
html $ mconcat ["<h1>Scotty, ", beam, " me up!</h1>"]

Related

Is there any way to catch all exceptions in scotty without wrapping all of my code in Exception Catching

I would like for my default handler to be able to catch all of the exceptions that my App throws but in order for this to happen I need to manually call raise after manually adding some exception catching around my IO code.
below is an example minimal server:
{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
{-# LANGUAGE GeneralizedNewtypeDeriving #-}
{-# LANGUAGE DeriveGeneric #-}
{-# LANGUAGE DeriveFunctor #-}
{-# LANGUAGE ScopedTypeVariables #-}
module Lib
( someFunc
) where
import Web.Scotty.Trans
import Control.Monad.Trans
import Control.Monad.Reader
import Control.Monad.Catch
import Control.Monad.Except
import Data.Text.Lazy as TL
data AppEnv = AppEnv
{ appStuff :: String
}
newtype App a = App
{ unApp :: ReaderT AppEnv IO a
} deriving (Functor, Applicative, Monad, MonadIO, MonadReader AppEnv, MonadThrow)
someFunc :: IO ()
someFunc = do
let run a = runReaderT (unApp $ App a) (AppEnv "APPY STUFF")
scottyT 8080 run $ do
defaultHandler $ \(e :: TL.Text) -> do
liftIO $ print "HERE"
liftIO $ print $ showError e
html $ "Something Went Seriously Wrong"
get "/" $ do
(r :: (Either TL.Text String)) <- liftIO $ runExceptT $ do
(uId) <- lift $ readFile "./helloworld.txt"
return $ ("hello")
liftIO $ print r
case r of
Left l -> raise l
Right s -> (html "hello world")
get "/catch-this" $ do
error "Catch Me"
(html "hello world")
notFound $ do
html "That is not a valid route"
I would like to be able to catch all of my uncaught exceptions in my default handler however this is not the default behavior of scotty that only happens if you call raise. I could wrap all of my ActionM code blocks in ExceptT however this seems like a messy/mechanical way of solving this problem. I mostly want to do this for logging purposes so I can report out to Sentry or Log to a file and this would make it much more convenient.
I figured I'd throw this in there as I recently was looking for this same solution again. It's unfortunate but I was never able to get the behavior that I wanted out of scotty.
Fortunately since scotty is just a nice library to create WAI application's you can get a nice work around using the Settings type from warp and the Options type from scotty.
Below is an example of how you can approach this:
{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
module Lib
( someFunc
) where
import Web.Scotty.Trans
import Data.Text
import qualified Data.Text.Lazy as TL
import Control.Monad.IO.Class
import Control.Exception
import Network.HTTP.Types
import System.IO.Error
import Network.Wai.Handler.Warp
import Network.Wai
myOpts :: Options
myOpts = Options 1 mySettings
mySettings :: Settings
mySettings = setOnExceptionResponse myHandler $ setPort 3002 $ defaultSettings
myHandler :: SomeException -> Response
myHandler se = responseLBS status500 [] "HERE WE ARE"
someFunc :: IO ()
someFunc = do
scottyOptsT myOpts id routes
myExceptions :: (MonadIO m) => TL.Text -> ActionT TL.Text m ()
myExceptions t = do
liftIO $ print t
html "error"
routes :: (MonadIO m) => ScottyT TL.Text m ()
routes = do
defaultHandler $ \str -> do
liftAndCatchIO $ print str
status status500
json ("welp you thought"::Text)
get "/:here" $ do
liftIO $ ioError $ userError "Hahah"
text "here"
You can then tap further into the Settings type provided by warp so that you could maybe log all the error messages or perform some custom action using the following methods setOnException setOnExceptionResponse.

Using ReaderT transformer in ScottyT (vs ActionT)

I'm trying to thread configuration through my Scotty based application using ReaderT monad transformer approach, and having trouble doing so. I have to use configuration both when defining routes (as some of them depend on the config) and when handling actual requests.
The latter works just fine in the ActionT, but no matter what I try I just can't get the types right in ScottyT.
Here's the minimal example I compiled from the ReaderT sample from Scotty GitHub repository:
{-# LANGUAGE GeneralizedNewtypeDeriving #-}
{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
module Main where
import Control.Applicative
import Control.Monad.Reader (MonadIO, MonadReader, ReaderT, asks, lift, runReaderT)
import Data.Default.Class (def)
import Data.Text.Lazy (Text, pack)
import Prelude
import Web.Scotty.Trans (ScottyT, get, scottyOptsT, text, capture)
data Config = Config
{ environment :: String
} deriving (Eq, Read, Show)
newtype ConfigM a = ConfigM
{ runConfigM :: ReaderT Config IO a
} deriving (Applicative, Functor, Monad, MonadIO, MonadReader Config)
application :: ScottyT Text ConfigM ()
application = do
get "/" $ do
e <- lift $ asks environment
text $ pack $ show e
path <- lift $ asks environment
get (capture path) $ do
text $ pack $ "Hello, custom path"
main :: IO ()
main = scottyOptsT def runIO application where
runIO :: ConfigM a -> IO a
runIO m = runReaderT (runConfigM m) config
config :: Config
config = Config
{ environment = "Development"
}
The error I'm getting is:
• No instance for (Control.Monad.Trans.Class.MonadTrans
(ScottyT Text))
arising from a use of ‘lift’
• In a stmt of a 'do' block: path <- lift $ asks environment
I've looked through the code where ScottyT type is outlined, and indeed there doesn't seem to be an instance of MonadTrans defined for it.
However, I don't feel I have enough both mana and Haskell experience to find a way out of it and would appreciate any help!
Thank you!
With a collective mind we all came to a currently viable solution to the problem.
ScottyT type cased to be a monad transformer with after https://github.com/scotty-web/scotty/pull/167 got merged, therefore there's currently no way of using it this way. There was a PR https://github.com/scotty-web/scotty/pull/181 aimed at bringing that feature back, but as far as I understood it has never got merged.
Since it's not a monad transformer we can only wrap it again:
{-# LANGUAGE GeneralizedNewtypeDeriving #-}
{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
module Main where
import Control.Applicative
import Control.Monad.Reader (MonadIO, MonadReader, ReaderT, asks, lift, runReaderT)
import Data.Default.Class (def)
import Data.Text.Lazy (Text, pack)
import Prelude
import Web.Scotty.Trans (ScottyT, get, scottyOptsT, text, capture)
data Config = Config
{ environment :: String
} deriving (Eq, Read, Show)
newtype ConfigM a = ConfigM
{ runConfigM :: ReaderT Config IO a
} deriving (Applicative, Functor, Monad, MonadIO, MonadReader Config)
application :: ConfigM (ScottyT Text ConfigM ())
application = do
path <- asks environment
return $
get "/" $ do
e <- lift $ asks environment
text $ pack $ show e
get (capture path) $
text $ pack $ "Hello, custom path"
runIO :: Config -> ConfigM a -> IO a
runIO c m = runReaderT (runConfigM m) c
main :: IO ()
main = do
let config = Config { environment = "/path" }
app <- runIO config application
scottyOptsT def (runIO config) app
Thanks everyone for helping me out, and hopefully this helps another wandering Scotty like me :).

LiftIO, do block, and syntax

I'm getting to grips with writing an API in Haskell using Scotty. My files are provided below. My questions are:
In the routes definition, I'm extracting from liftIO whatsTheTime in a do block. This works, but it seems verbose. Is there a nicer syntax?
In the whatsTheTime definition, I'm needing to do fromString. I'd have thought OverloadedString would take care of that, but that's not the case. I'd really appreciate it if somebody pointed out why it doesn't work without fromString.
In a stack project, if I need a directive like OverloadedStrings, do I need to include it every file that needs it, or just at the top of the main entrypoint?
Api.hs:
{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
module Api
( whatsTheTime
) where
import Data.Time (getCurrentTime)
import Web.Scotty
import Data.String
whatsTheTime :: IO (ActionM ())
whatsTheTime = do
time <- getCurrentTime
return $ text $ fromString ("The time is now " ++ show time)
Main.hs:
{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
{-# LANGUAGE DeriveGeneric #-}
module Main where
import Api
import Web.Scotty
import Control.Monad.IO.Class
routes = do
get "/" $ do
res <- liftIO whatsTheTime
res
main :: IO ()
main = do
putStrLn "Starting server..."
scotty 3000 routes
(1) This:
do
res <- liftIO whatsTheTime
res
Desugars to this:
liftIO whatsTheTime >>= \ res -> res
If you look at the type of \ m -> m >>= id:
(Monad m) => m (m a) -> m a
That’s exactly the type of join (Hoogle), so you can use:
get "/" $ join $ liftIO whatsTheTime
join is a common idiom for “execute this action which returns an action, and also execute the returned action”.
(2) OverloadedStrings is for overloading of string literals. You have an overloaded literal "The time is now ", but you constrain it to be of type String by using it as an operand of (++) with a String (the result of show time). You can pack the result of show time as a Text instead using fromString or Data.Text.pack:
import Data.Monoid ((<>))
import qualified Data.Text as Text
-- ...
return $ text $ "The time is now " <> Text.pack (show time)
(3) LANGUAGE pragmas operate per file; as #mgsloan notes, you can add OverloadedStrings to the default-extensions: field of your library or executable in your .cabal file.

How to compress the output when writing to a file?

I have a computation that along with other things generates some data (a lot of it) and I want to write into a file.
The way the code is structured now is (simplified):
writeRecord :: Handle -> Record -> IO ()
writeRecord h r = hPutStrLn h (toByteString r)
This function is then called periodically during a bigger computation. It is almost like a log, and in fact, multiple files are being written simultaneously.
Now I want the output file to be compressed with Gzip.
In languages like Java I would do something like:
outStream = new GzipOutputStream(new FileOutputStream(path))
and then would just write into that wrapped output stream.
What is the way of doing it in Haskell?
I think writing something like
writeRecord h r = hPut h ((compressed . toByteString) r)
is not correct because compressing each small bit individually isn't efficient (I even tried it and the size of the compressed file is bigger than uncompressed this way).
I also don't think that I can just produce a lazy ByteString (or even a list of chunks) and then write it with compressed . fromChunks because this will require my "generator" building the full thing in memory. And the fact that more than one file is produced at the same time makes it even more complicated.
So what would be a way to solve this in Haskell? Writing to file(s) and have them gzipped?
All the streaming libraries support compression. If I understand the particular problem and the way you are thinking about it, io-streams might be the simplest for your purposes. Here I alternate between writing to trump and clinton output streams, which are written as compressed files. I follow by showing the pipes equivalent of Michael's conduit program
#!/usr/bin/env stack
-- stack --resolver lts-6.21 --install-ghc runghc --package io-streams
{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
import qualified System.IO.Streams as IOS
import qualified System.IO as IO
import Data.ByteString (ByteString)
analyzer :: IOS.OutputStream ByteString -> IOS.OutputStream ByteString -> IO ()
analyzer clinton trump = do
IOS.write (Just "This is a string\n") clinton
IOS.write (Just "This is a string\n") trump
IOS.write (Just "Clinton string\n") clinton
IOS.write (Just "Trump string\n") trump
IOS.write (Just "Another Clinton string\n") clinton
IOS.write (Just "Another Trump string\n") trump
IOS.write Nothing clinton
IOS.write Nothing trump
main:: IO ()
main =
IOS.withFileAsOutput "some-file-clinton.txt.gz" $ \clinton_compressed ->
IOS.withFileAsOutput "some-file-trump.txt.gz" $ \trump_compressed -> do
clinton <- IOS.gzip IOS.defaultCompressionLevel clinton_compressed
trump <- IOS.gzip IOS.defaultCompressionLevel trump_compressed
analyzer clinton trump
Obviously you can mix all kinds of IO in analyzer between acts of writing to the two output streams - I'm just show in the writes, so to speak. In particular, if analyzer is understood as depending on an input stream, the writes can depend on reads from the input stream. Here's a (slightly!) more complicated program that does that. If I run the program above I see
$ stack gzip_so.hs
$ gunzip some-file-clinton.txt.gz
$ gunzip some-file-trump.txt.gz
$ cat some-file-clinton.txt
This is a string
Clinton string
Another Clinton string
$ cat some-file-trump.txt
This is a string
Trump string
Another Trump string
With pipes and conduit there are various ways of achieving the above effect, with a higher level of decomposition of parts. Writing to separate files will however be a little more subtle. Here in any case is the pipes equivalent of Michael S's conduit program:
#!/usr/bin/env stack
-- stack --resolver lts-6.21 --install-ghc runghc --package pipes-zlib
{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
import Control.Monad.IO.Class (MonadIO, liftIO)
import Data.ByteString (ByteString, hPutStr)
import System.IO (IOMode(..), withFile, Handle)
import Pipes
import qualified Pipes.ByteString as PB
import qualified Pipes.GZip as P
-- Some helper function you may have
someAction :: IO ByteString
someAction = return "This is a string\n"
-- Original version
producerHandle :: Handle -> IO ()
producerHandle h = do
str <- someAction
hPutStr h str
producerPipe :: MonadIO m => Producer ByteString m ()
producerPipe = do
str <- liftIO someAction
yield str
main :: IO ()
main = withFile "some-file-pipes.txt.gz" WriteMode $ \h ->
runEffect $ P.compress P.defaultCompression producerPipe >-> PB.toHandle h
-- Edit
Here for what it's worth is yet another way of superimposing several producers on a single thread with pipes or conduit, to add to the different approaches Michael S and danidiaz mentioned:
#!/usr/bin/env stack
-- stack --resolver lts-6.21 --install-ghc runghc --package pipes-zlib
{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
import Pipes
import Pipes.GZip
import qualified Pipes.Prelude as P
import qualified Pipes.ByteString as Bytes
import System.IO
import Control.Monad (replicateM_)
producer = replicateM_ 50000 $ do
marie "This is going to Marie\n" -- arbitary IO can be interspersed here
arthur "This is going to Arthur\n" -- with liftIO
sylvia "This is going to Sylvia\n"
where
marie = yield; arthur = lift . yield; sylvia = lift . lift . yield
sinkHelper h p = runEffect (compress bestSpeed p >-> Bytes.toHandle h)
main :: IO ()
main =
withFile "marie.txt.gz" WriteMode $ \marie ->
withFile "arthur.txt.gz" WriteMode $ \arthur ->
withFile "sylvia.txt.gz" WriteMode $ \sylvia ->
sinkHelper sylvia
$ sinkHelper arthur
$ sinkHelper marie
$ producer
It is quite simple and fast, and can be written in conduit with the obvious alterations - but finding it natural involves a higher level of buy-in with the 'monad transformer stack' point of view. It would be the most natural way of writing such a program from the point of view of something like the streaming library.
Doing this with conduit is fairly straightforward, though you'd need to adjust your code a bit. I've put together an example of before and after code to demonstrate it. The basic idea is:
Replace hPutStr h with yield
Add some liftIO wrappers
Instead of using withBinaryFile or the like, use runConduitRes, gzip, and sinkFile
Here's the example:
#!/usr/bin/env stack
-- stack --resolver lts-6.21 --install-ghc runghc --package conduit-extra
{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
import Control.Monad.IO.Class (MonadIO, liftIO)
import Data.ByteString (ByteString, hPutStr)
import Data.Conduit (ConduitM, (.|), yield, runConduitRes)
import Data.Conduit.Binary (sinkFile)
import Data.Conduit.Zlib (gzip)
import System.IO (Handle)
-- Some helper function you may have
someAction :: IO ByteString
someAction = return "This is a string\n"
-- Original version
producerHandle :: Handle -> IO ()
producerHandle h = do
str <- someAction
hPutStr h str
-- Conduit version
producerConduit :: MonadIO m => ConduitM i ByteString m ()
producerConduit = do
str <- liftIO someAction
yield str
main :: IO ()
main = runConduitRes $ producerConduit
.| gzip
.| sinkFile "some-file.txt.gz"
You can learn more about conduit in the conduit tutorial.
Your Java idea is interesting, give me a few more minutes, I'll add an answer that looks more like that.
EDIT
Here's a version that's closer to your Java style approach. It relies on a SinkFunc.hs module which is available as a Gist at: https://gist.github.com/snoyberg/283154123d30ff9e201ea4436a5dd22d
#!/usr/bin/env stack
-- stack --resolver lts-6.21 --install-ghc runghc --package conduit-extra
{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
{-# OPTIONS_GHC -Wall -Werror #-}
import Data.ByteString (ByteString)
import Data.Conduit ((.|))
import Data.Conduit.Binary (sinkHandle)
import Data.Conduit.Zlib (gzip)
import System.IO (withBinaryFile, IOMode (WriteMode))
import SinkFunc (withSinkFunc)
-- Some helper function you may have
someAction :: IO ByteString
someAction = return "This is a string\n"
producerFunc :: (ByteString -> IO ()) -> IO ()
producerFunc write = do
str <- someAction
write str
main :: IO ()
main = withBinaryFile "some-file.txt.gz" WriteMode $ \h -> do
let sink = gzip .| sinkHandle h
withSinkFunc sink $ \write -> producerFunc write
EDIT 2 One more for good measure, actually using ZipSink to stream the data to multiple different files. There are lots of different ways of slicing this, but this is one way that works:
#!/usr/bin/env stack
-- stack --resolver lts-6.21 --install-ghc runghc --package conduit-extra
{-# LANGUAGE OverloadedStrings #-}
import Control.Monad.Trans.Resource (MonadResource)
import Data.ByteString (ByteString)
import Data.Conduit (ConduitM, (.|), yield, runConduitRes, ZipSink (..))
import Data.Conduit.Binary (sinkFile)
import qualified Data.Conduit.List as CL
import Data.Conduit.Zlib (gzip)
data Output = Foo ByteString | Bar ByteString
fromFoo :: Output -> Maybe ByteString
fromFoo (Foo bs) = Just bs
fromFoo _ = Nothing
fromBar :: Output -> Maybe ByteString
fromBar (Bar bs) = Just bs
fromBar _ = Nothing
producer :: Monad m => ConduitM i Output m ()
producer = do
yield $ Foo "This is going to Foo"
yield $ Bar "This is going to Bar"
sinkHelper :: MonadResource m
=> FilePath
-> (Output -> Maybe ByteString)
-> ConduitM Output o m ()
sinkHelper fp f
= CL.mapMaybe f
.| gzip
.| sinkFile fp
main :: IO ()
main = runConduitRes
$ producer
.| getZipSink
(ZipSink (sinkHelper "foo.txt.gz" fromFoo) *>
ZipSink (sinkHelper "bar.txt.gz" fromBar))
For incremental compression, I think you could make use of compressIO/foldCompressStream in Codec.Compression.Zlib.Internal.
If you're able to represent your producer action as an IO (Maybe a) (such as an MVar take or InputStream/Chan read) where Nothing signifies end of input, something like this should work:
import System.IO (Handle)
import qualified Data.ByteString as BS
import qualified Codec.Compression.Zlib.Internal as ZLib
compressedWriter :: Handle -> (IO (Maybe BS.ByteString)) -> IO ()
compressedWriter handle source =
ZLib.foldCompressStream
(\next -> source >>= maybe (next BS.empty) next)
(\chunk next -> BS.hPut handle chunk >> next)
(return ())
(ZLib.compressIO ZLib.rawFormat ZLib.defaultCompressParams)
This solution is similar to Michael Snoyman's EDIT 2, but uses the foldl, pipes, pipes-zlib and streaming-eversion packages.
{-# language OverloadedStrings #-}
module Main where
-- cabal install bytestring foldl pipes pipes-zlib streaming-eversion
import Data.Foldable
import Data.ByteString
import qualified Control.Foldl as L
import Pipes
import qualified Pipes.Prelude
import Pipes.Zlib (compress,defaultCompression,defaultWindowBits)
import Streaming.Eversion.Pipes (transvertMIO)
import System.IO
type Tag = String
producer :: Monad m => Producer (Tag,ByteString) m ()
producer = do
yield $ ("foo","This is going to Foo")
yield $ ("bar","This is going to Bar")
foldForTag :: Handle -> Tag -> L.FoldM IO (Tag,ByteString) ()
foldForTag handle tag =
L.premapM (\(tag',bytes) -> if tag' == tag then Just bytes else Nothing)
. L.handlesM L.folded
. transvertMIO (compress defaultCompression defaultWindowBits)
$ L.mapM_ (Data.ByteString.hPut handle)
main :: IO ()
main = do
withFile "foo.txt" WriteMode $ \h1 ->
withFile "bar.txt" WriteMode $ \h2 ->
let multifold = traverse_ (uncurry foldForTag) [(h1,"foo"),(h2,"bar")]
in L.impurely Pipes.Prelude.foldM multifold producer
This solution is similar to Michael Snoyman's EDIT 2, but uses the streaming, streaming-bytestring, pipes and pipes-zlib packages.
{-# language OverloadedStrings #-}
module Main where
-- cabal install bytestring streaming streaming-bytestring pipes pipes-zlib
import Data.ByteString
import qualified Data.ByteString.Streaming as B
import Streaming
import qualified Streaming.Prelude as S
import Pipes (next)
import qualified Pipes.Prelude
import Pipes.Zlib (compress,defaultCompression,defaultWindowBits)
import System.IO
type Tag = String
producer :: Monad m => Stream (Of (Tag,ByteString)) m ()
producer = do
S.yield ("foo","This is going to Foo")
S.yield ("bar","This is going to Bar")
-- I couldn't find a streaming-zlib on Hackage, took a pipes detour
compress' :: MonadIO m
=> Stream (Of ByteString) m r -> Stream (Of ByteString) m r
compress' = S.unfoldr Pipes.next
. compress defaultCompression defaultWindowBits
. Pipes.Prelude.unfoldr S.next
keepTag :: Monad m
=> Tag -> Stream (Of (Tag,ByteString)) m r -> Stream (Of ByteString) m r
keepTag tag = S.map snd . S.filter ((tag==) . fst)
main :: IO ()
main = runResourceT
. B.writeFile "foo.txt" . B.fromChunks . compress' . keepTag "foo"
. B.writeFile "bar.txt" . B.fromChunks . compress' . keepTag "bar"
$ S.copy producer
I make use of the copy function from Streaming.Prelude, that allows you to
Duplicate the content of stream, so that it can be acted on twice in
different ways, but without breaking streaming.

backend serving currenttime (in json) in haskell

I want to write a simple webserver in haskell which provides the current time. The time should be returned in json format.
Here is what I have so far:
{-# LANGUAGE DeriveDataTypeable #-}
import Happstack.Server
import Text.JSON.Generic
import Data.Time
import System.IO.Unsafe
data TimeStr = TimeStr {time :: String} deriving (Data, Typeable)
main = simpleHTTP nullConf $ ok $ toResponse $ encodeJSON (TimeStr $ show (unsafePerformIO getCurrentTime))
I am aware that unsafePerformIO should be avoided, yet I could not find a better solution yet. Maybe this is where the problem lies? I have a very basic understanding of monads.
The result is the following:
{"time":"2014-10-16 16:11:38.834251 UTC"}
The problem is that when I refresh localhost:8000 the time doesn't change. Is there some sort of memoization going on?
unsafePerformIO :: IO a -> a
This is the "back door" into the IO monad, allowing IO computation to be performed at any time. For this to be safe, the IO computation should be free of side effects and independent of its environment.
getCurrentTime is dependent on its environment, so unsafePerformIO is not the way to go. However, given a MonadIO, we can use liftIO in order to lift the action into the appropriate monad. Lets have a look at the types to find out where we can plug it in:
-- http://hackage.haskell.org/package/happstack-server-7.3.9/docs/Happstack-Server-SimpleHTTP.html
simpleHTTP :: ToMessage a => Conf -> ServerPartT IO a -> IO ()
ServerPartT is an instance of MonadIO, so we could definitely plug it in here. Lets check ok:
ok :: FilterMonad Response m => a -> m a
-- nope: ^^^
So we really need to get the current time before we prepare the response. After all, this makes sense: when you create the response, all heavy work has been done, you know what response code you can use and you don't need to check whether the file or entry in the database exists. After all, you were going to sent an 200 OK, right?
This leaves us with the following solution:
{-# LANGUAGE DeriveDataTypeable #-}
import Happstack.Server
import Text.JSON.Generic
import Data.Time
import System.IO.Unsafe
import Control.Monad.IO.Class (liftIO)
data TimeStr = TimeStr {time :: String} deriving (Data, Typeable)
main = simpleHTTP nullConf $ do
currentTime <- liftIO getCurrentTime
ok $ toResponse $ encodeJSON (TimeStr $ show currentTime)
Lessons learned
Don't use unsafePerformIO.
Don't use unsafePerformIO, unless you're really sure what you're actually doing.
Use liftIO if you want to use an IO action in an instance of MonadIO.

Resources