Copyright | (c) The University of Glasgow 2001 |
---|---|
License | BSD-style (see the file libraries/base/LICENSE) |
Maintainer | libraries@haskell.org |
Stability | experimental |
Portability | portable |
Safe Haskell | Trustworthy |
Language | Haskell2010 |
Mutable references in the IO monad.
Synopsis
- data IORef a
- newIORef :: a -> IO (IORef a)
- readIORef :: IORef a -> IO a
- writeIORef :: IORef a -> a -> IO ()
- modifyIORef :: IORef a -> (a -> a) -> IO ()
- modifyIORef' :: IORef a -> (a -> a) -> IO ()
- atomicModifyIORef :: IORef a -> (a -> (a, b)) -> IO b
- atomicModifyIORef' :: IORef a -> (a -> (a, b)) -> IO b
- atomicWriteIORef :: IORef a -> a -> IO ()
- mkWeakIORef :: IORef a -> IO () -> IO (Weak (IORef a))
IORefs
A mutable variable in the IO
monad
modifyIORef :: IORef a -> (a -> a) -> IO () Source #
Mutate the contents of an IORef
.
Be warned that modifyIORef
does not apply the function strictly. This
means if the program calls modifyIORef
many times, but seldomly uses the
value, thunks will pile up in memory resulting in a space leak. This is a
common mistake made when using an IORef as a counter. For example, the
following will likely produce a stack overflow:
ref <- newIORef 0 replicateM_ 1000000 $ modifyIORef ref (+1) readIORef ref >>= print
To avoid this problem, use modifyIORef'
instead.
modifyIORef' :: IORef a -> (a -> a) -> IO () Source #
Strict version of modifyIORef
Since: base-4.6.0.0
atomicModifyIORef :: IORef a -> (a -> (a, b)) -> IO b Source #
Atomically modifies the contents of an IORef
.
This function is useful for using IORef
in a safe way in a multithreaded
program. If you only have one IORef
, then using atomicModifyIORef
to
access and modify it will prevent race conditions.
Extending the atomicity to multiple IORef
s is problematic, so it
is recommended that if you need to do anything more complicated
then using MVar
instead is a good idea.
atomicModifyIORef
does not apply the function strictly. This is important
to know even if all you are doing is replacing the value. For example, this
will leak memory:
ref <- newIORef '1' forever $ atomicModifyIORef ref (\_ -> ('2', ()))
Use atomicModifyIORef'
or atomicWriteIORef
to avoid this problem.
atomicModifyIORef' :: IORef a -> (a -> (a, b)) -> IO b Source #
Strict version of atomicModifyIORef
. This forces both the value stored
in the IORef
as well as the value returned.
Since: base-4.6.0.0
atomicWriteIORef :: IORef a -> a -> IO () Source #
Variant of writeIORef
with the "barrier to reordering" property that
atomicModifyIORef
has.
Since: base-4.6.0.0
Memory Model
In a concurrent program, IORef
operations may appear out-of-order
to another thread, depending on the memory model of the underlying
processor architecture. For example, on x86, loads can move ahead
of stores, so in the following example:
maybePrint :: IORef Bool -> IORef Bool -> IO () maybePrint myRef yourRef = do writeIORef myRef True yourVal <- readIORef yourRef unless yourVal $ putStrLn "critical section" main :: IO () main = do r1 <- newIORef False r2 <- newIORef False forkIO $ maybePrint r1 r2 forkIO $ maybePrint r2 r1 threadDelay 1000000
it is possible that the string "critical section"
is printed
twice, even though there is no interleaving of the operations of the
two threads that allows that outcome. The memory model of x86
allows readIORef
to happen before the earlier writeIORef
.
The implementation is required to ensure that reordering of memory
operations cannot cause type-correct code to go wrong. In
particular, when inspecting the value read from an IORef
, the
memory writes that created that value must have occurred from the
point of view of the current thread.
atomicModifyIORef
acts as a barrier to reordering. Multiple
atomicModifyIORef
operations occur in strict program order. An
atomicModifyIORef
is never observed to take place ahead of any
earlier (in program order) IORef
operations, or after any later
IORef
operations.