How is IO monad actually implemented?in sense of, what would be the actual implementation of the main function?
How would I call haskell function (IO) f
IO in GHC 7.10.The IO type is essentially a state monad at type State# RealWorld (defined in GHC.Types):
{- |
A value of type @'IO' a@ is a computation which, when performed,
does some I\/O before returning a value of type @a@.
There is really only one way to \"perform\" an I\/O action: bind it to
@Main.main@ in your program. When your program is run, the I\/O will
be performed. It isn't possible to perform I\/O from an arbitrary
function, unless that function is itself in the 'IO' monad and called
at some point, directly or indirectly, from @Main.main@.
'IO' is a monad, so 'IO' actions can be combined using either the do-notation
or the '>>' and '>>=' operations from the 'Monad' class.
-}
newtype IO a = IO (State# RealWorld -> (# State# RealWorld, a #))
The IO monad is strict, because bindIO is defined by case matching (defined in GHC.Base):
instance Monad IO where
{-# INLINE return #-}
{-# INLINE (>>) #-}
{-# INLINE (>>=) #-}
m >> k = m >>= \ _ -> k
return = returnIO
(>>=) = bindIO
fail s = failIO s
returnIO :: a -> IO a
returnIO x = IO $ \ s -> (# s, x #)
bindIO :: IO a -> (a -> IO b) -> IO b
bindIO (IO m) k = IO $ \ s -> case m s of (# new_s, a #) -> unIO (k a) new_s
This implementation is discussed in a blog post by Edward Yang.