Bernie Pope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Of course, [unsafeShow] won't be able to print functions in any helpful way,
> unless we attach source code information to
> functions as well (which may be worth doing anyway?).
It might not be able to print the function's definition, but perhaps
its type?
> One thing to watch out for is cycles in data structures. You may not
> want to try to detect them, but at least you should
> be lazy in generating the printable representation of values.
For debugging output, I find I often limit output to avoid this.
For instance, I defined this helper function for XML parser debugging:
showSome :: [Tag] -> String
showSome a@(_:_:_:_:_:_:_) = (init . show . take 5 $ a)++" ... ]"
showSome a = show a
with a typical error call:
then error ("Couldn't find tag '"++show tag++"' in\n"++showSome list)
Come to think of it, ghci's print-bind-result functionality could benefit
from something like that...
I also think it would be nice if unsafeShow could be available also
in compiled code, not just ghci - e.g. sometimes you might want a mere
user to run your application with debugging turned on.
-k
--
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants
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