I just started learning Haskell. Below is some code written in an imperative style that implements a simple server -- it prints out the HTTP request headers. Besides the fact that I need to rethink it in Haskell, to work with lazy lists and higher order functions, I'd like to see clearly why it does not do what I intended. It is always one behind -- I hit it with a request, nothing happens, hit it again, it prints the first request, hit it the 3rd time, it prints the 2nd request, etc. Why is that? And what is a minimal change to this code that would cause it to print right when the request came in?
import Network
import System.IO
import Network.HTTP.Headers
acceptLoop :: Socket -> IO ()
acceptLoop s = do
(handle, hostname, _) <- accept s
putStrLn ("Accepted connection from " ++ hostname)
text <- hGetContents handle
let lns = lines text
hds = tail lns
print $ parseHeaders hds
hClose handle
acceptLoop s
main :: IO ()
main = do
s <- listenOn (PortNumber 8080)
acceptLoop s
thanks, Rob
Followup
All the answers were helpful. The code below works, but does not use bytestrings, as suggested, yet. A followup question: can ioTakeWhile be replaced by using some functions from the standard libraries, maybe in Control.Monad?
ioTakeWhile :: (a -> Bool) -> [IO a] -> IO [a]
ioTakeWhile pred actions = do
x <- head actions
if pred x
then (ioTakeWhile pred (tail actions)) >>= \xs -> return (x:xs)
else return []
acceptLoop :: Socket -> IO ()
acceptLoop s = do
(handle, hostname, _) <- accept s
putStrLn ("Accepted connection from " ++ hostname)
let lineActions = repeat (hGetLine handle)
lines <- ioTakeWhile (/= "\r") lineActions
print lines
hClose handle