Using the NHC.BinArray library

This document describes the York BinArray library, a library for imperative binary arrays which, although it is implemented using the Binary library, has an independent interface and can be used pretty-much without any knowledge of the Binary library at all. We present this BinArray module as an example of the use of the Binary library to build higher-level facilities, and would encourage programmers to write and publish other useful libraries in a similar manner.

NHC.BinArray library

    module NHC.BinArray 
      ( type  BinArray
      , newBinArray
      , intoBinArray
      , fromBinArray
      , putBinArray
      , getBinArray
      ) where

    data BinArray a = ...

    newBinArray   :: Binary a => Int -> a -> IO (BinArray a)

    intoBinArray  :: Binary a => BinArray a -> a   -> IO Int
    fromBinArray  :: Binary a => BinArray a -> Int -> IO a

    putBinArray   :: Binary a => FilePath -> BinArray a -> IO ()
    getBinArray   :: Binary a => FilePath -> IO (BinArray a)

A BinArray a is an imperative (mutable) array that holds values of type a in binary representation. It is implemented using the Binary library, but as you can see, this is largely hidden from the programmer. A BinArray can only be written to sequentially. If one attempts to read a value from an index position which has not yet been written to (or which is beyond the bounds of the array), a default value is returned.

A BinArray can be stored in a file between program runs. Reading and writing BinArrays to disk is fast. Once a BinArray has been read back from disk, it can be written to again in the usual way.
newBinArray n d gives you a fresh binary array of size n, filled with default value d. The binary values are stored in memory.
intoBinArray ba x stuffs the value x into the array ba using a binary representation
fromBinArray ba i gives you back the value at the i'th position in the array ba
putBinArray fn ba copies the whole array ba into a binary file whose name is fn
getBinArray fn gives you back a binary array read from the file named fn

The latest updates to these pages are available on the WWW from http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/fp/nhc98/

1998.03.26
York Functional Programming Group