Provide a CInt instance for unboxed arrays

[tibbe]

Would it make sense to provide a CInt (and perhaps CLong, etc.) instance for unboxed arrays? I missed that a couple of times when storing e.g. file descriptors in an array.

[simonmar]

Is StorableArray? not suitable?

[tibbe]

The StorableArray documentation reads:

"It is similar to Data.Array.IO.IOUArray but slower. Its advantage is that it's compatible with C."

Is this still true? Also, are StorableArrays always allocated on the C heap and if so isn't that potentially bad for the GC as it knows nothing about their size?

[simonmar]

As we discussed on IRC, I'm not sure the comment about the speed of StorableArray? is still true. It probably dates from before we optimised the representation of ForeignPtr.

A StorableArray allocated using newArray is on the Haskell heap, and GC'd as usual. However, you can also make a StorableArray using unsafeForeignPtrToStorableArray, in which case the memory can reside anywhere you like (but presumably the ForeignPtr has a finalizer to deallocate it).

Can I close this ticket?

[tibbe]

Thanks for the explanation. Closed.