Catching Control-C exception in GHC (Haskell)

Question

I built a really simple read-eval-print-loop in Haskell that catches Control-C (UserInterrupt). However, whenever I compile and run this program, it always catches the first Control-C and always aborts on the second Control-C with exit code 130. It doesn't matter how many lines of input I give it before and between the two Control-Cs, it always happens this way. I know I must be missing something simple... please help, thanks!

Note: this is with base-4 exceptions, so Control.Exception and not Control.OldException.

import Control.Exception as E
import System.IO

main :: IO ()
main = do hSetBuffering stdout NoBuffering
          hSetBuffering stdin NoBuffering
          repLoop

repLoop :: IO ()
repLoop
  = do putStr "> "
       line <- interruptible "<interrupted>" getLine
       if line == "exit"
          then putStrLn "goodbye"
          else do putStrLn $ "input was: " ++ line
                  repLoop

interruptible :: a -> IO a -> IO a
interruptible a m
  = E.handleJust f return m
  where
    f UserInterrupt
      = Just a
    f _
      = Nothing

Answer 1

what OS are u on? If Linux, do you have readline installed, or libedit? I tried it on Ubuntu 9.10, which has libedit, and it behaved as ur seeing. It worked for me on Windows Vista!

This Trac ticket may help assess get current sitch for ghc: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/2301

Answer 2

Disclaimer: I'm not familiar with GHC internals and my answer is based on grepping the source code, reading the comments, and making guesses.

The main function you define is in fact wrapped by runMainIO defined in GHC.TopHandler (this is further confirmed by looking at TcRnDriver.lhs):

-- | 'runMainIO' is wrapped around 'Main.main' (or whatever main is
-- called in the program).  It catches otherwise uncaught exceptions,
-- and also flushes stdout\/stderr before exiting.
runMainIO :: IO a -> IO a
runMainIO main = 
    do 
      main_thread_id <- myThreadId
      weak_tid <- mkWeakThreadId main_thread_id
      install_interrupt_handler $ do
           m <- deRefWeak weak_tid 
           case m of
               Nothing  -> return ()
               Just tid -> throwTo tid (toException UserInterrupt)
      a <- main
      cleanUp
      return a
    `catch`
      topHandler

And install_interrupt_handler is defined as:

install_interrupt_handler :: IO () -> IO ()
#ifdef mingw32_HOST_OS
install_interrupt_handler handler = do
  _ <- GHC.ConsoleHandler.installHandler $
     Catch $ \event -> 
        case event of
           ControlC -> handler
           Break    -> handler
           Close    -> handler
           _ -> return ()
  return ()
#else
#include "rts/Signals.h"
-- specialised version of System.Posix.Signals.installHandler, which
-- isn't available here.
install_interrupt_handler handler = do
   let sig = CONST_SIGINT :: CInt
   _ <- setHandler sig (Just (const handler, toDyn handler))
   _ <- stg_sig_install sig STG_SIG_RST nullPtr
     -- STG_SIG_RST: the second ^C kills us for real, just in case the
     -- RTS or program is unresponsive.
   return ()

On Linux, stg_sig_install is a C function that calls out to sigaction. The parameter STG_SIG_RST is translated to SA_RESETHAND. On Windows, things are done differently, which probably explains ja's observation.

Answer 3

The most reliable solution for me (at least on Linux), has been to install a signal handler using System.Posix.Signals. I was hoping for a solution that would not require this, but the real reason I posted the question was that I wanted to know why GHC behaved the way it did. As explained on #haskell, a likely explanation is that GHC behaves this way so that the user can always Control-C an application if it hangs. Still, it would be nice if GHC provided a way to affect this behavior without the somewhat lower-level method that we resorted to :).