Haskell 98 specification says that the entry point of a program, namely, function main
, should reside in the module called Main, by convention. However, even if you don't write module Main where
at the top of the file you write main
in, the source code compiles and seems working correct when you're using GHC.
The question is:
module Main where
and not writing it?A Haskell module is a collection of related functions, types and typeclasses. A Haskell program is a collection of modules where the main module loads up the other modules and then uses the functions defined in them to do something. Having code split up into several modules has quite a lot of advantages.
Haskell's module design is relatively conservative: the name-space of modules is completely flat, and modules are in no way "first-class." Module names are alphanumeric and must begin with an uppercase letter. There is no formal connection between a Haskell module and the file system that would (typically) support it.
There isn't really a difference, module Main (main) where
would be the implicit definition when you don't specify a header yourself. From the Haskell 98 Report:
An abbreviated form of module, consisting only of the module body, is permitted. If this is used, the header is assumed to be
module Main(main) where
.
I would prefer an explicit definition to an implicit one but, for a Main.hs
it's a minor preference.
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