allow the use of import in the interpreter to load new modules

Hi,

I'm trying to learn Haskell. One of the little things that bother me is that I can't do the following in the interpreter:

Prelude> import System.IO

I get the error <interactive>:1:0: parse error on input `import'

The equivalent thing is Prelude> :module + System.IO

Prelude System.IO>

In all other interpreted languages that I've used (Python, Ruby, etc) one can easily import new modules using the language constructs already defined by the language.

In python... a simple import Whatever does it. It doesn't make sense to have an interpreter specific command for this.

It may sound like a little thing to you. But for me this is one of the details that make me quit the interpreter and continue working on other tasks rather than learning Haskell.

It would be really nice to if you add this capability in your next release of the interpreter.

Thanks, Alex

Trac metadata

Trac field	Value
Version	6.6.1
Type	FeatureRequest
TypeOfFailure	OtherFailure
Priority	normal
Resolution	Unresolved
Component	GHCi
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