Hi,
I have something like the following in mind:
(defvar *x*)
(defun foo ()
(let ((x (make-bar …)))
(declare (dynamic-extent x))
(setq *x* x)
(return-with-dynamic-extent x)))
(defun test ()
(eql *x* (foo)))
If the result of test is not guaranteed to be t, implementations should have
more freedom to move stack-allocated values up and down the stack, which could
potentially simplify things internally. For users, I don't think this would be
a great restriction, because it seems to me it's unlikely that would want to
rely on eq/eql in the first place here…
[eql is not only defined on numbers and chars, but also other objects, and is
the same as eq in most cases…]
Pascal
On 7 May 2012, at 01:41, Peter Seibel wrote:
> This is verging on worrying about the color of the bikeshed but why should
> EQL not necessarily work with these objects. I can see EQ not working, by
> analogy with numbers and characters but EQL should perhaps do a value
> comparison. (Hmmm, are you assuming that these objects are immutable? Sort of
> seems like they'd better be.)
>
> -Peter
>
> On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 12:27 PM, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Here is a description of what I think is a feature missing in Common Lisp,
> both the standard and current implementations, namely a more complete way to
> ensure stack allocation of objects.
>
> Based on some recent experience with translating some C++ benchmarks to
> Common Lisp - more specifically the fluid animate benchmark from the PARSEC
> benchmark suite - being able to allocate objects on the stack can be a major
> performance win. Unfortunately, this is harder than necessary to achieve in
> Common Lisp.
>
> Here is a simplified example. Assume you have the following class definition
> in C++:
>
> struct vec {
> int x; int y; int z;
> vec(int x, int y, int z): x(x), y(y), z(z) {}
> };
>
> Then you can define the following operations on such a class:
>
> vec vplus(vec v1, vec v2) {
> vec v(v1.x+v2.x, v1.y+v2.y, v1.z+v2.z);
> return vec;
> }
>
> In such a function definition, the local variable v is stack allocated, plus
> the return value is returned by value, not by reference. This holds for any
> intermediate values as well, so if you have other operations like vminus,
> vmul and vdiv, etc., defined accordingly, you can write expressions like this:
>
> vplus(v1, vmul(v2, v3));
>
> …and rest assured that all intermediate values are allocated on the stack as
> well. (C++ loses some performance in some cases because it can happen that it
> relies too much on copying of data structures, but this has been largely
> resolved in C++11, where move operations are supported really well.)
>
> In Common Lisp, you can declare local variables with dynamic extent:
>
> (let ((v (make-vec :x 1 :y 2 :z 3)))
> (declare (dynamic-extent v))
> …)
>
> This has the effect that (in Common Lisp that support this) the struct that v
> refers to is stack allocated. Unfortunately, Common Lisp implementations can
> only do this for data structure constructors that the implementation knows
> about - there is no way for users to add additional operations to the set of
> known dynamic extent 'allocators.'
>
> For example, if you say the following:
>
> (defun vplus (v1 v2)
> (let ((v (make-vec :x (+ (vec-x v1) (vec-x v2))
> :y (+ (vec-y v1) (vec-y v2))
> :z (+ (vec-z v1) (vec-z v2)))))
> (declare (dynamic-extent v))
> v))
>
> …you can be very sure that the resulting program will fail, because the
> reference to the stack allocated data structure is returned, but the data
> will be gone afterwards. This had the consequence that in our attempts at
> translating the fluid animate benchmark, we had to introduce all intermediate
> results explicitly in separate variables, and be very explicit about all the
> necessary computational steps. This was very tedious and the result is not
> nice to look at.
>
> What would be nice is, if we could instead have some form of saying that we
> want to return a data structure on the stack:
>
> (defun vplus (v1 v2)
> (let ((v (make-vec :x (+ (vec-x v1) (vec-x v2))
> :y (+ (vec-y v1) (vec-y v2))
> :z (+ (vec-z v1) (vec-z v2)))))
> (declare (dynamic-extent v))
> (return-with-dynamic-extent v))
>
> The idea is that now, the data that v refers to is returned by value on the
> stack. If the call site receives the value with a matching dynamic-extent
> declaration, then v can just stay on the stack. Same (hopefully) for
> intermediate results in more complex expressions.
>
> Just like dynamic-extent declarations, an implementation should be allowed to
> ignore return-with-dynamic-extent and replace it with a mere return form.
>
> To be able to support move operations on the stack, it may be interesting to
> specify that eq and eql are not reliable anymore for data that is return by
> return-with-dynamic-extent.
>
> I presented the idea at ELS'12 in Zadar, and Christophe Rhodes commented that
> it may also be necessary to have some form of global declaim that states that
> a function will always return something with return-with-dynamic-extent, so
> it's easier for the compiler to know what to do with a return value.
>
> I don't claim that I have completely thought this through, but I think this
> should be doable and shouldn't have too many negative consequences for the
> rest of a system that doesn't use dynamic extents.
>
> I won't be able to implement this, but I just wanted to make sure that the
> idea is on the table, so someone who is interested may pick it up…
>
>
> Pascal
>
> --
> Pascal Costanza
> The views expressed in this email are my own, and not those of my employer.
>
>
>
>
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>
>
>
> --
> Peter Seibel
> http://www.gigamonkeys.com/
--
Pascal Costanza
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