Hey fellow Squeakers
[Attention: low level lengthy stuff]
I today encountered a strange behavior. When running the Startup code, somewhen ContextPart>>#complete is called, which, in the process issues #contextOn:do:, which subsequently somewhere interanlly does a jump:
contextOn: exceptionClass do: block "Create an #on:do: context that is ready to return from executing its receiver"
| ctxt chain | ctxt := thisContext. [chain := thisContext sender cut: ctxt. ctxt jump] on: exceptionClass do: block. "jump above will resume here without unwinding chain" ^ chain
The idea is that we end up right before '^ chain' as the comment indicates. so what happens is that ctxt is the context of #contextOn:do: itself and it gets send #jump in the closure.
Jump now does the following:
jump "Abandon thisContext and resume self instead (using the same current process). You may want to save thisContext's sender before calling this so you can jump back to it. Self MUST BE a top context (ie. a suspended context or a abandoned context that was jumped out of). A top context already has its return value on its stack (see Interpreter>>primitiveSuspend and other suspending primitives). thisContext's sender is converted to a top context (by pushing a nil return value on its stack) so it can be jump back to."
| top | "Make abandoned context a top context (has return value (nil)) so it can be jumped back to" thisContext sender push: nil.
"Pop self return value then return it to self (since we jump to self by returning to it)" stackp = 0 ifTrue: [self stepToSendOrReturn]. stackp = 0 ifTrue: [self push: nil]. "must be quick return self/constant" top := self pop. thisContext privSender: self. ^ top
So. bytecode for #contextOn:do: is:
29 <8A 01> push: (Array new: 1) 31 <6B> popIntoTemp: 3 32 <89> pushThisContext: 33 <6A> popIntoTemp: 2 34 <12> pushTemp: 2 35 <13> pushTemp: 3 36 <8F 20 00 0A> closureNumCopied: 2 numArgs: 0 bytes 40 to 49 40 <89> pushThisContext: 41 <D2> send: sender 42 <10> pushTemp: 0 43 <E1> send: cut: 44 <8E 00 01> popIntoTemp: 0 inVectorAt: 1 47 <10> pushTemp: 0 48 <D3> send: jump 49 <7D> blockReturn 50 <10> pushTemp: 0 51 <11> pushTemp: 1 52 <F0> send: on:do: 53 <87> pop 54 <8C 00 03> pushTemp: 0 inVectorAt: 3 57 <7C> returnTop
The jump lands right at 53 and does a pop. HOWEVER, at this point the stack of this context is empty and the pop actually pops the 3rd temp from the temps that 'just happens' to be right under the stack. This should be fatal. HOWEVER again, Squeak actually does not pop but only decrement the SP so the temp access still works(this _could_ be fine but some implementations (Eg, RSqueak) tried to separate temps and stack; which is not possible currently).
What could be the problem here? - are the 'stackp = 0'-checks in #jump wrong and they actually should check for the actual stack depth _after_ temps? - should we put in a "sacrificial anode" in #contextOn:do: so that the pop does not pop the empty stack? (like this:
contextOn: exceptionClass do: block "Create an #on:do: context that is ready to return from executing its receiver"
| ctxt chain | ctxt := thisContext. [chain := thisContext sender cut: ctxt. ctxt push: nil. "sacrifical anode" ctxt jump ] on: exceptionClass do: block. "jump above will resume here without unwinding chain" ^ chain
- Or is there an even better way?
Best -Tobias