VM-beginners May 2012

vm-beginners@lists.squeakfoundation.org

7 participants
7 discussions

Processor association in special objects array
by Guillermo Polito 30 May '12

30 May '12

Hi! With Ben we were wandering the reason why the special objects array points to the association #Processor->Processor, and not directly to the Processor object. TIA, Guille & Ben

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About Primitives
by Santiago Bragagnolo 25 May '12

25 May '12

Hi All Im analyzing primtives to use them for the concrete type inference project. Im currently working with primitiveArrayBecomeOneWayCopyHash primitiveArrayBecomeOneWayCopyHash "Similar to primitiveArrayBecomeOneWay but accepts a third argument whether to copy the receiver's identity hash over the argument's identity hash." | copyHashFlag arg rcvr | copyHashFlag := self booleanValueOf: (self stackTop). arg := self stackValue: 1. rcvr := self stackValue: 2. self success: (self become: rcvr with: arg twoWay: false copyHash: copyHashFlag). successFlag ifTrue: [ self pop: 2 ]. Well, i'm seeing that pop:2, in a method which don't receive any argument. If pop was 1, i could think in self, but is 2, so the questions are: 1) what is pop:2 in this context 2) why? there's any generalization or rules for understand the stack manage? Thanks! Santiago.

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Sync clone with blessed in Gitorious
by Sean P. DeNigris 25 May '12

25 May '12

I know I can pull from blessed to my clone via the command line... how do I do it via the Gitorious web UI? -- View this message in context: http://forum.world.st/Sync-clone-with-blessed-in-Gitorious-tp4631770.html Sent from the Smalltalk VM - Beginners mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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Bochs simulator plug-in structure
by Chris Cunnington 12 May '12

12 May '12

http://www.mirandabanda.org/files/Cog/VM/VM.r2550/ http://www.osrcon.ca/screen.png http://www.osrcon.ca/screen2.png http://www.osrcon.ca/screen3.png "you need a Boch plugin to run this code. This plugin is not shipped with VMs built by Jenkins server. Not sure about Eliot's builds." Running this image on the latest Cog build, which has Bochs, which you can see from the screen shots, is an advance. The simulator appears, but the whole image is frozen. Until it throws an error, as seen in screen2.png, the only living thing is the scrolling output in the bottom left pane. Of course, none of this may be a problem. I use the 2.7 InterpreterSimulatorLSB, where the simulated image runs, while the host image, the one with the vm is frozen. My solution is to plant a 'self halt' in Interpreter>>primtiveSomeInstance. Then I evaluate SystemTracer allInstances. Bang. The simulated image goes up in a puff of smoke leaving a debugger in the host image, which is pure gold. I can explore the values in the ObjectMemory and such. I imagine I could do something similar here. Chris

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Re: [Vm-dev] Re: [Pharo-project] Can OSProcess functionality be implemented using FFI instead of plugin?
by Igor Stasenko 08 May '12

08 May '12

On 7 May 2012 20:15, Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 9:14 AM, Nicolas Cellier <nicolas.cellier.aka.nice(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >> 2012/5/6 Igor Stasenko <siguctua(a)gmail.com>: >> > On 6 May 2012 17:08, Nicolas Cellier <nicolas.cellier.aka.nice(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >> 2012/5/6 Guillermo Polito <guillermopolito(a)gmail.com>: >> >>> >> >>> >> >>> On Sun, May 6, 2012 at 2:16 PM, Esteban Lorenzano <estebanlm(a)gmail.com> >> >>> wrote: >> >>>> >> >>>> <snip> >> >>>> I'm more worried about having all-platforms-specific-stuff inside image... >> >>>> but we can mitigate that with fuel, and making loadable packages when >> >>>> running the image... I don't know, I'm just thinking while writing, so, this >> >>>> is probably stupid :) >> >>>> >> >>> >> >>> Just think how many times you took a development image and used it in >> >>> several platforms. At least I don't. Same happened when I used Eclipse. I >> >>> didn't share my eclipses between systems. Even, I had several eclipse >> >>> installations with their own plugins (just like images, hehe). >> >>> >> >>> Probably with jenkins, metacello, and kernel/bootstrap we can generate >> >>> distributions per platform (With the possibility of an all-in-one >> >>> distribution for the ones who like that). >> >>> >> >>> Guille >> >> >> >> Yes, I understand that we can live without this feature... >> >> - If we can reconstruct images easily (one of the goal of Pharo) - I >> >> mean not only code, but any object (eventually with Fuel) >> >> - If we solve the bootstrap problem (or if we can still prepare an >> >> image for cross platform startup) >> >> - If we don't forget to always talk (send messages) thru an abstract >> >> layer, and never directly name the target library, >> >> >> >> Since I didn't have all these tools in the past, I were forced to use >> >> development images across different platform a lot, and yes, it was >> >> not following the mainstream rules (a la "we can reconstruct all from >> >> scratch") but damn powerful. >> >> For deploying applications, it also is very powerful and cheap. >> >> Personally, I would feel sore to lose it. >> >> >> > >> > But look at the root of what we are talking about: N bytes in VM >> > versus M bytes in image to support certain functionality. >> > I think if you need it, you will make sure that those bytes is there >> > and properly packaged with you application. >> > >> >> Unfortunately, it's more than moving code... >> What I mean is that when I need to pass an O_NONBLOCK flag to a FFI >> call, it's going to be a problem because I have to know how this >> information is encoded on each and every platform I want to support. > > > But there are solutions to this which mean you *don't* have to know. I wrote a prototype for VisualWorks that maps a SharedPool to these externally defined variables. Here's how it works. > > For each group of C constants, e.g. i/o constants, one populates a subclasss of SharedPoolForC with the variables one wants to define, and in a class-side method one defines the set of include files per platform that one should pull in to evaluate the constants. SharedPoolForC has code in it to automatically generate a C program, and compile it, e.g. to provide a shared library/dll for the current platform. The C program is essentially a name-value dictionary that maps from the abstract name #O_NONBLOCK to the size and value for a particular platform. SharedPoolForC also contains code to load the shared library/dll, extract the values and update the pool variables automatically. > > The deployment scheme is as follows, at start-up the system asks each SharedPoolForC subclass to check the platform and see if the platform has changed. If it hasn't changed, nothing needs to happen. If it has changed the system attempts to locate the shared library/dll for the current platform (the platform name is embedded in the dll's name), and update the pool variables from that dll, raising an exception if unavailable (and the exception could be mapped into a warning or an error to suit). So to deploy e.g. a one-click one needs to generate the set of dlls fort the platforms one wants to deploy on. > > The development scheme is simply to run a method on the SharedPoolForC when one adds some class variables and/or changes the set of include files which turns the crank, generating, compiling and loading the C file to get the value(s) for the new variable(s). > Yes, i remember you told about it some years ago ;) But this requires a platform with compiler installed. otherwise your system won't be able to adopt to new environment. But of course there is a solution to that as well: keep a database for every platform in image, and detect platform on startup, hoping that everything is in sync :) And if not, then it usually means that guy using either non-standard distribution, or custom built kernel etc.. At this point i would stop worrying about it, since if he is good enough to be able to customize own system, he can deal with FFI troubles in no time.. and usually those guys having compiler installed :) Also, if system supports binary distributions, then we're in same boat as any other binary compiled and distributed for that platform.. (need to elaborate that?) > An alternative scheme would generate a program that would print e.g. STON, which could be parsed or evaluated to compute the values. This would have the advantage that the definitions of the values are readable and editable by mere humans. So I think I'd discard the shared library/dll approach and keep it simple. > > Indeed. Again, generate C code.. a bit more code doesn't hurts. -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko.

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From Window to Compiler evaluate:
by Chris Cunnington 07 May '12

07 May '12

How does the vm pass a string to the compiler in object memory to be evaluated? The VM works with the OS so that a window collects a string in UTF-8 or Unicode and send it to the compiler in the object memory in RAM. Date today becomes Compiler evaluate: 'Date today' I see in MicroSqueak Interpreter>>primitiveKbdPeek sends things to the stack. I understand something called 'the stack' they way understand unicorns. But is it true to say that the stack is a step on the way to the compiler in RAM? Window-->characters-->vm-->primitiveKbdPeek-->stack-->object memory-->compiler--> Compiler evaluate:-->bytecodes Then, after bytecodes have been generated, Interpreter>>interpret can do what it does. The output can make a trip back to the window going back the way it came. How accurate or inaccurate is this description? Thanks, Chris

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Unix VM building - Monticello can't find DBus-Plugin-dtl.33(bf.32).mcd
by Paul DeBruicker 05 May '12

05 May '12

After updating the Squeak One-click to trunk and loading the update-dtl.11 package from the VMMaker repository on source.squeak.org When I run VMMaker updateFromServer the process eventually trips up when MCHttpRepository>>#loadVersionFromFileNamed: attempts to load DBus-Plugin-dtl.33(bf.32).mcd If I download DBus-Plugin-dtl.33.mcz and stick it in my package-cache the error continues to happen. I'll try it without updating to trunk.

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VM-beginners May 2012