[Vm-dev] [ANN] MemoryAccess Slang alternative to sqMemoryAccess.h macros

[David T. Lewis]

MemoryAccess is a small addition to VMMaker that provides a Smalltalk Slang
implemention of the memory access macros (or static inline functions) that
are normally defined in sqMemoryAccess.h. By implementing these methods in
Smalltalk, they may be directly translated to C code by the Slang translator,
with Slang inlining providing performance similar to that of traditional
C preprocessor macros. The resulting C code is directly visible to C debuggers
and profiling tools, and the use of C code rather than macros is helpful in
exposing problems such as improper type declarations and 32bit/64bit word
size issues.

I did my testing only with VMMaker from SqueakSource, but I expect MemoryAccess
to work correctly with any of the several VM development projects currently
in play, given that a few relevant patches are collected from Mantis.

Change set, platform diffs, and a more complete description are at
 http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/6081

- Dave

(cross-posted to squeak-dev and vm-dev, replies should go to vm-dev if possible)