[Vm-dev] Squeak Object Engine Message Sending clarification

[tim Rowledge]

On 08-12-2013, at 8:19 AM, gettimothy <gettimothy at zoho.com> wrote:

> No need to go into details as I am just attempting to avoid a misconception.
> 
> On page 5 of 28 on Tim Rowledge's (very useful and enjoyable, btw) A Tour of the Squeak Object Engine
>  I am unclear as to what  object's header' refers to in step I.
> 
> 
> To send a message to a receiver, the VM has to:-
>    I.        find the class of the receiver by examining the object's header.  
>    II.       lookup the message in the list of messages understood by that class
>        (the class's MethodDictionary)
> ........etc…

Back on page 2 of my doc,  -
> 1. Creating Objects
> 
> Unlike structures in C or records in Pascal, Smalltalk objects are not simply chunks of memory to which we have pointers, and so we need something more sophisticated than the C library malloc() function in order to create new ones.
> Smalltalk creates objects by allocating a chunk of the object memory and then building a header that provides the VM with important information such as the class of the object, the size and some content format description.

I really ought to update the doc and add some more diagrams etc.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Useful Latin Phrases:- Recedite, plebes! Gero rem imperialem! = Stand aside plebians! I am on imperial business.