[Vm-dev] Incomprehendable behaviour of ContextPart class >>#contextOn:do:

Lars Wassermann lars.wassermann at googlemail.com
Fri May 17 16:36:28 UTC 2013


Hello VM-dev,
I habe problems understanding what exactly happens when I step through:
(ContextPart contextOn: Error do: []) halt
in a workspace.
When I step over the parenthesis in the debugger, everything works kind 
of like expected (the context of contextOn:do: misses one temporary but 
the returned value is what the methods description promised). When I 
step into or through the code, an error is raised when executing 
bytecode 54 of #contextOn:do:, because the temps-array illegally has 
been poped (by bytecode 53).

My question now is:
Why does the normal vm not only break when runing this code, but also 
return the correct value (the first element of the last temporary).
I appended a graphic trying to visualize what happens up to the miracle 
of three skipped bytecodes.

I replicated the behavior in Squeak 4.0 and 4.4 images on interpreter 
VMs 3.7.7, 4.10, and a newer cog VM.


A fix to the problem of stepping and comprehension as well as the 
missing temp in the frame would be changing the method to:

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. ctxt jump] on: exceptionClass do: block.
	"jump above will resume here without unwinding chain"
	^ chain

The difference is that after cutting off ctxt, we ensure that it is a 
top context by pushing a meaningless value. But this still doesn't help 
me understanding the original behaviour.

Thank you and all the best
Lars
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