[Vm-dev] Re: [Pharo-project] #at:ifAbsent: for Array(s) could be faster

David T. Lewis lewis at mail.msen.com
Thu Nov 3 02:09:39 UTC 2011


On Wed, Nov 02, 2011 at 01:23:33PM -0700, Eliot Miranda wrote:
>  
> On Wed, Nov 2, 2011 at 1:15 PM, Igor Stasenko <siguctua at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Of course i was thinking about changing VM too. But i am uncertain if
> > it worth doing so, because maybe this is too low reward for putting
> > effort in it.
> >
> > But if we going to make new prim , here's what i'd like to have
> >  - use proper prim error code(s) to distinguish between cases:
> >   - a receiver is not indexable/variable object
> >   - an index is integer, but points outside of array's range
> >   - an object passed as index is non-integer
> >
> 
> I agree.  I was going to brag that the Cog VM already has this implemented
> but the error code returned for a non-indexable receiver is wrong.  It
> should be #'bad receiver' but the prim always answers #'bad index'.  I'll
> fix this.  Primitive error codes and relevant usage in primitives still
> need to be ported to the standard VM though.

Hopefully we're not too far apart on this. I added your basic mechanism
for error codes a while back (see below) so adding the relevant usage to
primitives should be strightforward, and in principle a new primitive that
uses error codes should work on both Cog and the standard VM.

Dave

  Name: VMMaker-dtl.237
  Author: dtl
  Time: 23 May 2011, 11:38:51.478 pm
  UUID: db716650-3b1b-4d54-9aba-6257a21a50a7
  Ancestors: VMMaker-dtl.236
  
  VMMaker 4.5.1
  
  Convert primitive error reporting to use #primitiveFailFor: such that the
  successFlag variable is replaced with primFailCode (integer value, 0 for
  success, 1, 2, 3... for failure codes), consistent with oscog.
  
  Includes improved #failed, #successful, and #success: methods recoded for
  performance in C, yielding performance equivalent to previous implementation
  with successFlag.
  
  Changes were applied as follows:
  
  - Replaced all occurances of "successFlag := true" with "self initPrimCall",
    which initialize primFailCode to 0.
  - Replaced all "successFlag := false" with "self primitiveFail".
  - Replaced all "successFlag ifTrue: [] ifFalse: []" with
    "self successful ifTrue: [] ifFalse: []".
  - Updated #primitiveFail, #failed and #success: to use primFailCode rather
    than successFlag.
  - Removed successFlag variable.



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