[Vm-dev] [Pharo-project] Plan/discussion/communication around new object format

[Levente Uzonyi]

On Mon, 18 Jun 2012, Henrik Sperre Johansen wrote:

>
> On 17.06.2012 07:09, Levente Uzonyi wrote:
>> 
>> On Sat, 16 Jun 2012, Igor Stasenko wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> Well, we can have it either mandatory or optional (if bit set). It is
>>> implementation detail
>>> and we actually should test which one is more efficient in terms of
>>> speed/space tradeoff :)
>>> 
>>> But if it mandatory, then it combines quite well with lazy become.
>>> The lazy become requires at least one extra word per object to store
>>> forwarding pointer there,
>>> because you cannot replace an object's header with forwarding pointer,
>>> because header
>>> holds an information how much memory is reserved for given object, and
>>> if you wipe that information,
>>> you will have big problems walking the memory heap and condensing unused 
>>> space.
>> 
>> If objects are aligned to 4 (or 8) bytes then there are 2 (or 3) free bits 
>> per pointer. If you use two of these bits to store 3 states: valid object, 
>> forwarded object with no slots, forwared object with slots (object size is 
>> stored in next slot) and the object header also uses these 2 bits the same 
>> way, then you don't need the extra word and you can find out the size of 
>> the forwarded objects.
> Those bits are already used for immediate objects, no?

It's a new object format, everything is possible. Since my suggestion only 
uses 3 states, there's at least one more which can be used for immediates 
even if only 2 bits are available.


Levente

>
> Cheers,
> Henry
>