[Vm-dev] Re: [squeak-dev] Image Segment semantics and weakness

J. Vuletich (mail lists) juanlists at jvuletich.org
Mon Oct 20 14:21:04 UTC 2014


  Hi Eliot,

Quoting Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda at gmail.com>:

> Hi All,       
>        I want to check my understanding of reference semantics for
image
> segments as I'm close to completing the Spur implementation. 
> Specifically the question is whether objects reachable only through weak
> pointers should be included in an image segment or not.
>     
>    Remember that an image segment is created from the transitive closure
> of an Array of root objects, the /segment roots/. i.e. we can think of
> an image segment as a set of objects created by tracing the object graph
> from the segment roots.
>     
>    The segment always includes the segment roots.  Except for the roots,
> objects are excluded from the segment that are also reachable form the
> roots of the system (the /system roots/, effectively the root
> environment, Smalltalk, and the stack of the current process).
>     
>    Consider a weak array in the transitive closure that is not reachable
> from the system roots, and hence should be included in the segment. 
> Objects referenced from that weak array may be in one of three categories
>     
>    - reachable from the system roots (and hence not to be included in
> the segment)
>    - /not/ reachable form the system roots, but reachable from the
> segment roots via strong pointers (and hence to be included in the
> segment)
>     - /not/ reachable form the system roots, /not/ reachable from the
> segment roots via strong pointers
>      
>     Should this last category be included or excluded from the segment? 
> I think that it makes no difference, and excluding them is only an
> optimization.  The argument is as follows.  Imagine that immediately
> after loading the image segment there is a garbage collection.  That
> garbage collection will collect all the objects in the last category as
> they are only reachable from the weak arrays in the segment.  Hence we
> are free to follow weak references as if they are strong when we create
> the image segment, leaving it to subsequent events to reclaim those
> objects.  
>      
>     An analogous argument accounts for objects reachable from
> ephemerons.  Is my reasoning sound?
> --
> best,        Eliot

I think you are right. But there is a risk of somehow, someone, gaining a
strong reference to the object after the image segment was created,
breaking our invariants when the segment is loaded again.

An object might be (not reachable / strongly reachable / weakely reachable)
from system roots and / or segment roots. This gives us 9 possibilities.
Six of them are easy (and I'll not go into them). The other three are
tricky:

a- Not reachable from system roots. Weakely reachable from segment roots.
Do not include them. It is best to run a GC before building the image
segment, to get rid of them (run termination, etc). This is to avoid the
risk of the object gaining somehow a strong reference after the segment is
built, making the segment miss the weak ref to it. Doing this way would
also mean that any objects affected by termination would be consistent,
both in the image and in the segment.

b- Weakely reachable from system roots. Weakely reachable from segment
roots.
Do not include them. If the object manages to survive by gaining a strong
ref from the system roots, the weak ref will be repaired on segment load
(Am I right on this?) If the original object was included in the segment,
then on segment load it would point to a duplicate object that is about to
be collected (and maybe terminated?) In any case, doing this way would also
mean that any objects affected by termination would be consistent, both in
the image and in the segment.

c- Weakely reachable from system roots. Strongly reachable from segment
roots.
Do include them. It seems reasonable to run a GC and get rid of them after
unloading the segment, to avoid the risk of the object gaining somehow a
strong ref in the image, and being duplicated on segment load. But doing as
I say means that we would be loading into the image an object that was
already terminated, although in the state it had before running
termination. Not really sure if this is ok. There could be some risk of
objects in the segment being in some pre-termination state, with some
objects in the image being in some after-termination state. In any case,
this would suggest bad design... So perhaps it makes sense to throw an
exception in these cases?

I hope this rant is of use.

Cheers,
Juan Vuletich
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