On Sun, 27 Mar 2011 08:36:39 -0400, spir <[email protected]> wrote:
On 03/26/2011 09:57 PM, Don wrote:
The basic problem with the current implementation of CTFE is that it
uses copy-on-write. This means that references (including dynamic
arrays) don't work properly -- they just copy a snapshot of the thing
they are referencing. This is bug 1330. It also means it burns up
memory
like you wouldn't believe.
Right. IIUC there's also no way to free the memory from copies that
are no
longer referenced. I can see where this would leak memory like a
sieve.
That's not the big problem, actually. The issue is that x[7]=6;
duplicates x, even if x has 10K elements.
Now consider:
for(int i=0; i<x.length; ++i) x[i]=3;
// creates 100M new elements!! Should create none, or 10K at most.
Hello Don,
I don't understand your point. I have once implemented a toy dynamic
language, using the common trick of boxed elements (à la Lisp). But I
wanted to maintain value semantics as standard. A cheap way to do that
is copy on write; it is actually cheap since simple, atomic, elements
are never copied (since they cannot be changed on place), thus one just
just needs to trace complex elements (array-lists & named tuples in my
case):
x := [1,2,3] // create the array value, assign its ref
y := x // copy the ref, mark the value as shared
x[1] := 0 // copy the value, reassign the ref, then change
But the new value is not shared, thus:
x[1] := 1 // change only
So that in your loop example, at most one array copy happens (iff it was
shared). This is as far as I know what is commonly called copy-on-write.
There is no need to copy the value over and over again on every change
if it is not multiple-referenced, and noone does that, I guess.
Side-Note: assignments of the form of "y := x" are really special, at
least conceptually; but also practically when pointers or refs enter the
game. I call them "symbol assignments" as the source is a symbol.
Denis
Hi Denis,
What Don is explaining is not how you should implement copy-on-write,
etc., but the actual implementation of arrays in DMD's CTFE system. Right
now, any access to an array in CTFE causes the entire array to be
duplicated, which is a major memory and performance issue, to say nothing
of the fact that D arrays are supposed to have reference, not value
semantics. I don't know how or why this behavior was ever introduced, only
that it is awesome that Don is fixing it.
