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entering and leaving guile mode, and GC stack protection (was Re: guile


From: Ken Raeburn
Subject: entering and leaving guile mode, and GC stack protection (was Re: guile performance - Ackermann function: way slower than emacs, slower still if compiled)
Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 12:30:53 -0400

On Aug 5, 2009, at 10:06, I wrote:
(3) My four-year-old comments on scm_enter/leave_guile, recorded in threads.c around line 300, still stand.... Those functions really ought to go away. At least they're confined to one file, now. Some of it looks a little messy, but I can probably get rid of some of the uses....

I've made a bit of progress on this.

The basic issue is that the way scm_enter/leave_guile are implemented, they make some bad assumptions about how the stack will be laid out and where SCM values might get stored. The right way to tackle it, I believe, is to only provide functions like scm_without_guile that make callbacks, and get complete control over the transitions both into and out of guile mode so they can better manage the stack layout.

It's not just scm_leave_guile() that needs to go away and be replaced by a different interface, but suspend() and anything that calls it without pairing it up nicely with resume(). Functions pairing them up need updating too, but not their interfaces; the code in between suspend and resume just needs to be pulled out into a callback function.

So my changes in this first cut are basically:
* New function while_suspended takes callback and replaces suspend...resume sequence; used only in scm_i_thread_sleep_for_gc now but scm_without_guile is an obvious additional place, when we can get rid of scm_leave_guile. * New helper function scm_without_guile_int, like scm_without_guile but return type is int. Static for now; would it be useful to export? * Replace scm_i_thread_put_to_sleep and _wake_up with scm_i_with_threads_sleeping which takes a callback. Change resize_all_states, scm_i_gc, scm_i_string_writable_chars accordingly. * Use scm_without_guile(_int) in scm_std_select, scm_pthread_mutex_lock (assumes my earlier change!), scm_pthread_cond_wait, scm_pthread_cond_timedwait, scm_i_with_threads_sleeping.

There are still unpaired uses of scm_leave_guile and scm_enter_guile that I'm going to have to look at more closely before I can figure out what to do about them. And the problematic suspend() function itself is still there, but once its usage is confined to while_suspended, it'll be easier to clean up.

Comments?

Ken

Attachment: guile-patch.diff
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