This is a simple optimisation inspired by JITing technology: we cache in
the bytecode (using 1 byte) the offset of the last successful lookup in
a map. This allows us next time round to check in that location in the
hash table (mp_map_t) for the desired entry, and if it's there use that
entry straight away. Otherwise fallback to a normal map lookup.
Works for LOAD_NAME, LOAD_GLOBAL, LOAD_ATTR and STORE_ATTR opcodes.
On a few tests it gives >90% cache hit and greatly improves speed of
code.
Disabled by default. Enabled for unix and stmhal ports.
This patch consolidates all global variables in py/ core into one place,
in a global structure. Root pointers are all located together to make
GC tracing easier and more efficient.
This is for efficiency, so we don't need to subtract 1 from the ip
before storing it to code_state->ip. It saves a lot of ROM bytes on
unix and stmhal.
Mirroring ip to a volatile memory variable for each opcode is an expensive
operation. For quite a lot of often executed opcodes like stack manipulation
or jumps, exceptions cannot actually happen. So, record ip only for opcode
where that's possible.
This optimisation reduces the VM exception stack element (mp_exc_stack_t)
by 1 word, by using bit 1 of a pointer to store whether the opcode was a
FINALLY or WITH opcode. This optimisation was pending, waiting for
maturity of the exception handling code, which has now proven itself.
Saves 1 machine word RAM for each exception (4->3 words per exception).
Increases stmhal code by 4 bytes, and decreases unix x64 code by 32
bytes.
This allows to implement KeyboardInterrupt on unix, and a much safer
ctrl-C in stmhal port. First ctrl-C is a soft one, with hope that VM
will notice it; second ctrl-C is a hard one that kills anything (for
both unix and stmhal).
One needs to check for a pending exception in the VM only for jump
opcodes. Others can't produce an infinite loop (infinite recursion is
caught by stack check).
There is a lot potential in compress bytecodes and make more use of the
coding space. This patch introduces "multi" bytecodes which have their
argument included in the bytecode (by addition).
UNARY_OP and BINARY_OP now no longer take a 1 byte argument for the
opcode. Rather, the opcode is included in the first byte itself.
LOAD_FAST_[0,1,2] and STORE_FAST_[0,1,2] are removed in favour of their
multi versions, which can take an argument between 0 and 15 inclusive.
The majority of LOAD_FAST/STORE_FAST codes fit in this range and so this
saves a byte for each of these.
LOAD_CONST_SMALL_INT_MULTI is used to load small ints between -16 and 47
inclusive. Such ints are quite common and now only need 1 byte to
store, and now have much faster decoding.
In all this patch saves about 2% RAM for typically bytecode (1.8% on
64-bit test, 2.5% on pyboard test). It also reduces the binary size
(because bytecodes are simplified) and doesn't harm performance.
Code-info size, block name, source name, n_state and n_exc_stack now use
variable length encoded uints. This saves 7-9 bytes per bytecode
function for most functions.
With a file with 1 line (and an error on that line), used to show the
line as number 0. Now shows it correctly as line number 1.
But, when line numbers are disabled, it now prints line number 1 for any
line that has an error (instead of 0 as previously). This might end up
being confusing, but requires extra RAM and/or hack logic to make it
print something special in the case of no line numbers.
Reduces by about a factor of 10 on average the amount of RAM needed to
store the line-number to bytecode map in the bytecode prelude.
Using CPython3.4's stdlib for statistics: previously, an average of
13 bytes were used per (bytecode offset, line-number offset) pair, and
now with this improvement, that's down to 1.3 bytes on average.
Large RAM usage before was due to some very large steps in line numbers,
both from the start of the first line in a function way down in the
file, and also functions that have big comments and/or big strings in
them (both cases were significant).
Although the savings are large on average for the CPython stdlib, it
won't have such a big effect for small scripts used in embedded
programming.
Addresses issue #648.
This may seem a bit of a risky change, in that it may introduce crazy
bugs with respect to volatile variables in the VM loop. But, I think it
should be fine: code_state points to some external memory, so the
compiler should always read/write to that memory when accessing the
ip/sp variables (ie not put them in registers).
Anyway, it passes all tests and improves on all efficiency fronts: about
2-4% faster (64-bit unix), 16 bytes less stack space per call (64-bit
unix) and slightly less executable size (unix and stmhal).
The reason it's more efficient is save_ip and save_sp were volatile
variables, so were anyway stored on the stack (in memory, not regs).
Thus converting them to code_state->{ip, sp} doesn't cost an extra
memory dereference (except maybe to get code_state, but that can be put
in a register and then made more efficient for other uses of it).
Conflicts:
py/vm.c
Fixed stack underflow check. Use UINT_FMT/INT_FMT where necessary.
Specify maximum VM-stack byte size by multiple of machine word size, so
that on 64 bit machines it has same functionality as 32 bit.
This improves stack usage in callers to mp_execute_bytecode2, and is step
forward towards unifying execution interface for function and generators
(which is important because generators don't even support full forms
of arguments passing (keywords, etc.)).
Needed to pop the iterator object when breaking out of a for loop. Need
also to be careful to unwind exception handler before popping iterator.
Addresses issue #635.
This helps the compiler do its optimisation, makes it clear which
variables are local per opcode and which global, and makes it consistent
when extra variables are needed in an opcode (in addition to old obj1,
obj2 pair, for example).
Could also make unum local, but that's for another time.
Blanket wide to all .c and .h files. Some files originating from ST are
difficult to deal with (license wise) so it was left out of those.
Also merged modpyb.h, modos.h, modstm.h and modtime.h in stmhal/.
3 emitter functions are needed only for emitcpy, and so we can #if them
out when compiling with emitcpy support.
Also remove unused SETUP_LOOP bytecode.
Closed over variables are now passed on the stack, instead of creating a
tuple and passing that. This way memory for the closed over variables
can be allocated within the closure object itself. See issue #510 for
background.
On stmhal, computed gotos make the binary about 1k bigger, but makes it
run faster, and we have the room, so why not. All tests pass on
pyboard using computed gotos.
Things get tricky when using the nlr code to catch exceptions. Need to
ensure that the variables (stack layout) in the exception handler are
the same as in the bit protected by the exception handler.
Prior to this patch there were a few bugs. 1) The constant
mp_const_MemoryError_obj was being preloaded to a specific location on
the stack at the start of the function. But this location on the stack
was being overwritten in the opcode loop (since it didn't think that
variable would ever be referenced again), and so when an exception
occurred, the variable holding the address of MemoryError was corrupt.
2) The FOR_ITER opcode detection in the exception handler used sp, which
may or may not contain the right value coming out of the main opcode
loop.
With this patch there is a clear separation of variables used in the
opcode loop and in the exception handler (should fix issue (2) above).
Furthermore, nlr_raise is no longer used in the opcode loop. Instead,
it jumps directly into the exception handler. This tells the C compiler
more about the possible code flow, and means that it should have the
same stack layout for the exception handler. This should fix issue (1)
above. Indeed, the generated (ARM) assembler has been checked explicitly,
and with 'goto exception_handler', the problem with &MemoryError is
fixed.
This may now fix problems with rge-sm, and probably many other subtle
bugs yet to show themselves. Incidentally, rge-sm now passes on
pyboard (with a reduced range of integration)!
Main lesson: nlr is tricky. Don't use nlr_push unless you know what you
are doing! Luckily, it's not used in many places. Using nlr_raise/jump
is fine.
Attempt to address issue #386. unique_code_id's have been removed and
replaced with a pointer to the "raw code" information. This pointer is
stored in the actual byte code (aligned, so the GC can trace it), so
that raw code (ie byte code, native code and inline assembler) is kept
only for as long as it is needed. In memory it's now like a tree: the
outer module's byte code points directly to its children's raw code. So
when the outer code gets freed, if there are no remaining functions that
need the raw code, then the children's code gets freed as well.
This is pretty much like CPython does it, except that CPython stores
indexes in the byte code rather than machine pointers. These indices
index the per-function constant table in order to find the relevant
code.
This is necessary to catch all cases where locals are referenced before
assignment. We still keep the _0, _1, _2 versions of LOAD_FAST to help
reduced the byte code size in RAM.
Addresses issue #457.
This simplifies the compiler a little, since now it can do 1 pass over
a function declaration, to determine default arguments. I would have
done this originally, but CPython 3.3 somehow had the default keyword
args compiled before the default position args (even though they appear
in the other order in the text of the script), and I thought it was
important to have the same order of execution when evaluating default
arguments. CPython 3.4 has changed the order to the more obvious one,
so we can also change.
There was thinkos that either send_value or throw_value is specified, but
there were cases with both. Note that send_value is pushed onto generator's
stack - but that's probably only good, because if we throw exception into
gen, it should not ever use send_value, and that will be just extra "assert".
Adding this bytecode allows to remove 4 others related to
function/method calls with * and ** support. Will also help with
bytecodes that make functions/closures with default positional and
keyword args.
Mostly just a global search and replace. Except rt_is_true which
becomes mp_obj_is_true.
Still would like to tidy up some of the names, but this will do for now.
Required to reraise correct exceptions in except block, regardless if more
try blocks with active exceptions happen in the same except block.
P.S. This "automagic reraise" appears to be quite wasteful feature of Python
- we need to save pending exception just in case it *might* be reraised.
Instead, programmer could explcitly capture exception to a variable using
"except ... as var", and reraise that. So, consider disabling argless raise
support as an optimization.
The compiler allocates 7 entries on the stack for a with statement
(following CPython, but probably can be reduced). This is enough for
the method load and call in SETUP_WITH.
Partly (very partly!) addresses issue #386. Most importantly, at the
REPL command line, each invocation does not now lead to increased memory
usage (unless you define a function/lambda).
This reduntant triple is one of the ugliest parts of Python, which they
chickened out to fix in Python3. We really should consider passing just
as single exception instance (without breaking Python-level APIs of course),
but until we do, let's follow CPython layout.
Rationale: setting up the stack (state for locals and exceptions) is
really part of the "code", it's the prelude of the function. For
example, native code adjusts the stack pointer on entry to the function.
Native code doesn't need to know n_state for any other reason. So
putting the state size in the bytecode prelude is sensible.
It reduced ROM usage on STM by about 30 bytes :) And makes it easier to
pass information about the bytecode between functions.
For this, needed to implement DELETE_NAME bytecode (because var bound
in except clause is automatically deleted at its end).
http://docs.python.org/3/reference/compound_stmts.html#except :
"When an exception has been assigned using as target, it is cleared at
the end of the except clause."
Each built-in exception is now a type, with base type BaseException.
C exceptions are created by passing a pointer to the exception type to
make an instance of. When raising an exception from the VM, an
instance is created automatically if an exception type is raised (as
opposed to an exception instance).
Exception matching (RT_BINARY_OP_EXCEPTION_MATCH) is now proper.
Handling of parse error changed to match new exceptions.
mp_const_type renamed to mp_type_type for consistency.
TODO: Decide if we really need separate bytecode for creating functions
with default arguments - we would need same for closures, then there're
keywords arguments too. Having all combinations is a small exponential
explosion, likely we need just 2 cases - simplest (no defaults, no kw),
and full - defaults & kw.
This properly implements return from try/finally block(s).
TODO: Consider if we need to do any value stack unwinding for RETURN_VALUE
case. Intuitively, this is "success" return, so value stack should be in
good shape, and unwinding shouldn't be required.
We still have FAST_[0,1,2] byte codes, but they now just access the
fastn array (before they had special local variables). It's now
simpler, a bit faster, and uses a bit less stack space (on STM at least,
which is most important).
The only reason now to keep FAST_[0,1,2] byte codes is for compressed
byte code size.
LOAD_METHOD bug was: emitbc did not correctly calculate the amount of
stack usage for a LOAD_METHOD operation.
small int bug was: int was being used to pass small ints, when it should
have been machine_int_t.
Change state layout in VM so the stack starts at state[0] and grows
upwards. Locals are at the top end of the state and number downwards.
This cleans up a lot of the interface connecting the VM to C: now all
functions that take an array of Micro Python objects are in order (ie no
longer in reverse).
Also clean up C API with keyword arguments (call_n and call_n_kw
replaced with single call method that takes keyword arguments). And now
make_new takes keyword arguments.
emitnative.c has not yet been changed to comply with the new order of
stack layout.
Damien George
Paul Sokolovsky
Marcus von Appen
AZ Huang
xbe
John R. Lenton