If I write a function or module that calls another module, how can I get the name of the calling function/module? This would be helpful for debugging purposes.
The Stack function will do almost exactly what you want, giving a list of the "tags" (for your purposes, read "functions") that are in the call stack. It's not bullet-proof, because of the existence of other functions like StackBegin and StackInhibit, but those are very exotic to begin with.
In most instances, Stack will return the symbols that name the functions being evaluated. To figure out what context those symbols are from, you can use the Context function, which is aboput as close as you can come to figuring out what package they're a part of. This requires some care, though, as symbols can be added to packages dynamically (via Get, Import, ToExpression or Symbol) and they can be redefined or modified (with new evaluation rules, for instance) in other packages as well.
Related
I'm moderately new to common lisp, but have extended experience with other 'separate compilation' languages (think C/C++/FORTRAN and such)
I know how to do an ASDF system definition. I know how to separate stuff in packages. I'm using SBCL, by the way.
The question is this: what's the best practice for splitting code (large packages) between .lisp files? I mean, in C there are include files, while lisp lives with the current image state. So with multiple files I need to handle dependencies or serial order in the system definition. But without something like forward declarations it's painful.
Simple example on what I want to do: I have, for example, two defstructs that are part of the same bigger data structure (like struct1 is a parent of some set of struct2). Some functions works on one, some other works on the other and some other use both.
So I would have: a packages.lisp, a fun1.lisp (with the first defstruct and related functions), a fun2.lisp (with the other defstruct and functions) and a funmix.lisp (with functions that use both). In an ideal world everything is sealed and compiling these in this order would be fine. As most of you know, this in practice almost never happen.
If I need to use struct2 functions from the struct1 ones I would need to either reorder or add a dependency. But then if there's some kind of back call (that can't be done with a closure) I would have struct1.lisp depending on struct2.lisp and vice-versa which is obviously not valid. So what? I could break the loop putting the defstruct in a separate file (say, structs.lisp) but what if either of the struct's function need to access the common functions in the third file? I would like to avoid style notes.
What's the common way to solve this, i.e. keeping loosely related code in the same file but still be able to interface to other ones. Is the correct solution to seal everything in a compilation unit (a single file)? use a package for every file with exports?
Lisp dependencies are simple, because in many cases, a Lisp implementation doesn't need to process the definition of something in order to compile its use.
Some exceptions to the rule are:
Macros: macros must be loaded in order to be expanded. There is a compile-time dependency between a file which uses macro and the file which defines them.
Packages: a package foo must be defined in order to use symbols like foo:bar or foo::priv. If foo is defined by a defpackage form in some foo.lisp file, then that file has to be loaded (either in source or compiled form).
Constants: constants defined with defconstant should be seen before their use. Similar remarks apply to inline functions, compiler macros.
Any custom things in a "domain specific language" which enforces definition before use. E.g. if Whizbang Inference Engine needs rules to be defined when uses of the rules are compiled, you have to arrange for that.
For certain diagnostics to be suppressed like calls to undefined functions, the defining and using files must be taken to be as a single compilation unit. (See below.)
All the above remarks also have implications for incremental recompilation.
When there is dependency like the above between files so that one is a prerequisite of the other, when the prerequisite is touched, the dependent one must be recompiled.
How to split code into files is going to be influenced by all the usual things: cohesion, coupling and what have you. Common-Lisp-specific reasons to keep certain things together in one file is inlining. The call to a function which is in the same file as the caller may be inlined. If your program supports any in-service upgrade, the granularity of code loading is individual files. If some functions foo and bar should be independently redefinable, don't put them in the same file.
Now about compilation units. Suppose you have a file foo.lisp which defines a function called foo and bar.lisp which calls (foo). If you just compile bar.lisp, you will likely get a warning that an undefined function foo has been called. You could compile foo.lisp first and then load it, and then compile bar.lisp. But that will not work if there is a circular reference between the two: say foo.lisp also calls (bar) which bar.lisp defines.
In Common Lisp, you can defer such warnings to the end of a compilation unit, and what defines a compilation unit isn't a single file, but a dynamic scope established by a macro called with-compilation-unit. Simply put, if we do this:
(with-compilation-unit
(compile-file "foo.lisp") ;; contains (defun foo () (bar))
(compile-file "bar.lisp")) ;; contains (defun bar () (foo))
If a compile-file isn't surrounded by with-compilation-unit then there is a compilation unit spanning that file. Otherwise, the outermost nesting of the with-compilation-unit macro determines the scope of what is in the compilation unit.
Warnings about undefined functions (and such) are deferred to the end of the compilation unit. So by putting foo.lisp and bar.lisp compilation into one unit, we suppress the warnings about either foo or bar not being defined and we can compile the two in any order.
Build systems use with-compilation-unit under the hood, as appropriate.
The compilation unit isn't about dependencies but diagnostics. Above, we don't have a compile time dependency. If we touch foo.lisp, bar.lisp doesn't have to be recompiled or vice versa.
By and large, Lisp codebases don't have a lot of hard dependencies among the files. Incremental compilation often means that just the affected files that were changed have to be recompiled. The C or C++ problem that everything has to be rebuilt because a core header file was touched is essentially nonexistent.
but what if
No matter how you first organize your code, if you change it significantly you are going to have to refactor. IMO there is no ideal way of grouping dependencies in advance.
As a rule of thumb it is generally safe to define generic functions first, then types, then actual methods, for example. For non-generic functions, you can cut circular dependencies by adding forward declarations:
(declaim (ftype function ...))
Having too much circular dependency is a bit of a code smell.
Is the correct solution to seal everything in a compilation unit
Yes, if you group the definitions in the same compilation unit (the same file), the file compiler will be able to silence the style notes until it reaches the end of file: at this point it knows if there are still missing references or if all the cross-references are resolved.
But then if there's some kind of back call (that can't be done with a closure)
If you have a specific example in mind please share, but typically you can define struct1 and its functions in a way that can be self-contained; maybe it can accept a map that binds event names to callbacks:
(make-struct-1 :callbacks (list :on-empty one-is-empty
:on-full one-is-full))
Similarly, struct2 can accept callbacks too (Dependency Injection) and the main struct ties them using closures (?).
Alternatively, you can design your data-structures so that they signal conditions, and the in the caller code you intercept them to bind things together.
What is the most idiomatic way to get some form of context to the yacc parser in goyacc, i.e. emulate the %param command in traditional yacc?
I need to parse to my .Parse function some context (in this case including for instance where to build its parse tree).
The goyacc .Parse function is declared
func ($$rcvr *$$ParserImpl) Parse($$lex $$Lexer) int {
Things I've thought of:
$$ParserImpl cannot be changed by the .y file, so the obvious solution (to add fields to it) is right out, which is a pity.
As $$Lexer is an interface, I could stuff the parser context into the Lexer implementation, then force type convert $$lex to that implementation (assuming my parser always used the same lexer), but this seems pretty disgusting (for which read non-idiomatic). Moreover there is (seemingly) no way to put a user-generated line at the top of the Parse function like c := yylex.(*lexer).c, so in the many tens of places I want to refer to this variable, I have to use the rather ugly form yylex.(*lexer).c rather than just c.
Normally I'd use %param in normal yacc / C (well, bison anyway), but that doesn't exist in goyacc.
I'd like to avoid postprocessing my generated .go file with sed or perl for what are hopefully obvious reasons.
I want to be able to (go)yacc parse more than one file at once, so a global variable is not possible (and global variables are hardly idiomatic).
What's the most idiomatic solution here? I keep thinking I must be missing something simple.
My own solution is to modify goyacc (see this PR) which adds a %param directive allowing one or more fields to be added to the $$ParserImpl structure (accessible as $$rcvr in code). This seems the most idiomatic route. This permits not only passing context in, but the ability for the user to add additional func()s using $$ParserImpl as a receiver.
How does make-array work in SBCL? Are there some equivalents of new and delete operators in C++, or is it something else, perhaps assembler level?
I peeked into the source, but didn't understand anything.
When using SBCL compiled from source and an environment like Emacs/Slime, it is possible to navigate the code quite easily using M-. (meta-point). Basically, the make-array symbol is bound to multiple things: deftransform definitions, and a defun. The deftransform are used mostly for optimization, so better just follow the function, first.
The make-array function delegates to an internal make-array% one, which is quite complex: it checks the parameters, and dispatches to different specialized implementation of arrays, based on those parameters: a bit-vector is implemented differently than a string, for example.
If you follow the case for simple-array, you find a function which calls allocate-vector-with-widetag, which in turn calls allocate-vector.
Now, allocate-vector is bound to several objects, multiple defoptimizers forms, a function and a define-vop form.
The function is only:
(defun allocate-vector (type length words)
(allocate-vector type length words))
Even if it looks like a recursive call, it isn't.
The define-vop form is a way to define how to compile a call to allocate-vector. In the function, and anywhere where there is a call to allocate-vector, the compiler knows how to write the assembly that implements the built-in operation. But the function itself is defined so that there is an entry point with the same name, and a function object that wraps over that code.
define-vop relies on a Domain Specific Language in SBCL that abstracts over assembly. If you follow the definition, you can find different vops (virtual operations) for allocate-vector, like allocate-vector-on-heap and allocate-vector-on-stack.
Allocation on heap translates into a call to calc-size-in-bytes, a call to allocation and put-header, which most likely allocates memory and tag it (I followed the definition to src/compiler/x86-64/alloc.lisp).
How memory is allocated (and garbage collected) is another problem.
allocation emits assembly code using %alloc-tramp, which in turns executes the following:
(invoke-asm-routine 'call (if to-r11 'alloc-tramp-r11 'alloc-tramp) node)
There are apparently assembly routines called alloc-tramp-r11 and alloc-tramp, which are predefined assembly instructions. A comment says:
;;; Most allocation is done by inline code with sometimes help
;;; from the C alloc() function by way of the alloc-tramp
;;; assembly routine.
There is a base of C code for the runtime, see for example /src/runtime/alloc.c.
The -tramp suffix stands for trampoline.
Have also a look at src/runtime/x86-assem.S.
I have some code which depends on some include files which are partly defined at the start of source files (which is usual) and others which are used within functions.
I typical example for that are the OpenFOAM solver sources.
Because the scheme of this code is highly procedural, but I want to put all this into a class which provides init(), run() and maybe release(), I plan to put some of the variables into the classes as private making them members.
I don't want to modify the included files because they belong to a library.
The reason for using a class is that other routines classes run together with this code.
Here is the thing. init() must prepare some variable and there situations that theses variables (being type of other clases) not explicit constructors and special arguments. It is called once. run() is called several times. The procedural code has a loop only and the contents of that loop are put into the run() method.
So the best solution was to put these variables into std::unique_ptr and init can construct whatever it needs to. Obviously with that trick the variable signature changed, so I created a second declaration of a reference like this:
std::unique_ptr<volScalarField> mp_p;
volScalarField &p = *mp_p;
Now this is a bit tedious so I created a macro
FOAMPTR(volVectorField, p)
which does all the work for me:
#define FOAMPTR(TYPE,NAME) std::unique_ptr<TYPE> mp_##NAME; TYPE &NAME=*mp_##NAME
It works pretty well, but I'm not fan of macros in general, especially if you need to debug code.
Now my question is: Is there a better way to tackle this and use something else like a template definition which might do all the magic?
Edit: With 'works pretty well' I mean, that the compiler can translate that. The reference though still is invalid.
Edit: Okay, I solved the invalid pointer problem using two Macros:
#define FOAMPTR(TYPE,NAME) std::unique_ptr<TYPE> mp_##NAME
#define FETCHFOAMREF(NAME) auto &NAME=*mp_##NAME
Now I put FOAMPTR(TYPE,NAME) to the member and I get my unique ptrs. In the run() method the second macro FETCHFOAMREF(NAME) is used. Of course init() must be sure to correctly initialize the object or else the program is going to crash.
I still leave the question open because I'm not satisfied with that solution.
I am currently working on a very complex program that processes rows from an input table and has a huge number of possible outcomes for each record. Because of this I have a very large number of constants defined for the outcome messages. There is one success message for the record, but a multitude of possible warnings and errors.
My first thought was to define all of my constants for these messages at the package body level, but then I decided to move each constant to the procedure where it is used. I'm now second guessing that decision and thinking of moving everything back to package body level. What is the best way to define this many constants? Ease of maintainability is my ultimate goal for this program since it is so complex.
I think this is a matter of taste. In my application I put all error codes into an Error-Package. All main and commonly used constants I put into a separate package (without a package body).
Again, a matter of taste, but I tend to put a list of named constants at the package spec level rather than the package body so that they can be referenced by any portion of the application. If I ever want to change the error code that c_err_for_specific_reason_x uses, it becomes a single place to do so.
If I wanted to hide the codes and put them within the body I would have a get_error_code(p_get_error_name varchar) function that did the translation based on you passing a valid constant name.
I've done both on different projects, but tend towards the list over the function most times. I tend to use the function if it a table-driven source of the data.
It ... wait for it ... depends!
Since you currently define your constants in the package body, you don't need them to be publicly accessible outside the package. So defining them in a spec really doesn't buy you anything.
Here's is the rule I follow: Define constants within the smallest scope needed. So if a constant is used only within one procedure, define it in that procedure. If it is used within more than one procedure, define it in the body. If it is used elsewhere by code in other packages (or non-packaged SPs) but only when using a particular package, define it in the spec of that package. If it is used by other code for general use, put it in a separate spec of such general constants.