Changeset 006d4c4 for doc/theses/mike_brooks_MMath
- Timestamp:
- Jun 20, 2024, 2:58:32 PM (6 months ago)
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- doc/theses/mike_brooks_MMath
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doc/theses/mike_brooks_MMath/background.tex
r567c775 r006d4c4 749 749 750 750 A bespoke ``pointer to next @req@'' implementation often omits the latter type. 751 Such a list model is ad-hoc. 752 751 The resulting identity model is ad-hoc. 752 753 \begin{figure} 754 \centering 755 \includegraphics{lst-issues-ident.pdf} 756 \caption{ 757 Comparison of headed and ad-hoc list identities, for various list lengths. 758 Pointers are logical, meaning that no claim is intended about which part of an object is being targeted. 759 } 760 \label{fig:lst-issues-ident} 761 \end{figure} 762 763 Figure~\ref{fig:lst-issues-ident} shows the identity model's impact on 764 the existence of certain conceptual constructs, like zero-lengths lists and unlisted elements. 753 765 In headed thinking, there are length-zero lists (heads with no elements), and an element can be listed or not listed. 754 766 In ad-hoc thinking, there are no length-zero lists and every element belongs to a list of length at least one. 755 \PAB{Create a figure for this.}756 767 757 768 By omitting the head, elements can enter into an adjacency relationship, … … 776 787 Ability to offer heads is good. Point: Does maintaining a head mean that the user has to provide more state when manipulating the list? Requiring the user to do so is bad, because the user may have lots of "list" typed variables in scope, and detecting that the user passed the wrong one requires testing all the listing edge cases. 777 788 778 \subsection{End treatment: Uniform } 779 789 790 \subsection{End treatment: Cased vs.\ Uniform } 791 792 This issue is implementation-level, relevant to achieving high performance. 793 794 A linear (non-circular), nonempty linked list has a first element and a last element, whether or not the list is headed. 795 A first element has no predecessor and a last element has no successor. 796 797 \begin{figure} 798 \centering 799 \includegraphics{lst-issues-end.pdf} 800 \caption{ 801 LQ sub-object-level representation of links and ends. 802 Each object's memory is pictured as a vertical strip. 803 Pointers' target locations, within these strips, are significant. 804 Uniform treatment of the first-end is evident from an assertion like \lstinline{(**this.pred == this)} holding for all nodes \lstinline{this}, including the first one. 805 Cased treatment of the last-end is evident from the symmetric proposition, \lstinline{(this.succ.pred == &this.succ)}, failing when \lstinline{this} is the last node. 806 } 807 \label{fig:lst-issues-end} 808 \end{figure} 809 810 End treatment refers to how the list represents the lack of a predecessor/successor. 811 The following elaboration refers to the LQ representations, detailed in Figure~\ref{fig:lst-issues-end}. 812 813 The most obvious representation, a null pointer, mandates a cased end treatment. 814 LQ uses this representation for its successor/last. 815 Consider the operation of inserting after a given element. 816 A doubly-linked list must update the given node's successor, to make its predecessor-pointer to refer to the new node. 817 This step must happen when the given node has a successor (when its successor pointer is non-null), 818 and must be skipped when it does not (when its successor pointer cannot be navigated). 819 So this operation contains a branch, to decide which case is happening. 820 All branches have pathological cases where branch prediction's success rate is low and the execution pipeline is stalling often. 821 822 This branch is sometimes avoidable; the result is a uniform end treatment. 823 Here is one example of such an implementation; it works for a headed list. 824 LQ uses uses this representation for its predecessor/first. (All LQ offerings are headed at the front.) 825 For predecessor/first navigation, the relevant operation is inserting before a given element. 826 LQ's predecessor representation is not a pointer to a node, but a pointer to a pseudo-successor pointer. 827 When there is a predecessor node, that node contains a real-successor pointer; it is the target of the reference node's predecessor pointer. 828 When there is no predecessor node, the reference node (now known to be first node) acts as the pseudo-successor of the list head. 829 The list head contains a pointer to the first node. 830 When inserting before the first node, the list head's first-pointer is the one that must change. 831 So, the first node's ``predecessor'' pointer (to a pseudo-successor pointer) is set as the list head's first-pointer. 832 Now, inserting before a given element does the same logic in both cases: 833 follow the guaranteed-non-null predecessor pointer, and update what you find there to refer to the new node. 834 Applying this trick makes it possible to have list management routines that are completely free of control flow. 835 Considering a path length of only a few instructions (less than the processor's pipeline length), 836 such list management operations are often practically free, 837 with all the variance being due to the (inevitable) cache status of the nodes being managed. 780 838 781 839 \section{String}
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