Changeset 119bb6a for doc


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Timestamp:
Feb 9, 2018, 4:30:14 PM (6 years ago)
Author:
Aaron Moss <a3moss@…>
Branches:
ADT, aaron-thesis, arm-eh, ast-experimental, cleanup-dtors, deferred_resn, demangler, enum, forall-pointer-decay, jacob/cs343-translation, jenkins-sandbox, master, new-ast, new-ast-unique-expr, new-env, no_list, persistent-indexer, pthread-emulation, qualifiedEnum, resolv-new, with_gc
Children:
92f8e18
Parents:
04ba967
Message:

Started 0/1 section of paper

File:
1 edited

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  • doc/papers/general/Paper.tex

    r04ba967 r119bb6a  
    303303\end{lstlisting}
    304304Here, the single name @MAX@ replaces all the C type-specific names: @SHRT_MAX@, @INT_MAX@, @DBL_MAX@.
    305 As well, restricted constant overloading is allowed for the values @0@ and @1@, which have special status in C, \eg the value @0@ is both an integer and a pointer literal, so its meaning depends on context.
    306 In addition, several operations are defined in terms values @0@ and @1@, \eg:
    307 \begin{lstlisting}
    308 int x;
    309 if (x) x++                                                                      $\C{// if (x != 0) x += 1;}$
    310 \end{lstlisting}
    311 Every @if@ and iteration statement in C compares the condition with @0@, and every increment and decrement operator is semantically equivalent to adding or subtracting the value @1@ and storing the result.
    312 Due to these rewrite rules, the values @0@ and @1@ have the types @zero_t@ and @one_t@ in \CFA, which allows overloading various operations for new types that seamlessly connect to all special @0@ and @1@ contexts.
    313 The types @zero_t@ and @one_t@ have special built in implicit conversions to the various integral types, and a conversion to pointer types for @0@, which allows standard C code involving @0@ and @1@ to work as normal.
    314 
    315305
    316306\subsection{Traits}
     
    15691559\section{Literals}
    15701560
     1561C already includes limited polymorphism for literals -- @0@ can be either an integer or a pointer literal, depending on context, while the syntactic forms of literals of the various integer and floating-point types are very similar, differing from each other only in suffix.
     1562In keeping with the general \CFA approach of adding features while respecting ``the C way'' of doing things, we have extended both C's polymorphic zero and typed literal syntax to interoperate with user-defined types, while maintaining a backwards-compatible semantics.
    15711563
    15721564\subsection{0/1}
    15731565
    1574 \TODO{Some text already at the end of Section~\ref{sec:poly-fns}}
     1566In C, @0@ has the special property that it is the only ``false'' value; by the standard, any value which compares equal to @0@ is false, while any value that compares unequal to @0@ is true.
     1567As such, an expression @x@ in any boolean context (such as the condition of an @if@ or @while@ statement, or the arguments to an @&&@, @||@, or ternary operator) can be rewritten as @x != 0@ without changing its semantics.
     1568The operator overloading feature of \CFA provides a natural means to implement this truth value comparison for arbitrary types, but the C type system is not precise enough to distinguish an equality comparison with @0@ from an equality comparison with an arbitrary integer or pointer.
     1569To provide this precision, \CFA introduces a new type @zero_t@ as type type of literal @0@ (somewhat analagous to @nullptr_t@ and @nullptr@ in \CCeleven); @zero_t@ can only take the value @0@, but has implicit conversions to the integer and pointer types so that standard C code involving @0@ continues to work properly.
     1570With this addition, the \CFA compiler rewrites @if (x)@ and similar expressions to @if (x != 0)@ or the appropriate analogue, and any type @T@ can be made ``truthy'' by defining a single function @int ?!=?(T, zero_t)@.
     1571
     1572\TODO{Clean up and integrate this paragraph} As well, restricted constant overloading is allowed for the values @0@ and @1@, which have special status in C, \eg the value @0@ is both an integer and a pointer literal, so its meaning depends on context.
     1573In addition, several operations are defined in terms values @0@ and @1@, \eg:
     1574\begin{lstlisting}
     1575int x;
     1576if (x) x++                                                                      $\C{// if (x != 0) x += 1;}$
     1577\end{lstlisting}
     1578Every @if@ and iteration statement in C compares the condition with @0@, and every increment and decrement operator is semantically equivalent to adding or subtracting the value @1@ and storing the result.
     1579Due to these rewrite rules, the values @0@ and @1@ have the types @zero_t@ and @one_t@ in \CFA, which allows overloading various operations for new types that seamlessly connect to all special @0@ and @1@ contexts.
     1580The types @zero_t@ and @one_t@ have special built in implicit conversions to the various integral types, and a conversion to pointer types for @0@, which allows standard C code involving @0@ and @1@ to work as normal.
    15751581
    15761582
     
    16021608\end{cfa}
    16031609}%
    1604 
    16051610
    16061611\section{Evaluation}
     
    17781783Finally, we demonstrate that \CFA performance for some idiomatic cases is better than C and close to \CC, showing the design is practically applicable.
    17791784
    1780 There is ongoing work on a wide range of \CFA feature extensions, including reference types, arrays with size, exceptions, concurrent primitives and modules.
     1785There is ongoing work on a wide range of \CFA feature extensions, including arrays with size, exceptions, concurrent primitives, modules, and user-defined conversions.
    17811786(While all examples in the paper compile and run, a public beta-release of \CFA will take another 8--12 months to finalize these additional extensions.)
    17821787In addition, there are interesting future directions for the polymorphism design.
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