Changeset eb7f20c for doc/papers/general/Paper.tex
- Timestamp:
- Feb 8, 2018, 1:59:12 PM (7 years ago)
- 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:
- 41fcd94, 827a190, c40e7c5
- Parents:
- 4dad189 (diff), c659968 (diff)
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doc/papers/general/Paper.tex
r4dad189 reb7f20c 1239 1239 In \CFA, the address of a @T&@ is a lvalue @T*@, as the address of the underlying @T@ is stored in the reference, and can thus be mutated there. 1240 1240 The result of this rule is that any reference can be rebound using the existing pointer assignment semantics by assigning a compatible pointer into the address of the reference, \eg @&r1 = &x;@ above. 1241 This rebinding can occur to an arbitrary depth of reference nesting; $n$ address-of operators applied to a reference nested $m$ times will produce an lvalue pointer nested $n$ times if $n \le m$ (note that $n = m+1$ is simply the usual C rvalue address-of operator applied to the $n = m$ case). 1242 The explicit address-of operators can be thought of as ``cancelling out'' the implicit dereference operators, \eg @(&`*`)r1 = &x@ or @(&(&`*`)`*`)r3 = &(&`*`)r1@ or even @(&`*`)r2 = (&`*`)`*`r3@ for @&r2 = &r3@. 1241 This rebinding can occur to an arbitrary depth of reference nesting; loosely speaking, nested address-of operators will produce an lvalue nested pointer up to as deep as the reference they're applied to. 1242 These explicit address-of operators can be thought of as ``cancelling out'' the implicit dereference operators, \eg @(&`*`)r1 = &x@ or @(&(&`*`)`*`)r3 = &(&`*`)r1@ or even @(&`*`)r2 = (&`*`)`*`r3@ for @&r2 = &r3@. 1243 More precisely: 1244 \begin{itemize} 1245 \item 1246 if @R@ is an rvalue of type {@T &@$_1 \cdots$@ &@$_r$} where $r \ge 1$ references (@&@ symbols) than @&R@ has type {@T `*`&@$_{\color{red}2} \cdots$@ &@$_{\color{red}r}$}, \\ \ie @T@ pointer with $r-1$ references (@&@ symbols). 1247 1248 \item 1249 if @L@ is an lvalue of type {@T &@$_1 \cdots$@ &@$_l$} where $l \ge 0$ references (@&@ symbols) then @&L@ has type {@T `*`&@$_{\color{red}1} \cdots$@ &@$_{\color{red}l}$}, \\ \ie @T@ pointer with $l$ references (@&@ symbols). 1250 \end{itemize} 1243 1251 1244 1252 Since pointers and references share the same internal representation, code using either is equally performant; in fact the \CFA compiler converts references to pointers internally, and the choice between them in user code can be made based solely on convenience. … … 1272 1280 However, this manual approach to memory management is often verbose, and it is useful to manage resources other than memory (\eg file handles) using the same mechanism as memory. 1273 1281 \CC is well-known for an approach to manual memory management that addresses both these issues, Resource Aquisition Is Initialization (RAII), implemented by means of special \emph{constructor} and \emph{destructor} functions; we have implemented a similar feature in \CFA. 1274 1275 \TODO{Fill out section. Mention field-constructors and at-equal escape hatch to C-style initialization. Probably pull some text from Rob's thesis for first draft.} 1276 1282 While RAII is a common feature of object-oriented programming languages, its inclusion in \CFA does not violate the design principle that \CFA retain the same procedural paradigm as C. 1283 In particular, \CFA does not implement class-based encapsulation: neither the constructor nor any other function has privileged access to the implementation details of a type, except through the translation-unit-scope method of opaque structs provided by C. 1284 1285 In \CFA, a constructor is a function named @?{}@, while a destructor is a function named @^?{}@; like other \CFA operators, these names represent the syntax used to call the constructor or destructor, \eg @x{ ... };@ or @^x{};@. 1286 Every constructor and destructor must have a return type of @void@, and its first parameter must have a reference type whose base type is the type of the object the function constructs or destructs. 1287 This first parameter is informally called the @this@ parameter, as in many object-oriented languages, though a programmer may give it an arbitrary name. 1288 Destructors must have exactly one parameter, while constructors allow passing of zero or more additional arguments along with the @this@ parameter. 1289 1290 \begin{cfa} 1291 struct Array { 1292 int * data; 1293 int len; 1294 }; 1295 1296 void ?{}( Array& arr ) { 1297 arr.len = 10; 1298 arr.data = calloc( arr.len, sizeof(int) ); 1299 } 1300 1301 void ^?{}( Array& arr ) { 1302 free( arr.data ); 1303 } 1304 1305 { 1306 Array x; 1307 `?{}(x);` $\C{// implicitly compiler-generated}$ 1308 // ... use x 1309 `^?{}(x);` $\C{// implicitly compiler-generated}$ 1310 } 1311 \end{cfa} 1312 1313 In the example above, a \emph{default constructor} (\ie one with no parameters besides the @this@ parameter) and destructor are defined for the @Array@ struct, a dynamic array of @int@. 1314 @Array@ is an example of a \emph{managed type} in \CFA, a type with a non-trivial constructor or destructor, or with a field of a managed type. 1315 As in the example, all instances of managed types are implicitly constructed upon allocation, and destructed upon deallocation; this ensures proper initialization and cleanup of resources contained in managed types, in this case the @data@ array on the heap. 1316 The exact details of the placement of these implicit constructor and destructor calls are omitted here for brevity, the interested reader should consult \cite{Schluntz17}. 1317 1318 Constructor calls are intended to seamlessly integrate with existing C initialization syntax, providing a simple and familiar syntax to veteran C programmers and allowing constructor calls to be inserted into legacy C code with minimal code changes. 1319 As such, \CFA also provides syntax for \emph{copy initialization} and \emph{initialization parameters}: 1320 1321 \begin{cfa} 1322 void ?{}( Array& arr, Array other ); 1323 1324 void ?{}( Array& arr, int size, int fill ); 1325 1326 Array y = { 20, 0xDEADBEEF }, z = y; 1327 \end{cfa} 1328 1329 Copy constructors have exactly two parameters, the second of which has the same type as the base type of the @this@ parameter; appropriate care is taken in the implementation to avoid recursive calls to the copy constructor when initializing this second parameter. 1330 Other constructor calls look just like C initializers, except rather than using field-by-field initialization (as in C), an initialization which matches a defined constructor will call the constructor instead. 1331 1332 In addition to initialization syntax, \CFA provides two ways to explicitly call constructors and destructors. 1333 Explicit calls to constructors double as a placement syntax, useful for construction of member fields in user-defined constructors and reuse of large storage allocations. 1334 While the existing function-call syntax works for explicit calls to constructors and destructors, \CFA also provides a more concise \emph{operator syntax} for both: 1335 1336 \begin{cfa} 1337 Array a, b; 1338 a{}; $\C{// default construct}$ 1339 b{ a }; $\C{// copy construct}$ 1340 ^a{}; $\C{// destruct}$ 1341 a{ 5, 0xFFFFFFFF }; $\C{// explicit constructor call}$ 1342 \end{cfa} 1343 1344 To provide a uniform type interface for @otype@ polymorphism, the \CFA compiler automatically generates a default constructor, copy constructor, assignment operator, and destructor for all types. 1345 These default functions can be overridden by user-generated versions of them. 1346 For compatibility with the standard behaviour of C, the default constructor and destructor for all basic, pointer, and reference types do nothing, while the copy constructor and assignment operator are bitwise copies; if default zero-initialization is desired, the default constructors can be overridden. 1347 For user-generated types, the four functions are also automatically generated. 1348 @enum@ types are handled the same as their underlying integral type, and unions are also bitwise copied and no-op initialized and destructed. 1349 For compatibility with C, a copy constructor from the first union member type is also defined. 1350 For @struct@ types, each of the four functions are implicitly defined to call their corresponding functions on each member of the struct. 1351 To better simulate the behaviour of C initializers, a set of \emph{field constructors} is also generated for structures. 1352 A constructor is generated for each non-empty prefix of a structure's member-list which copy-constructs the members passed as parameters and default-constructs the remaining members. 1353 To allow users to limit the set of constructors available for a type, when a user declares any constructor or destructor, the corresponding generated function and all field constructors for that type are hidden from expression resolution; similarly, the generated default constructor is hidden upon declaration of any constructor. 1354 These semantics closely mirror the rule for implicit declaration of constructors in \CC\cite[p.~186]{ANSI98:C++}. 1355 1356 In rare situations user programmers may not wish to have constructors and destructors called; in these cases, \CFA provides an ``escape hatch'' to not call them. 1357 If a variable is initialized using the syntax \lstinline|S x @= {}| it will be an \emph{unmanaged object}, and will not have constructors or destructors called. 1358 Any C initializer can be the right-hand side of an \lstinline|@=| initializer, \eg \lstinline|Array a @= { 0, 0x0 }|, with the usual C initialization semantics. 1359 In addition to the expressive power, \lstinline|@=| provides a simple path for migrating legacy C code to \CFA, by providing a mechanism to incrementally convert initializers; the \CFA design team decided to introduce a new syntax for this escape hatch because we believe that our RAII implementation will handle the vast majority of code in a desirable way, and we wished to maintain familiar syntax for this common case. 1277 1360 1278 1361 \subsection{Default Parameters}
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