[LLVMdev] Generics

[Andreas Zwinkau]

Am 14.09.2011 15:38, schrieb FlyLanguage:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I'm about designing the compiler backend of my script language and I
>> have generic types in the language. An example is the array. An
>> array#int means array of integers. You can compare it to Java's
>> generics. Whenever i have a variable of the type "generic", the type
>> should be replaced by the really used type.
>> Now the question is: how do i represent them in llvm without losing too
>> much memory or CPU cycles?
>> I figured out three ways to do it. Which do you think is the best?
>>
>> 1. Duplicating the implementations for each used type
>> very hard to implement because it needs a lot of restructuring the backend
>>
>> 2. Defining data type "generic" as a record of all possible types
>> would be fast but memory intensive; would need an optimization pass that
>> removes unused variables from a struct (is there such pass?)
>>
>> 3. Defining data type "generic" as a union of all possible types
>> would safe a lot of memory, but would destroy all optimizations because
>> of the bitcasts; i dont know how to implement unions in llvm
>>
>> 3 is the way it is done in the interpreter, so i would prefer a way that
>> is very close to 3.
>> Suggestions?
>
>
> Do type erasure before emitting llvm ir.

I assume that is what he means with his third possibility. It depends on 
the objectives, though.

Duplicating the code for special versions is better for performance, 
because the optimizations can use specific types. This is effectively, 
what happens with C++ templates.

On the other hand, type erasure is what happens in javac and yields you 
a smaller code size, because nothing is duplicated.

-- 
Andreas Zwinkau

  Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
  Institut für Programmstrukturen und Datenorganisation (IPD)
  Lehrstuhl Prof. Snelting
  Adenauerring 20a
  76131 Karlsruhe

  Phone:  +49 721 608 48351
  Fax:    +49 721 608 48457
  Email:  zwinkau at kit.edu
  Web:    http://pp.info.uni-karlsruhe.de/person.php?id=107

  KIT – University of the State of Baden-Wuerttemberg and
  National Research Center of the Helmholtz Association