[perl #114536] Optimize assigning to scalars from @_

On Wed Aug 22 08:03:08 2012, dagolden@cpan.org wrote:
> This ticket suggests a possible peephole optimization, should someone
> be interested in pursing it.  It is based on a discussion I had with
> Nicholas Clark and I agreed to write it up so the idea wouldn't be
> lost.
> 
> In short, a huge number of pure Perl subroutines start off like this:
> 
>   sub foo {
>     my ($one, $two) = @_;
>     ...
>   }
> 
> This assignment requires multiple OPs to execute:
> 
>   $ perl -MO=Concise,foo,-exec -e 'sub foo {my ($one, $two) = @_; dump
>    }'
>   main::foo:
>   1  <;> nextstate(main 1 -e:1) v
>   2  <0> pushmark s
>   3  <#> gv[*_] s
>   4  <1> rv2av[t4] lK/1
>   5  <0> pushmark sRM*/128
>   6  <0> padsv[$one:1,2] lRM*/LVINTRO
>   7  <0> padsv[$two:1,2] lRM*/LVINTRO
>   8  <2> aassign[t5] vKS
>   9  <;> nextstate(main 2 -e:1) v:{
>   a  <0> dump s*
>   b  <1> leavesub[1 ref] K/REFC,1
> 
> If this is predictable and detectable at the start of a subroutine --
> albeit with a variable number of padsv's being assigned -- then it
> should be possible for the peephole optimizier to replace them with a
> new, single OP that copies an arbitrary number of SV's directly from
>    the
> stack to the pad.  Depending on the overhead of such a peephole check
>    on
> every sub, this could potentially speed up code with many small
> subroutines such as occurs in highly-factored code.
> 
> (I don't know if similar optimization could be made to work -- or
>    would
> be worthwhile -- for shift or array/hash assignment.)

One thing you would have to be careful of is &foo-style calls, that
share @_.

XS modules can get the caller’s arguments via get_av("_"), and any sub
call could potentially be an XS call.

I don’t think this optimisation is possible.

-- 

Father Chrysostomos


---
via perlbug:  queue: perl5 status: new
https://rt.perl.org:443/rt3/Ticket/Display.html?id=114536

• [perl #114536] Optimize assigning to scalars from @_ by Father Chrysostomos via RT
• Re: [perl #114536] Optimize assigning to scalars from @_ by Aristotle Pagaltzis
• [perl #114536] Optimize assigning to scalars from @_ by Father Chrysostomos via RT
• Re: [perl #114536] Optimize assigning to scalars from @_ by Dave Mitchell