Vm-dev November 2009

vm-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org

26 participants
37 discussions

ffi-test-main.c fails on FreeBSD
by Gary Dunn 12 Aug '16

12 Aug '16

In conjunction with getting Open Cobalt running on FreeBSD I have been looking into the problems with SqueakFFIPrims on FreeBSD and have reached a point that is beyond my understanding. I am not sure if the fix should come from the VM side or the FreeBSD port maintainer. I needed to get source code back into the ports tree so I did a make in /usr/ports/lang/squeak. I already had the 3.9 tarball, so that just repopulated the source and did the initial build. In the "files" folder I found patch files typical for a FreeBSD port. These patch source files from a generic tarball to work with FreeBSD. The one of interest was patch-platforms__unix__plugins__SqueakFFIPrims__ffi-config which contains ----x-----x----- --- platforms/unix/plugins/SqueakFFIPrims/ffi-config.org Wed Apr 26 20:27:53 2006 +++ platforms/unix/plugins/SqueakFFIPrims/ffi-config Wed Apr 26 20:29:00 2006 @@ -39,6 +39,7 @@ case ${abi} in linux) abi=sysv;; + freebsd*) abi=sysv;; darwin*) abi=darwin;; *) abi=libffi; lib="-lffi";; esac -----x-----x----- I then had the folder work/Squeak-3.9-7/platforms/unix/plugins/SqueakFFIPrims In it is a file 00README which explains how to test FFI. It says to run ffi-test-config but I have no such file. It says to type "make" to build a test suite but the build failed. It says to try with make CPU=any ABI=libffi LIB=-lffi which also failed. I traced the problem to the gcc search paths for includes and libraries -- turns out FreeBSD only searches /usr/include and /usr/lib when the required files are in /usr/local/include and /usr/local/lib. After some fiddling I finally had a "main" to test. It failed: ffi-test-main.c failed at line 361. Here is a bit from that file, ending with line 361: ffiInitialize(); for (ul= 0; ul < 15; ++ul) ffiPushSingleFloat(fa[ul]); GO(FFITypeSingleFloat, many); f= ffiReturnFloatValue(); ffiCleanup(); CHECK(f - ff < FLT_EPSILON); I worked out the CHECK macro but could not find what FLT_EPSILON is. At that point I decided to stop and come to you for help. Where do I go from here? -- Gary Dunn, Honolulu osp(a)aloha.com http://openslate.net/ http://e9erust.blogspot.com/ Sent from Slate001

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Profiling and delay accuracy
by Andreas Raab 06 Aug '11

06 Aug '11

Hi Folks - For a long time now I had this feeling that MessageTally reports pretty bogus results in many situations without being able to precisely track down why this would be the case. Today I was looking at primitiveResponse() and, much to my surprise, noticed that the checkForInterrupts() that used to be there for years is gone (see Squeak3.6 for example which still has it). The sole reason for this check was to get both high delay accuracy and good profiling behavior. Consider this example: fc := FormCanvas on: Display. MessageTally spyOn:[ 1 to: 100 do:[:i| fc fillColor: Color white. fc printString. ]. ]. Using 3.6 this will be measured correctly as: **Tree** 87.5% {243ms} FormCanvas>>fillColor: |87.5% {243ms} GrafPort>>fillRect:offset: | 87.5% {243ms} GrafPort>>copyBits 12.5% {35ms} FormCanvas(Object)>>printString 12.5% {35ms} FormCanvas(Object)>>printStringLimitedTo: whereas the 3.10 reports it as **Tree** 99.6% {670ms} FormCanvas(Object)>>printString 94.9% {639ms} primitives 4.6% {31ms} FormCanvas(Object)>>printStringLimitedTo: I think you can see the problem and just imagine what this does to any cumulative results. I also wonder what that change does to platforms that don't have high-resolution asynchronous timers. This used to be the one place where we would catch timer changes at high resolution and unless the platform forces high resolution timer interrupts asynchronously (by resetting the interrupt counter) we must be loosing a lot in terms of delay accuracy. (it just so happens that the Windows VM *does* do asynchronous timer interrupts so I never noticed this but I'm very curious about the difference on Linux which typically still has pretty bad timer granularity). Any opinions? My feeling is that the timer check should go back in for all of the above reasons. At the very least a quickCheckForInterrupt() is required but I actually think putting the full check back in is worth it. Cheers, - Andreas

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Joys of Squeak-dev image, VM Compiling on MacIntel and Spoon remote OtherBrowsing
by Ken G. Brown 16 Nov '10

16 Nov '10

MacPro OS X 10.4.9 Xcode 2.4.1 Squeak-dev-114-2, VMMaker 2.8b6.1, Squeak 3.8.15beta6U.app, and version 1657 of svn MacOS VM sources, and Spoon v2a12. Downloaded http://www.squeakvm.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/ trunk version 1657 for MacOS Ran squeak-dev-beta-114-2.image on Squeak 3.8.15beta6U.app Loaded VMMaker 3.8b6.1 from dev image Universes. Generated vm sources by following instructions in <http://www.squeakvm.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/trunk/platforms/Mac%20OS/vm/Doc…> Fought with Xcode wanting to use MacOSX10.3.9.sdk for ppc which was giving an error which was known and documented in the Readme. Finally figured out what Xcode wanted so built universal app just using 10.4.9 sdk. Couple issues: Exupery references remain in sqnamedPrims.h and sqPlatformSpecific.h from svn version 1657, I just commented them out. Notes said: Info-NPSqueak__Upgraded_.plist was to be found in the Developer directory. I could not find it so scammed a info.plist out of John's Squeak 3.8.15beta6U.app vm. Not sure what impact this has. And much, much diddling about figuring out various things... Finally got a build. It's a lot smaller (3.9MB) than John McIntosh's Squeak 3.8.15beta6U.app (8.1MB), and it looks like it is a PowerPC one but at least it runs. I'll look into the Xcode build process some more. Then: Replaced interp.c with Craig's interp.c for Spoon, rebuilt and got a VM with Spoon client stuff. Downloaded Spoon release 2a12. Moved a copy of Flow plugin from within Craig's naiad.app package into a plugins subdirectory where the new spoon client compatible MacIntel universal VM was run from. Followed Craig's Spoon instructions for loading niaid.st and niaid.pr into the 3.10 image (Squeak-dev-114-2) running on the new VM. Did the run spoon.app thing from Spoon.dmg (version 2a12), needs to be done twice if Safari is not running. Got Spoon processor running. Followed instructions again in the Spoon client and lo! Got OtherBrowser browsing the Spoon memory running on processor. Yay Craig! Who do i get to sign my certificate? :) Ken

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3.11.3.2135 for Unix
by Ian Piumarta 05 Jan '10

05 Jan '10

Dear Unix Squeakers, 3.11.3.2135 for Unix is now available at squeakvm.org/unix (sources plus binaries for MacOS/Darwin, Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD and Solaris, on Intel and, occasionally, PowerPC hardware). Some important stuff has changed in this release (see notes below) so please consider it a BETA release even though there is no beta tag on the version number. As usual: comments, suggestions, bug fixes (as whole files please *not* diffs) and any unwanted vinyl LPs sitting in your attic can be sent directly to me. Thanks. Enjoy! Ian Changes since 3.10-6: Numbering scheme changed to X.Y.Z.R where X.Y.Z = VMMaker version used to generate the Interpreter and R is the subversion revision of the platform support code. VMMaker and plugins updated to most recent versions; generated source regenerated: Balloon3D-Plugins-ar.4.mcz DBus-Plugin-bf.32.mcz GStreamer-Plugins-JMM.16.mcz Kedama-Plugins-yo.1.mcz Rome-Plugin-yo.39.mcz OSProcessPlugin-dtl.16.mcz VMConstruction-Plugins-AioPlugin-dtl.9.mcz VMConstruction-Plugins-XDisplayControlPlugin-dtl.7.mcz VMMaker-dtl.138.mcz Build system rewritten using CMake instead of autotools. Big THANK-YOU to Bert, Subbu and Dave Lewis for providing invaluable feedback. Any plugin can now be turned off in configure with the option '--without-<pluginName>'. Experimental PulseAudio driver (vm-sound-pulse) added, thanks to Derek O'Connell. Default is still OSS on Linux; if you want pulse you have to ask for it in one of the usual ways. FFI tweaked on Linux to avoid a potential FPU stack overflow. ClipboardExtendedPlugin will no longer try to build if you don't have X11 development headers and libs. FileCopyPlugin made resilient to EINTR. VM renamed to 'squeakvm'. 'squeak' is now a script that looks for 'squeakvm', figures out if you need any obscure command-line options, and then launches 'squeakvm' for you. This in turn allows... Plugin search stretegy rationalised and simplified. Default location is now the executable directory (where 'squeakvm' is installed). The -plugins argument can be a colon-separated list of locations to search, just like PATH. Plugins are named 'so.plugin' to make interference with FFI libraries less likely. NOTE: FFI libraries are no longer searched for in every single nook and cranny, which means you might have to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH (or your local equivalent) for FFI-based programs to work properly. Failure to load a plugin because of unresolved symbols is now always reported on the terminal. Another script 'squeak.sh' is provided for launching squeak from a menu. This isn't finished and suggestions are welcome. Default path and text encoding is now UTF-8. X11 driver no longer reports SHIFT pressed when CAPS LOCK engaged. SerialPlugin now supports named ports. All occurences of dprintf() renamed to avoid a name conflict with a less-than-stellar decision by POSIX to introduce a standard function of the same name. RomePlugin is no longer built if cairo was built without Pango support. iconv_open() no longer spams you with thousands of error messages if you are missing conversion tables. Valid unicode characters that have no corresponding keycode are reported with keycode zero to avoid an invalid index error in the image. XImmPlugin should now work on MacOS X/Darwin too. Sound driver on MacOS X now works on Intel as well as PowerPC. Various changes to make the VM compile and run on GNU/Linux running on DEC Alpha. vm-sound-Sun now uses asynchronous i/o. Various changes to fix compilation on Solaris.

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Fwd: Mirror primitives [Was The better debugger support by extending an Object protocol]
by Eliot Miranda 16 Dec '09

16 Dec '09

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Eliot Miranda <eliot.miranda(a)gmail.com> Date: Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 11:56 AM Subject: Mirror primitives [Was The better debugger support by extending an Object protocol] To: The general-purpose Squeak developers list <squeak-dev(a)lists.squeakfoundation.org> Hi Igor, On Mon, Sep 7, 2009 at 10:29 AM, Igor Stasenko <siguctua(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > 2009/9/7 Bert Freudenberg <bert(a)freudenbergs.de>: > > > > On 07.09.2009, at 18:40, Randal L. Schwartz wrote: > > > >>>>>>> "Igor" == Igor Stasenko <siguctua(a)gmail.com> writes: > >> > >> Igor> Here is the default implementation of > >> > >> Object> debugPrintOn: aStream > >> Igor> ^ self printOn: aStream > >> > >> I like it, but I don't like the name. It conjurs up the idea of debugging > >> the #printOn: method itself. > >> > >> maybe #printForDebuggerOn: ? > > > > > > It matches the other methods like #longPrintOn: though. > > > > Also that would imply only the debugger invokes it, when it's clearly > > appropriate for any purpose. > > > > However, apart from this bike shedding ;) do others think it's a good idea > > in general? IMHO #printOn: is primarily used for debugging anyway so I > > wouldn't really expect a separate debug print method to be needed. Debugging > > transparent proxies isn't for the faint-of-heart anyway, so these developers > > can adapt their tools and proxies I would guess. OTOH there is precedence in > > e.g. #asExplorerString, which exists solely to get rid of the quotes > > enclosing strings for aesthetic reasons ... > > > > I agree with you Bert, that we should consider if its really necessary. > While #printOn: is used by most code for debugging, some of the code > using it to serialize object to textual stream, so the #printOn: usage > is much more generic than just debugging. > > As for debugging the transparent proxies - yes you can make own > tools.. but this means reimplementing/hacking > other tools , like debugger, inspector and so on, which will probably > end up with similar solution to what i proposing. > > For example, there was a point of discrepancy with debugging the code > which uses Magma. > The magma forwarding proxy reifying the object once the first real > message is sent to it. > And the problem with such a proxy, that you can't use them in certain > situations, like: > > self perform: aSelectorProxied with: #foo > > because #perform doesn't sends the messages to aSelectorProxied and > primitive fails. But then, when you entering the debugger and trying > to figure out why its not working - a proxy becomes a real object when > it printed out.. and so you can't debug the error using debugger. > Which leaves you to wonder, why code works in debugger, but not > working at run time :) I have fixes for this integrated in Qwaq. This is work I did for VisualWorks a while back. The idea is to add a set of mirror primitives, so called because they do reflection, to ContextPart. These primitives implement the basic operations of the object model needed for execution simulation, fetching an object's class, accessing its named and indexed instance variables, and the number of indexed instance variables, sending a message, but they take the object operated on as a parameter and so do function without sending messages to that object. These primitives are then used by the execution simulation machinery to correctly simulate the execution of the virtual machine irrespective of the class and/or messages implemented by the receiver. For example, (eschewing HTML for Bert's contentment) ContextPart methods for mirror primitives object: anObject instVarAt: anIndex "Primitive. Answer a fixed variable in an object. The numbering of the variables corresponds to the named instance variables. Fail if the index is not an Integer or is not the index of a fixed variable. Essential for the debugger. See Object documentation whatIsAPrimitive." <primitive: 73> "Access beyond fixed variables." ^self object: anObject basicAt: anIndex - (self objectClass: anObject) instSize object: anObject instVarAt: anIndex put: aValue "Primitive. Store a value into a fixed variable in the argument anObject. The numbering of the variables corresponds to the named instance variables. Fail if the index is not an Integer or is not the index of a fixed variable. Answer the value stored as the result. Using this message violates the principle that each object has sovereign control over the storing of values into its instance variables. Essential for the debugger. See Object documentation whatIsAPrimitive." <primitive: 74> "Access beyond fixed fields" ^self object: anObject basicAt: anIndex - (self objectClass: anObject) instSize put: aValue ContextPart methods for instruction decoding pushReceiverVariable: offset "Simulate the action of bytecode that pushes the contents of the receiver's instance variable whose index is the argument, index, on the top of the stack." self push: (self object: self receiver instVarAt: offset + 1) popIntoReceiverVariable: offset "Simulate the action of bytecode that removes the top of the stack and stores it into an instance variable of my receiver." self object: self receiver instVarAt: offset + 1 put: self pop storeIntoReceiverVariable: offset "Simulate the action of bytecode that stores the top of the stack into an instance variable of my receiver." self object: self receiver instVarAt: offset + 1 put: self top The attached change set for the image level code is also conflated with changes that allow the debugger to set the primitive error code correctly. The VM also needs to implement the primitives. If the order of the arguments are the same as those of the corresponding non-reflective primitive (e.g. aContext object: theReceiver instVarAt: index put: value has the same order as theReceiver instVarAt: index put: value) and the primitive pops back the stack using self pop: argumentCount + 1, one can use the same VM primitive implementations as the non-reflective ones and so avoid needing extra primitives. However, not all primitives are correctly implemented; e.g. at: and at:put: are, but size is not. So before we can use this there is some work to do in the standard VMs. I'm attaching here the implementation in the Stack VM which will require some back porting to the standard VM. None of these changes has performance implications because the special selector impelmentations of at: at:put: size and #== are not affected. With the above changes one can safely step through code that uses proxies that do not inherit from Object, or even ProtoObject. I still need to implement a PrimitiveObjectInspector, or use the mirror primitives in implementing the Inspector. However, there is one more important thing needed in the debugger which these changes do not address and that is the value of Processor activeProcess within the debugger. e.g. "print it" the following: | thisProcessOutsideTheDebugger thisProcessInsideTheDebugger | thisProcessOutsideTheDebugger := Processor activeProcess. self halt. thisProcessInsideTheDebugger := Processor activeProcess. 'Send to here (Into) then proceed'. thisProcessOutsideTheDebugger == thisProcessInsideTheDebugger This will potentially break debugging of servers that maintain process pools. Andreas has proposed a very simple fix for this. Add an instance variable to Process called, e.g. effectiveProcess, which is nil in normal processes. When the debugger runs it sets effectiveProcess to that of the process which it is debugging and Processor activeProcess is implemented as something like ProcessorScheduler methods for accessing activeProcess ^activeProcess effectiveProcess ifNil: [activeProcess] I'll try and get round to this soon. I'm posting this rather than integrating because a) the VMs need to get updated before we can use the image level code and, b) the VM folks need code to test their VMs with. I'm happy to integrate the image-level changes once the VMs have been upgraded. best Eliot > > > > > - Bert - > > > > > -- > Best regards, > Igor Stasenko AKA sig. >

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An event driven Squeak VM
by Andreas Raab 08 Dec '09

08 Dec '09

Folks - I had an interesting thought today that I'd like to run by you because I think it might just work. I have been thinking for a long time how to make the Squeak VM be "truly event driven" that is invoke it in response to OS or other events instead of having the VM poll. There are lots of good reasons for this starting from not blocking when popping up an OS context menu or standard dialog, over being able to embed the VM into other apps (browser plugin etc), up to properly dealing with suspend/resume. There are various problems that could be dealt with more easily if the VM would be truly event driven. Today it occurred to me that there might be a relatively simple way to deal with that problem merely by having interpret() run until "there is no more work to do" and return from interpret() when it's all said and done. The trick is that instead of running the idle loop, the VM would determine that it has no more work to do when there is no runnable process, so when it finds that there is no runnable process it would return from interpret saying "my work's done here, there is no more code to run at this point, ask me again when an external event comes in". The changes would be fairly straight forward: First, nuke the idle loop and allow wakeHighestPriority to return nil when there's no runnable process. Second, have transferTo: do a longjmp to the registered vmExitBuf to leave interpret(). Third, have interpret register the vmExitBuf and wake up the highest priorty process like here: interpret "install jmpbuf for main interpreter" (self setjmp: vmExitBuf) == 0 ifTrue:[ self checkForInterrupts. "timers etc" "transferTo: longjmps if arg is nil so no need to check" self transferTo: self wakeHighestPriority. "this is the current interpret() implementation" self internalizeIPandSP. self fetchNextBytecode. [true] whileTrue: [self dispatchOn: currentBytecode in: BytecodeTable]. ]. At this point we can write a client loop that effectively looks like: /* run the interpreter */ while(!done) { /* check for new events */ ioProcessEvents(); /* run processes resulting from the events */ interpret(); } Now, obviously this is inefficient, we'd want to replace the ioProcessEvents() call with something more elaborate that reacts to the incoming OS events, takes the next scheduled delay into account, checks for socket handles etc. But I'm sure you're getting the idea. Instead of wasting our time in the idleProcess, we just return when there's no more work to do and it's up to the caller to run interpret() as often or as rarely as desired. I also think that this scheme could be made backwards compatible by ensuring that we never call interpret() recursively. In this case an "old" image with the idle process would run the way it does today, and a "new" image without the idle process would live in the shiny new event driven world and return as needed. What do you think? Any reasons why this wouldn't work? Cheers, - Andreas

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InterpreterSimulator and Primitive Code convention
by arnaud Jean Baptiste 02 Dec '09

02 Dec '09

Hi, I have some question about VM. i the InterpreterSimulator is still maintain ? Because i am interest about this stuff. Who maintain this stuff ? Then, Some primitive have smalltalk code and this code is call only if the primitive fail. But i have see some primitive code is using to be inline when generate the Virtual Machine via VMMaker. Then what is the true convention about the primitive code ? regards

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typo in squeak.sh.in
by K. K. Subramaniam 28 Nov '09

28 Nov '09

Hi Ian, I fixed a typo on squeak.sh script. It affects those who use squeak.sh in KDE on Linux. .. Subbu =================================================================== --- platforms/unix/cmake/squeak.sh.in (revision 2146) +++ platforms/unix/cmake/squeak.sh.in (working copy) @@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ # find a way to display dialogues -if test -n "$DISPLAY" -a -x "`which xkdialog 2>/dev/null`"; then +if test -n "$DISPLAY" -a -x "`which kdialog 2>/dev/null`"; then error () { kdialog --error "${me}: $*"; exit 1; } confirm () { if kdialog --yesno "${1} ${2}?"; then result="${2}"; else result=""; fi; } chooseItem () { title="$1"; shift; result=`kdialog --combobox "${title}" $*`; }

1 1

Bug in Interpreter>>primitiveNextPut:
by Henrik Johansen 28 Nov '09

28 Nov '09

Interpreter >> primitiveNextPut: limit := self fetchInteger: StreamReadLimitIndex ofObject: stream. atIx := (array bitAnd: AtCacheMask) + AtPutBase. (index < limit and: [(atCache at: atIx+AtCacheOop) = array]) so basically, it needs ReadLimit to be > 0. (Which is only true for (Read)WriteStreams if created with on:from:to:). Changing the first line to limit := self fetchInteger: StreamWriteLimitIndex ofObject: stream. and the primitive now works. ws := WriteStream on: (String new: 500000). [1 to: 500000 do: [:ix | ws nextPut: $a]] timeToRun before: 130 after: 33 Inserted a counter after the prim call, for the loop above it was always >= 500000, with fix it's >=1. Cheers, Henry

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Re: [Vm-dev] Return a value from the image to the VM
by Rob Rothwell 26 Nov '09

26 Nov '09

> > > On 22.11.2009, at 05:07, Rob Rothwell wrote: > > Hello... > > > > For scripting purposes, I just want to be able to do something like: > > > > SmalltalkImage current quit: errorCode. > > > > So that in the VM I can essentially do: > > > > return errorCode. > > > > at the end of sqMain? > > > > Any pointers on how to push a value BACK to the VM? I have only barely > dabbled with adding some custom menu commands to the VM long ago, and have > no idea where to start. > > You would need to add a primitive to set the errorCode. This would be > stored in an interpreter variable. Then the VM's exit code would be modified > to retrieve that value. > So, unlike all the other examples out there, this would probably be best if it were NOT an external plugin? Would you be able to use VMMaker to do this (I've never done that before), or just go hand code some stuff? Do you think this seems like a generically pretty useful think to add to the VM? If so, I suppose I would like to do it right! I hacked a temporary solution together with batch files and unique file names, but it feels a little sloppy. Thanks, Rob

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Vm-dev November 2009