Vm-dev February 2011

vm-dev@lists.squeakfoundation.org

25 participants
79 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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Direct object pointers vs indirect ones pros and cons
by Igor Stasenko 26 Oct '11

26 Oct '11

Hi , all RoarVM using object tables, while Squeak VM using direct pointers for object. This is a basic element of VM design, and i wonder, how much impact it does on overall VM speed. Both variants having own advantages/disadvantages, while i think, that with good JIT an extra indirection could be almost insignificant. But having indirect pointers to objects opens quite sexy perspectives. Being able to freely choose object(s) location means that: - its quite easy to implement object memory paging (swapping between memory and disc), - place particular object(s) into special memory location (good for FFI, object pinning etc) - #become: is O(1), instead of O(heap size) The downside of indirect pointers is, of course, a higher memory traffic, which directly impacts all operations everywhere. What else? I'd like to know, what you thinking about it, and why Squeak VM, in particular, using direct object pointers? What are this choice based on? I'd like to know. Maybe i missing something. -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko AKA sig.

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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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4.0.3.2196 for Unix
by Ian Piumarta 08 May '11

08 May '11

Folks, Source and binaries for Linux/i386, Darwin/i386 & Darwin/PPC now available. (Solaris, NetBSD and FreeBSD still at 3.11.3 until I get my kvm working again.) http://squeakvm.org/unix Enjoy! Ian Major changes since 3.11.3.2135: Generated sources rebuilt from VMMaker-dtl.169. Re-enabled MIDI support via ALSA on Linux. Broken locales should no longer cause line ends to go missing during copy and paste. Add support for "platform source version" primitive. Remove debugging beep on first clipboard copy under X11. Allow fully-qualified pathnames when loading modules. Bundle FreetypePlugin with source and binary releases. Various fixes for 64-bit cleanliness (many thanks to Dave Lewis). Add microsecond clock support. Fix launching from a menu under KDE. Fix --CFLAGS option in configure script. Serial plugin invalidates cached port names on close. Better handling of symlinks when looking for absolute path to VM binary.

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Portability problems: compiler flags
by Aleksej Saushev 12 Apr '11

12 Apr '11

Hello! Squeak uses highly unportable flag "-mno-fused-madd". It isn't present in many systems, even those using GCC, since many systems use older compilers. Also, why do you build fdlibm? It is old stuff that works not so well, we have better libm. Is there a way to use our libm? No "-mno-fused-madd" in our compiler. --- unix/plugins/FloatMathPlugin/config.cmake.orig 2011-01-25 04:56:17.000000000 +0300 +++ unix/plugins/FloatMathPlugin/config.cmake 2011-01-25 05:15:59.000000000 +0300 @@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ # GCC optimizations break fdlibm so disable them for now. IF (CMAKE_COMPILER_IS_GNUCC) - SET (LIBM_CFLAGS "${CMAKE_C_FLAGS} -O0 -mno-fused-madd") + SET (LIBM_CFLAGS "${CMAKE_C_FLAGS}") ELSE () SET (LIBM_CFLAGS "${CMAKE_C_FLAGS}") ENDIF () -- HE CE3OH...

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[Cog] cmType ~= CMMethod
by Mariano Martinez Peck 01 Apr '11

01 Apr '11

Hi Eliot. I am having some asserts failing while running my tests. Most of them during the sweep phase of the GC. The two places where it fails is in - NewCoObjectMemory >> lastPointerWhileForwarding: oop if fails the assert: self assert: (coInterpreter cCoerceSimple: methodHeader to: #'CogMethod *') cmType = CMMethod. In different runs, the cmType answer me 1 (CMFree) - NewCoObjectMemory >> lastPointerOf: oop recordWeakRoot: recordWeakRoot "<Boolean>" and it fails in the same assert: self assert: (coInterpreter cCoerceSimple: methodHeader to: #'CogMethod *') cmType = CMMethod. In different runs, I got values 0 or 6. BTW....seing: initializeCogMethodConstants CMOpenPIC := 1 + (CMClosedPIC := 1 + (CMBlock := 1 +(CMMethod := 1 + (CMFree := 1)))) I cannot understand how can I get 0 or 6.... Anyway, my question is if you have a clue of what can be happening so that those asserts are failing. I am using Objects as methods, but normal objects (subclasses of ProtoObject). Thanks in advance, mariano

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Precompiled Windows VM is out of date
by Matthew Fulmer 28 Feb '11

28 Feb '11

Hi. We are looking to finalize the transition of Open Cobalt as a Squeak 4.2 application, and our biggest blocker right now is the Windows VM. It has some segfaults that I suspect would be fixed in a newer release. It would also be nice to have a stable Cog-compatable windows VM. The latest release is 4.1.1, from April last year. Is a newer one coming soon, for the Squeak 4.2 release? -- Matthew Fulmer (a.k.a. Tapple)

4 4

MIT license info
by Eliot Miranda 26 Feb '11

26 Feb '11

Hi All, thans to whoever changed the front page of . The date-based list is much mire useful than the SqueakSource-computed latest versions. But I see "Currently the 'license' setting on SqueakSource is 'none'. That is because I do not currently have explicit word from everyone that has contributed code that I can tag the package as MIT. If you have contributed code to the VM or related tools, please email me ASAP" on the page and no mention of who "I" is and no email address :) Perhaps whoever "I" is could add that info and I'll comply asap :) best Eliot

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where is getVMThread defined?
by Esteban Lorenzano 25 Feb '11

25 Feb '11

Hi, I'm trying to compile cocoa-cogvm with latest cog versions and I can't find "getVMThread"... do you know where is it defined? Cheers. Esteban

3 3

Got soft keyboard working to some degree on Android
by Dimitry Golubovsky 25 Feb '11

25 Feb '11

Hi, I got the soft keyboard working with Squeak on a Pandigital Novel 9" tablet (Android 2.0). I had to add call to view.setFocusableInTouchMode(true) in the end of the onCreate method of SqueakActivity. Without that, the activity view could not get keyboard focus, even when touched. I haven't tested whether the focus is restored properly when activity changes its state, but such change may require more support anyway. See here *: http://code.google.com/p/squeakvm-tablet/source/browse/project/src/org/sque… I also changed the SqueakView class so that the physical "Menu" button toggles the soft keyboard. I wish it did not take so much screen space ;) http://code.google.com/p/squeakvm-tablet/source/browse/project/src/org/sque… One thing I cannot figure out: how to send an event for BackSpace key. The following works for alphanumerics (event is the second argument of View.onKeyDown method): int uchar = event.getUnicodeChar(); vm.sendEvent( 2 /* EventTypeKeyboard */, 0 /* timeStamp */, uchar /* charCode */, 0 /* EventKeyChar */, 0 /* modifiers */, uchar /* utf32Code */, 0 /* reserved1 */, 0 /* windowIndex */); vm.interpret(); Characters typed on the soft keyboard appear e. g. in a workspace where a cursor is blinking, window frame becomes red, etc. which means input works. But pressing DEL does not have any effect. Enter works (cursor moves to newline) What values should I put into the sqInputEvent structure for DEL? Thanks for any ideas. ------------------------------ * I forked the squeak-android-vm project into http://code.google.com/p/squeakvm-tablet This project space has not been set up properly yet in terms of documentation; I just wanted to share my findings with other possibly interested developers. -- Dimitry Golubovsky Anywhere on the Web

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Vm-dev February 2011