Re: inline function expansion

[Lynn Winebarger]

On Thu, May 18, 2023 at 2:29 PM Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
> > I think it will be easier to ensure compile-time generic methods
> > (e.g. a macro that simply calls a generic method) will (or at least
> > can) dispatch during macro-expansion, without involving the
> > byte-compiler's optimization phase.
>
> I don't understand this, sorry.

I'm trying to provide myself a tool for generic programming that
dispatches at compile time.  I've been writing too much repetitive
code, but I'm not a fan of ad hoc macros either.  Basically, I'm
trying to provide a C#-ish system for writing generic code
parameterized by interface requirements.  Then the generic method can
be moved to compile-time, with specialization on constant parameters
to dispatch to specialized code. Like cl-typep, except instead of an
explicit pcase form, calling a generic method.

> > (define-inline inline-+ (&rest args)
> >    (if (seq-every-p #'inline-const-p args)
> >        (apply (eval-when-compile (symbol-function '+)) args)
> >     (inline-quote (,(eval-when-compile (symbol-function '+)) . ,args))))
>
> IIRC you definitely need an `inline-letvals` somewhere here.

That's the issue - if you use inline-letvals, then the code can't make
use of constant values provided as operands.

> But also this will define the non-inlined version as something along the
> lines of:
>
>     (defun inline-+ (&rest args)
>        (if (seq-every-p ... args)
>            (apply '+ args)
>         (apply (symbol-function '+) args)))
>
> which is much too slow IMO.

I agree.

I posted a patch to emacs-devel for define-inline-pure-subr that
adapts the technique of define-inline.  I wanted to literally inline
the subr's into the code, but aside from the issue of not having
read-syntax for subrs (for some reason), some parts of core emacs
appear to rely on the car of a form being a symbol.

So I ended up defining a second symbol to hold the true definition,
with the compiler macro inserting a call to that symbol, while the
original symbol made into either a defun or defsubst.  The code copies
the plist of the original symbol to the second symbol so any
properties used by the byte-compiler/optimizer will be applied to the
new symbol as well.