Added by mame (Yusuke Endoh) over 15 years ago. Updated over 5 years ago. · bugs.ruby-lang.org

Applied in changeset git|50c54d40a81bb2a4794a6be5f1861152900b4fed.


Evaluate multiple assignment left hand side before right hand side

In regular assignment, Ruby evaluates the left hand side before
the right hand side. For example:

foo[0] = bar

Calls foo, then bar, then []= on the result of foo.

Previously, multiple assignment didn't work this way. If you did:

abc.def, foo[0] = bar, baz

Ruby would previously call bar, then baz, then abc, then
def= on the result of abc, then foo, then []= on the
result of foo.

This change makes multiple assignment similar to single assignment,
changing the evaluation order of the above multiple assignment code
to calling abc, then foo, then bar, then baz, then def= on
the result of abc, then []= on the result of foo.

Implementing this is challenging with the stack-based virtual machine.
We need to keep track of all of the left hand side attribute setter
receivers and setter arguments, and then keep track of the stack level
while handling the assignment processing, so we can issue the
appropriate topn instructions to get the receiver. Here's an example
of how the multiple assignment is executed, showing the stack and
instructions:

self                                      # putself
abc                                       # send
abc, self                                 # putself
abc, foo                                  # send
abc, foo, 0                               # putobject 0
abc, foo, 0, [bar, baz]                   # evaluate RHS
abc, foo, 0, [bar, baz], baz, bar         # expandarray
abc, foo, 0, [bar, baz], baz, bar, abc    # topn 5
abc, foo, 0, [bar, baz], baz, abc, bar    # swap
abc, foo, 0, [bar, baz], baz, def=        # send
abc, foo, 0, [bar, baz], baz              # pop
abc, foo, 0, [bar, baz], baz, foo         # topn 3
abc, foo, 0, [bar, baz], baz, foo, 0      # topn 3
abc, foo, 0, [bar, baz], baz, foo, 0, baz # topn 2
abc, foo, 0, [bar, baz], baz, []=         # send
abc, foo, 0, [bar, baz], baz              # pop
abc, foo, 0, [bar, baz]                   # pop
[bar, baz], foo, 0, [bar, baz]            # setn 3
[bar, baz], foo, 0                        # pop
[bar, baz], foo                           # pop
[bar, baz]                                # pop

As multiple assignment must deal with splats, post args, and any level
of nesting, it gets quite a bit more complex than this in non-trivial
cases. To handle this, struct masgn_state is added to keep
track of the overall state of the mass assignment, which stores a linked
list of struct masgn_attrasgn, one for each assigned attribute.

This adds a new optimization that replaces a topn 1/pop instruction
combination with a single swap instruction for multiple assignment
to non-aref attributes.

This new approach isn't compatible with one of the optimizations
previously used, in the case where the multiple assignment return value
was not needed, there was no lhs splat, and one of the left hand side
used an attribute setter. This removes that optimization. Removing
the optimization allowed for removing the POP_ELEMENT and adjust_stack
functions.

This adds a benchmark to measure how much slower multiple
assignment is with the correct evaluation order.

This benchmark shows:

  • 4-9% decrease for attribute sets
  • 14-23% decrease for array member sets
  • Basically same speed for local variable sets

Importantly, it shows no significant difference between the popped
(where return value of the multiple assignment is not needed) and
!popped (where return value of the multiple assignment is needed)
cases for attribute and array member sets. This indicates the
previous optimization, which was dropped in the evaluation
order fix and only affected the popped case, is not important to
performance.

Fixes [Bug #4443]

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