[9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[erik quanstrom]

i've written a little man page
	/n/sources/contrib/quanstro/types
	http://iwp9.org/magic/man2html/2/types

describing a progression of the plan 9 type system that works
outside the 32-bit-only world we've been living in since 1992.
nix uses this type system.

- erik

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Federico G. Benavento]

hola,

usize, really?

any reason not use this opportunity to join the world and use inttypes.h or stdint.h format?


On Nov 20, 2012, at 6:49 PM, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:

> i've written a little man page
> 	/n/sources/contrib/quanstro/types
> 	http://iwp9.org/magic/man2html/2/types
> 
> describing a progression of the plan 9 type system that works
> outside the 32-bit-only world we've been living in since 1992.
> nix uses this type system.
> 
> - erik
> 

---
Federico G. Benavento
benavento@gmail.com

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[erik quanstrom]

On Wed Nov 21 19:19:21 EST 2012, benavento@gmail.com wrote:
> hola,
>
> usize, really?
>
> any reason not use this opportunity to join the world and use inttypes.h or stdint.h format?

have you read the opengroup pubs?

	http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/basedefs/stdint.h.html
	http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009604599/basedefs/inttypes.h.html

i don't see any advantage to using whatever types these guys are using.
when porting things from plan 9, it's good to have different type names.
the assumptions of various systems differ.  when porting things to plan 9,
you're likely going to be using ape anyway.

these headers are missing a type representing physical memory, and Rune.
no, i'm never going to consider using wchar_t instead.

yet they have types we do not want such as int_{least,fast} and int_max_t.
they seem to be a trap set by greybeards for unsuspecting young programmers.
one could hold this kind of thing up as a reason that c is an old and broken language.

and then there's the printf macros.  oh, joy.

i'm sure that others could back this up with more inteligent reasoning.  i'm just
prone to rant (had you noticed) when i see some of this stuff.

- erik

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Bruce Ellis]

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i think that go's scalar types would work better. also usize is  a bit
dicky.

brucee
On Nov 22, 2012 12:23 PM, "erik quanstrom" <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:

> On Wed Nov 21 19:19:21 EST 2012, benavento@gmail.com wrote:
> > hola,
> >
> > usize, really?
> >
> > any reason not use this opportunity to join the world and use inttypes.h
> or stdint.h format?
>
> have you read the opengroup pubs?
>
>
> http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/basedefs/stdint.h.html
>
> http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009604599/basedefs/inttypes.h.html
>
> i don't see any advantage to using whatever types these guys are using.
> when porting things from plan 9, it's good to have different type names.
> the assumptions of various systems differ.  when porting things to plan 9,
> you're likely going to be using ape anyway.
>
> these headers are missing a type representing physical memory, and Rune.
> no, i'm never going to consider using wchar_t instead.
>
> yet they have types we do not want such as int_{least,fast} and int_max_t.
> they seem to be a trap set by greybeards for unsuspecting young
> programmers.
> one could hold this kind of thing up as a reason that c is an old and
> broken language.
>
> and then there's the printf macros.  oh, joy.
>
> i'm sure that others could back this up with more inteligent reasoning.
>  i'm just
> prone to rant (had you noticed) when i see some of this stuff.
>
> - erik
>
>

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Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Dan Cross]

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I agree with brucee here about the Go type names: I'd rather see uint64,
int64, uint32, int32, etc.

usize doesn't bother me much.  New C programmers are often confused by
size_t being unsigned (even experienced ones at times); this makes it clear.


On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 8:35 PM, Bruce Ellis <bruce.ellis@gmail.com> wrote:

> i think that go's scalar types would work better. also usize is  a bit
> dicky.
>
> brucee
> On Nov 22, 2012 12:23 PM, "erik quanstrom" <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
>
>> On Wed Nov 21 19:19:21 EST 2012, benavento@gmail.com wrote:
>> > hola,
>> >
>> > usize, really?
>> >
>> > any reason not use this opportunity to join the world and use
>> inttypes.h or stdint.h format?
>>
>> have you read the opengroup pubs?
>>
>>
>> http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/basedefs/stdint.h.html
>>
>> http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009604599/basedefs/inttypes.h.html
>>
>> i don't see any advantage to using whatever types these guys are using.
>> when porting things from plan 9, it's good to have different type names.
>> the assumptions of various systems differ.  when porting things to plan 9,
>> you're likely going to be using ape anyway.
>>
>> these headers are missing a type representing physical memory, and Rune.
>> no, i'm never going to consider using wchar_t instead.
>>
>> yet they have types we do not want such as int_{least,fast} and int_max_t.
>> they seem to be a trap set by greybeards for unsuspecting young
>> programmers.
>> one could hold this kind of thing up as a reason that c is an old and
>> broken language.
>>
>> and then there's the printf macros.  oh, joy.
>>
>> i'm sure that others could back this up with more inteligent reasoning.
>>  i'm just
>> prone to rant (had you noticed) when i see some of this stuff.
>>
>> - erik
>>
>>

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Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Bruce Ellis]

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uintptr for size_t.

brucee
On Nov 22, 2012 1:10 PM, "Dan Cross" <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree with brucee here about the Go type names: I'd rather see uint64,
> int64, uint32, int32, etc.
>
> usize doesn't bother me much.  New C programmers are often confused by
> size_t being unsigned (even experienced ones at times); this makes it clear.
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 21, 2012 at 8:35 PM, Bruce Ellis <bruce.ellis@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> i think that go's scalar types would work better. also usize is  a bit
>> dicky.
>>
>> brucee
>> On Nov 22, 2012 12:23 PM, "erik quanstrom" <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed Nov 21 19:19:21 EST 2012, benavento@gmail.com wrote:
>>> > hola,
>>> >
>>> > usize, really?
>>> >
>>> > any reason not use this opportunity to join the world and use
>>> inttypes.h or stdint.h format?
>>>
>>> have you read the opengroup pubs?
>>>
>>>
>>> http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/basedefs/stdint.h.html
>>>
>>> http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009604599/basedefs/inttypes.h.html
>>>
>>> i don't see any advantage to using whatever types these guys are using.
>>> when porting things from plan 9, it's good to have different type names.
>>> the assumptions of various systems differ.  when porting things to plan
>>> 9,
>>> you're likely going to be using ape anyway.
>>>
>>> these headers are missing a type representing physical memory, and Rune.
>>> no, i'm never going to consider using wchar_t instead.
>>>
>>> yet they have types we do not want such as int_{least,fast} and
>>> int_max_t.
>>> they seem to be a trap set by greybeards for unsuspecting young
>>> programmers.
>>> one could hold this kind of thing up as a reason that c is an old and
>>> broken language.
>>>
>>> and then there's the printf macros.  oh, joy.
>>>
>>> i'm sure that others could back this up with more inteligent reasoning.
>>>  i'm just
>>> prone to rant (had you noticed) when i see some of this stuff.
>>>
>>> - erik
>>>
>>>
>

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Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

That will obviously work, and indeed I use uintmem the same way to
avoid having yet another type,
but that's only because that's specific to the kernel, and of little use.
Otherwise, I think there's a difference between storing a pointer
value in an integer, and storing a size.
For one thing, many programs might use usize, but few programs (in
fact) ever need uintptr.
If I want to grep for pointer/integer conversions, I can grep for
uintptr, but with (what I take to be) your
scheme, I'll get lots of false hits, as ordinary programs might well
compute with sizes.

On 22 November 2012 02:15, Bruce Ellis <bruce.ellis@gmail.com> wrote:
> uintptr for size_t.

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

I meant, rarely used, and not at all outside the kernel.
Inside that kernel it's quite useful.

On 22 November 2012 02:33, Charles Forsyth <charles.forsyth@gmail.com> wrote:
> [uintmem as a size] and of little use.

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Bruce Ellis]

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heads up! uintptr in all over the go packages because it is right. i'd like
an example of where usize wins, as it has to be same as uintptr. what is
sizeof(x)?

struct {
    char stuff[8 * GB];
} x;

quite a reasonable but rookie decl in 64 bit land.

brucee


On 22 November 2012 13:35, Charles Forsyth <charles.forsyth@gmail.com>wrote:

> I meant, rarely used, and not at all outside the kernel.
> Inside that kernel it's quite useful.
>
> On 22 November 2012 02:33, Charles Forsyth <charles.forsyth@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > [uintmem as a size] and of little use.
>
>


--
Don't meddle in the mouth -- MVS (0416935147, +1-513-3BRUCEE)

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Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

that wouldn't be the first mistake.

On 22 November 2012 03:44, Bruce Ellis <bruce.ellis@gmail.com> wrote:
> heads up! uintptr in all over the go packages because it is right

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

usize is indeed the same size as uintptr.
Instead of either for purely integer values, it would be better to
make all integers 64 bit, and use uint and int (for pointer
differences),
but that causes other problems, at the moment.

On 22 November 2012 03:44, Bruce Ellis <bruce.ellis@gmail.com> wrote:
> i'd like an example of where usize wins, as it has to be same as uintptr

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

I wonder if there's an assumption that usize is a novelty. It has been
in u.h for at least 5 years.

On 22 November 2012 01:21, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
>> usize, really?

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

Aside: Why is gmail apparently folding at 72 characters? Has it always
done that? Is there a punched-card setting I've overlooked?

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

perhaps they would, if everyone agrees to change to those. after a
previous discussion on the nix list,
i set off to change Inferno's code to use them, but quickly saw that
it was just going to be a big nuisance unless Plan 9,
p9p, drawterm, and all the rest changed at the same time. what are the
Young Turks of 9front doing?

i think all this misses the point of erik's manual page, however, was
to describe what the system provides now,
and was providing long before those alternative types existed, in the
attempt to make it more likely that things work
in both 32 and 64 bits.

On 22 November 2012 01:35, Bruce Ellis <bruce.ellis@gmail.com> wrote:
> i think that go's scalar types would work better.

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[erik quanstrom]

On Thu Nov 22 04:03:29 EST 2012, charles.forsyth@gmail.com wrote:
> usize is indeed the same size as uintptr.
> Instead of either for purely integer values, it would be better to
> make all integers 64 bit, and use uint and int (for pointer
> differences),
> but that causes other problems, at the moment.
> 
> On 22 November 2012 03:44, Bruce Ellis <bruce.ellis@gmail.com> wrote:
> > i'd like an example of where usize wins, as it has to be same as uintptr

my reading of various standards says that usize doesn't need
to be the same size as uintptr, since the implementation could
limit the address space used to smaller than could be addressed
by the full pointer range.  and in fact due to the inbetween
state of things, usize is 32-bits on nix.  i see the strategy as
first ulong→usize, then redefine usize.

i agree that that's gross.

if we got rid of usize, the type signature of malloc would
be
	void	*malloc(uintptr)
which i think is quite confusing.  imo, types should be as self-
documenting as possible.  

- erik

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

I hadn't noticed that particularly, but having grep'd the source, I
see it's also used for variables that are counters and numbers of
things.
Is that right too? I suspect it's more out of expediency. Some other
type usage looks odd too. int32 where int would do. Curious.

On 22 November 2012 03:44, Bruce Ellis <bruce.ellis@gmail.com> wrote:
> ntptr in all over the go packages because it is right.

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Richard Miller]

> .B char
> can generally be assumed to be a signed value.

What does "generally" mean here?  Is it safe to assume or not?

> There are no signed variants of these as they
> are not useful where size-specific types are appropriate.

"Not useful" seems an arbitrary judgment.  There are certainly
cases where widths are "fixed by hardware" (eg device registers)
but values are semantically signed (eg address increment/decrement
value in a DMA controller).

> .B Usize
> represents the type returned by the C
> .B sizeof
> operator.  It is typically the same width as a virtual address.

What does "typically" mean here?  Is it or isn't it?

> In order to ease the transition to 64-bits, the AMD64 compiler
> currently uses a 32-bit
> .BR usize .

Oh, so it isn't.

> .B uintptr
> as a physical address may be the same size, larger (PAE), or smaller than a> virtual address.

Should that be uintmem?

> .B Uintmem
> also stores the sizes of things that
> .B uintmem
> might address.

Strange inconsistency - why then doesn't uintptr store the sizes of
things that uintptr might address?

> .B schar
> is used when porting to other systems where it may matter.  It should not generally be used.

Is this saying it doesn't matter in Plan 9 whether chars are signed or not?
What is the exception to the "generally"?

My opinion:

A type system is useful if and only if it helps you write code which will be
correct in every environment in which it might run.  Guidelines for usage
which will be "generally" or "typically" correct just encourage bad habits.
(Of which I am as guilty as anyone.)

OTOH, it's not worth making special provision for physical memory addresses.
I think that any code which is dealing with those is not likely to be
portable to another architecture for many other reasons.  I can't envision
a single mmu.c being applicable to both 386 and amd64 ...

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Richard Miller]

> usize is indeed the same size as uintptr.
> Instead of either for purely integer values, it would be better to
> make all integers 64 bit

I hope that was intended as a joke.  It's not that long ago I was
writing C for a 16-bit processor (in a smart card).  I would hate to
lose the meaning of "int" as "whatever fits in a CPU register".

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

On 22 November 2012 11:00, Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:
> OTOH, it's not worth making special provision for physical memory addresses.
> I think that any code which is dealing with those is not likely to be
> portable to another architecture for many other reasons.  I can't envision
> a single mmu.c being applicable to both 386 and amd64 ...

It's more useful than you think, which is why both jmk and I separately added it
(I called mine physaddr, but changed to his name). Even port refers to
physical addresses (eg, Page), and previously those were ulong. It also needs
a name to cast values to the right size when doing calculations.

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

I meant, on a 64-bit processor.

On 22 November 2012 11:10, Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:
> I hope that was intended as a joke.

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

h% grep uintmem pc/*.[ch]|wc -l
     60
h% grep uintmem port/*.[ch] | wc -l
     44

and that probably understates it slightly.

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Richard Miller]

> Even port refers to
> physical addresses (eg, Page)

You're right, I should have thought a bit longer.  This is
why my PAE hack for xen only supports 4GB of "physical"
(well, virtually physical) memory.

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

To try to clarify: most existing Plan 9 code doesn't worry about the
actual type of sizeof or pointer differences.
They assume int/long or uint/ulong. It's obvious from this discussion
that hardly anyone noticed usize.
Since its introduction years ago, grep shows that only kernel code has
used usize. size_t is more
popular in ANSI C code, but I suspect even there neither size_t nor
ptrdiff_t are used everywhere they ought to be. An arbitrary sample
(my src directory on Linux) shows 4995 uses of size_t, and only 54 of
ptrdiff_t, but perhaps pointer subtraction just isn't that common.

That's why I say that it would be better to make int and uint the same
size as uintptr, although it's a bit of a waste,
since existing code that needs bigger int values will use another
type, but after the change it's easy to have code casually assume 64
bits.

One reason 6c doesn't make int and long 64 bits is that it's quite
hard to find code (automatically) that assumes they are 32 bits.
Hence the drive to use explicit types when it matters.

Again, I'll note that erik's manual page doesn't propose or introduce
anything new: even allowing for the ill-chosen "typically" and
"usually"
it is still a fair reflection of the current state, or aims to be.
Perhaps the unfortunate qualifications should be in BUGS.

On 22 November 2012 11:10, Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:
>> usize is indeed the same size as uintptr.
>> Instead of either for purely integer values, it would be better to
>> make all integers 64 bit
>
> I hope that was intended as a joke.  It's not that long ago I was
> writing C for a 16-bit processor (in a smart card).  I would hate to
> lose the meaning of "int" as "whatever fits in a CPU register".
>
>

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

I meant, "detect code". It's easy to find: just look at libflate, but
there were many more.

On 22 November 2012 11:32, Charles Forsyth <charles.forsyth@gmail.com> wrote:
> it's quite
> hard to find code (automatically) that assumes they are 32 bits.

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

Yes, I needed it for something I was doing on BG/P, but I did full PAE
more recently,
and needed it there. Nix is notionally 64-bit, but I wouldn't mind
being able to run it
on 32-bit hardware, since there's a lot of that I'd like to run the
same system, and anyway the next revision
of HTML will force 128-bit addressing, so best mark the various uses
sooner rather than later.

On 22 November 2012 11:32, Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:
> You're right, I should have thought a bit longer.  This is
> why my PAE hack for xen only supports 4GB of "physical"
> (well, virtually physical) memory.

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[erik quanstrom]

On Thu Nov 22 06:01:38 EST 2012, 9fans@hamnavoe.com wrote:
> > .B char
> > can generally be assumed to be a signed value.
>
> What does "generally" mean here?  Is it safe to assume or not?

good point.

> > There are no signed variants of these as they
> > are not useful where size-specific types are appropriate.
>
> "Not useful" seems an arbitrary judgment.  There are certainly
> cases where widths are "fixed by hardware" (eg device registers)
> but values are semantically signed (eg address increment/decrement
> value in a DMA controller).


> > .B Usize
> > represents the type returned by the C
> > .B sizeof
> > operator.  It is typically the same width as a virtual address.
>
> What does "typically" mean here?  Is it or isn't it?

do you think this should be changed.  i don't mind.
i didn't want to state an absolte then break it.  :-).

> > .B uintptr
> > as a physical address may be the same size, larger (PAE), or smaller than a> virtual address.
>
> Should that be uintmem?

yes.

> A type system is useful if and only if it helps you write code which will be
> correct in every environment in which it might run.  Guidelines for usage
> which will be "generally" or "typically" correct just encourage bad habits.
> (Of which I am as guilty as anyone.)

so what do you want to do about usize.  i can't easily just make it 64-bits on
nix, because that would require that we get some changes in sources.  malloc
would need to be fixed, etc.

> OTOH, it's not worth making special provision for physical memory addresses.
> I think that any code which is dealing with those is not likely to be
> portable to another architecture for many other reasons.  I can't envision
> a single mmu.c being applicable to both 386 and amd64 ...

you need it for PAE.  i also find it to be great documentation.  imo, it helps
in writing correct code, and understanding it later.

- erik

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[erik quanstrom]

i put up corrections

- erik

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Anthony Martin]

Charles Forsyth <charles.forsyth@gmail.com> once said:
> On 22 November 2012 03:44, Bruce Ellis <bruce.ellis@gmail.com> wrote:
> > uintptr in all over the go packages because it is right.
>
> I hadn't noticed that particularly, but having grep'd the source, I
> see it's also used for variables that are counters and numbers of
> things.

Can you give an example? Nothing jumped out after a quick glance.

> Is that right too? I suspect it's more out of expediency. Some other
> type usage looks odd too. int32 where int would do. Curious.

Such as? The only one I can think of is (*os.File).Fd returning
a uintptr but that was changed from int for a reason (Windows).

Cheers,
  Anthony

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

this is just a sample, but there were other likely candidates:

./src/pkg/runtime/cpuprof.c: uintptr count;
./src/pkg/runtime/cpuprof.c: uintptr count; // tick count
./src/pkg/runtime/cpuprof.c: uintptr evicts; // eviction count
./src/pkg/runtime/cpuprof.c: uintptr lost; // lost ticks that need to be logged
./src/pkg/runtime/cpuprof.c: uintptr totallost; // total lost ticks
./src/pkg/runtime/zmprof_386.c:uintptr allocs;
./src/pkg/runtime/zmprof_386.c:uintptr frees;
./src/pkg/runtime/zmprof_386.c:uintptr alloc_bytes;
./src/pkg/runtime/zmprof_386.c:uintptr free_bytes;
./src/pkg/runtime/zmprof_386.c:uintptr recent_allocs;
./src/pkg/runtime/zmprof_386.c:uintptr recent_frees;
./src/pkg/runtime/zmprof_386.c:uintptr recent_alloc_bytes;
./src/pkg/runtime/zmprof_386.c:uintptr recent_free_bytes;
./src/pkg/runtime/zmprof_386.c:uintptr hash;
./src/pkg/runtime/zmprof_386.c:uintptr nstk;
./src/pkg/runtime/runtime.h: uintptr n; // number of parameters
./src/pkg/runtime/thread_netbsd.c: uintptr nout;
./src/pkg/runtime/cpuprof.c: uintptr nlog;


On 22 November 2012 12:39, Anthony Martin <ality@pbrane.org> wrote:
> Charles Forsyth <charles.forsyth@gmail.com> once said:
>> On 22 November 2012 03:44, Bruce Ellis <bruce.ellis@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > uintptr in all over the go packages because it is right.
>>
>> I hadn't noticed that particularly, but having grep'd the source, I
>> see it's also used for variables that are counters and numbers of
>> things.
>
> Can you give an example? Nothing jumped out after a quick glance.
>
>> Is that right too? I suspect it's more out of expediency. Some other
>> type usage looks odd too. int32 where int would do. Curious.
>
> Such as? The only one I can think of is (*os.File).Fd returning
> a uintptr but that was changed from int for a reason (Windows).
>
> Cheers,
>   Anthony
>
>

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

sorry, i meant to exclude the _bytes ones, because they were probably sizes.

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Anthony Martin]

Charles Forsyth <charles.forsyth@gmail.com> once said:
> this is just a sample, but there were other likely candidates:

Ah. I thought we were talking about Go code not C. Carry on.

  Anthony

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

Oh, no. len and cap are int in Go, so that problem doesn't arise,
and (I assume) uintptr isn't much used.

The int32 usage was things like this (an arbitrary choice):
void
runtime·closure(int32 siz, byte *fn, byte *arg0)
{
      byte *p, *q, **ret;
      int32 i, n;
      int32 pcrel;

since this is runtime, the incoming siz might well need a specific
size to match a calling convention,
but locals i, n, and pcrel don't seem to be special.

On 22 November 2012 12:54, Anthony Martin <ality@pbrane.org> wrote:
> Ah. I thought we were talking about Go code not C. Carry on.

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Richard Miller]

> so what do you want to do about usize.  i can't easily just make it 64-bits on
> nix, because that would require that we get some changes in sources.  malloc
> would need to be fixed, etc.

Just tell the plain truth - have I got this right?

Usize is an unsigned integer which can hold the maximum size of an
object declared statically (the sizeof operator returns a value of
type usize) or created by the usual allocation functions (the size
argument of malloc is - or should be?  - type usize).  Usize may be
smaller than uintptr, for example on amd64 where uintptr is 64 bits
and usize is 32.  On such machines it may still be possible to
make larger allocations (eg by writing a megamalloc function
with a size argument in megabyte units) but not to use a usize
variable to represent the length of the returned objects.

>> OTOH, it's not worth making special provision for physical memory addresses.
>>...
> you need it for PAE.  i also find it to be great documentation.  imo, it helps
> in writing correct code, and understanding it later.

Yes, I've come around to agree with this.

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

On 22 November 2012 13:26, Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:
> Just tell the plain truth - have I got this right?

That looks right to me, as things stand.

I thought that at some point sizeof on amd64 and other 64-bit machines
sizeof/usize will become 64 bits, so you can malloc and size gigabytes,
but then ... that needs ptrdiff, and non-trivial code changes. Ugh.
I've stalled for a better way.

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[erik quanstrom]

> Usize is an unsigned integer which can hold the maximum size of an
> object declared statically (the sizeof operator returns a value of
> type usize) or created by the usual allocation functions (the size
> argument of malloc is - or should be?  - type usize).  Usize may be
> smaller than uintptr, for example on amd64 where uintptr is 64 bits
> and usize is 32.  On such machines it may still be possible to
> make larger allocations (eg by writing a megamalloc function
> with a size argument in megabyte units) but not to use a usize
> variable to represent the length of the returned objects.

unfortuntely, most of this is either not true yet, or the goal is to
make it false.  the current signature of malloc is void* malloc(ulong),
the goal is to make it void* malloc(usize), additionally usize is
always ulong now, but the goal is to make it 64-bits on amd64,
and perhaps other 64-bit architectures.

therefore, i wanted to emphasis what it should be, and that the current
situtation must change.  terrible, no?  is there a better way?

(you can get a large hunk of memory with segbrk, which is cheating
and probablly dangerous.)

- erik

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Federico G. Benavento]

On Nov 22, 2012, at 6:38 AM, Charles Forsyth <charles.forsyth@gmail.com> wrote:

> I wonder if there's an assumption that usize is a novelty. It has been
> in u.h for at least 5 years.

yes, there was such assumption on my behalf. I haven't seen it before erik posted
the man page, now after some grep'ing I see it's being used in the near ports.

---
Federico G. Benavento
benavento@gmail.com

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

It was changed in Ritchie's own compiler in v7 as I noted earlier.
It was that, use long, or limit your sizeof'd data to half the 16-bit
address space.

On 22 November 2012 11:54, Steve Simon <steve@quintile.net> wrote:
> I wish I had been in the standards meeting with a big stick when somone
> suggested sizeof() returned an unsigned.
>
> No doubt somone will pipe up and explain why its a very good idea, but it
> still annoys me.

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Steve Simon]

> "The expression sizeof(object) yields an integer equal to the
> size of the specified object."
>
> Not "unsigned integer".  Old habits die hard.

I feel your pain.

We use lint a lot here and it irritates me greatly when it
grumbles about loss of precision in assignment
from sizeof() or nelem() to an int, e.g.

	int i;
	struct Result Results[4096];

	for(i = 0; i < nelem(Results); i++)
		memset(&Results[i], 0, sizeof(Result));

I wish I had been in the standards meeting with a big stick when somone
suggested sizeof() returned an unsigned.

No doubt somone will pipe up and explain why its a very good idea, but it
still annoys me.

-Steve

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Charles Forsyth]

It was in v6 (and a nasty bug):
   /*
     * sizeof gets turned into a number here.
     * Bug: sizeof(structure-member-array) is 2 because
     * the array has been turned into a ptr already.
     */
    if (op==SIZEOF) {
        t1 = length(p1);
        p1->op = CON;
        p1->type = INT;
        p1->dimp = 0;
        p1->value = t1;
        *cp++ = p1;
        return;
    }

but in v7 (without the bug):
    /*
     * sizeof gets turned into a number here.
     */
    if (op==SIZEOF) {
        t1 = cblock(length(p1));
        t1->type = UNSIGN;
        *cp++ = t1;
        return;
    }

It's not surprising, since "unsigned" didn't originally exist (use "char*"!)

On 22 November 2012 11:36, Richard Miller <9fans@hamnavoe.com> wrote:
>> New C programmers are often confused by
>> size_t being unsigned (even experienced ones at times)
>
> Especially experienced ones.  My 1978 copy of K&R says
>
> "The expression sizeof(object) yields an integer equal to the
> size of the specified object."
>
> Not "unsigned integer".  Old habits die hard.
>
>

Re: [9fans] go forth and ulong no more!

[Richard Miller]

> New C programmers are often confused by
> size_t being unsigned (even experienced ones at times)

Especially experienced ones.  My 1978 copy of K&R says

"The expression sizeof(object) yields an integer equal to the
size of the specified object."

Not "unsigned integer".  Old habits die hard.