Re: [Caml-list] Strange observation on polymorphic '<'

[Ville-Pertti Keinonen <will@exomi.com>]

On Fri, 2004-12-03 at 02:24 -0500, Ritesh Kumar wrote:

> let max a b = if a>b then a else b;;
> print_int (max 2 3);;
> ============
> Separate compilation means that the function max should use the C call 
> (for the toplevel module). However, the invocation of max 2 3 shouldn't 
> use a direct call to the function in the same module as the invocation 
> is in the same module (i.e. there is opportunity to optimize it based 

The decision of whether to inline a function is done based on its size.
You can increase the inlining level to allow for larger functions to be
inlined.

However, apparently inlining is currently done after deciding whether to
call the polymorphic function, so it doesn't help in this case, which is
definitely a missed optimization opportunity.

> on the known invocation types). Secondly, does separate compilation 
> make that strong a sense in case of native compilation for OcaML ... 
> most probably not because it anyways generates a standalone executable?

OCaml supports inlining across compilation units, so eliminating
separate compilation probably wouldn't automatically give you any
benefits.

There is at least one compiler for a related language (Standard ML) that
does global analysis by compiling everything at once (MLtoN).  It's
quite a bit more complex compared to OCaml, doesn't generate
significantly faster code for common cases, and supports far fewer
platforms.  MLtoN does have the nice ability to support unboxed,
untagged integers, though.