Pike-devel

pike-devel@lists.lysator.liu.se

2 participants
3046 discussions

pgsql fixes and other things
by Stephen R. van den Berg 04 Apr '12

04 Apr '12

I just pulled the latest pike version from git. It clearly has been a while, since I've actively participated. I apologise for my extended leave, it was due to some real-life issues that got in the way of things. That is not to say that I didn't stop using Pike or Roxen; quite the opposite, I just didn't have time to keep up on the mailinglists. I got snippets of updates through Marc though, so I wasn't completely ignorant. Anyway, the good news is: I'm back. I just glanced through the mailinglist archives (in my mailbox) and it is quite a bundle to skip through (not started on that yet). I first checked the state of the pgsql module. I see some minor updates/fixes. I have one small and one very important fix waiting here which should get in ASAP (which I have been hunting down for the past three years, but did not, until about 2 weeks ago, result in a SEGV; which finally made it possible to zoom in on it; which, in effect, was the final nudge that I needed to get back on track with the mailinglist here). Hmmm, I just glanced through http://pike.ida.liu.se/development/git/rw-git.xml Is it supposed to be automatic that when you "git commit" it will push it into the main repo? Do I still have access? If not, can I be reinstated? -- Stephen. Being able to try has no purpose if failing is not an option.

4 8

new block allocator
by Arne Goedeke 03 Apr '12

03 Apr '12

We pushed an experimental branch which uses a new block allocator we have been developing. This one uses a different algorithm than the one we briefly mentioned on the conference. The new one uses a hashtable for page lookup instead of radix trees. The branch can be found under arne/block_alloc, a GJAlloc-bundle is available at http://fortranland.com/GJAlloc-0.08.tar.gz or from https://github.com/arneg/GJAlloc via git. The branch currently contains alot of obsolete history, which we would squash into one commit in case of inclusion. Standalone performance comparisons are available at https://github.com/arneg/GJAlloc/wiki/Performance-comparison. The speedup is quite noticeable when compiling with --cleanup-on-exit, otherwise for most use cases the differences should be unnoticable. However, when having many things around that do not get freed linearly, the speedup can be dramatic. A rather extreme example is time pike -e 'array a = map(allocate(1000000, 5), random_string); for (int i = 0; i < 10000000; i++) { int k = random(sizeof(a)); a[k] = random_string(5);}' It would be interesting to see real world benchmarks, in case anyone feels like it ,) We would naturally like to incorporate this into Pike (7.9) and hope for a discussion about the allocator itself and how to best include it. Currently, GJAlloc is requested as a bundle by the CritBit module, which uses its API directly. All other modules use macro definitions which are compatible with the ones from block_allocator.h. best arne & tobi

3 5

compilation handler for multi-tenant applications: update
by Bill Welliver 01 Apr '12

01 Apr '12

Hi all, A few months ago, started a conversation about what I'll call multi-tenant applications: that is, a single pike process running multiple applications (perhaps including copies of a given application) with isolated program and module spaces. The idea is to provide a similar capability to that provided by Java's ClassLoader API. That is, I'd like to be able to do the following: pike +-----------------|-----------------+ | | thread a1...an thread b1 ... bn compilation handler a compilation handler b loads classes for app1 instance 1 loads classes for app1 instance from location a,b from location a,c (perhaps) uses module foo.bar uses module foo.bar foo.bar != foo.bar though it would perhaps be acceptable if object_program(foo.bar) == object_program(foo.bar) applications would not be aware of each other (a condition of the multi-tenant contract) and thus object identity would not need to be maintained. I've been dabbling with the approach suggested at the Pike conference, which was to use a compilation handler to provide this functionality. I've come tantalizingly close, being able to use an overriden master to provide versions of compile_string() and friends that automatically select the desired compilation handler based on various criteria (such as threads in an application). While a bit clunky, it seems to allow me to control visibility of identifiers in a given application or thread, but there does seem to be a limitation that for me is fatal: the programs and module objects are cached by the master, and therefore any two applications are not truely isolated: they share a common set of modules (and join/dirnodes) and (though less problematic) precompiled programs.Because programs and modules seem to be indexed by filename, I've played around with adding a unique identifier in order to split the cache on a per-handler basis, but this hasn't worked either (programs seem to be loaded as desired, but modules are still problematic.) I've attempted to add storage of these caches in the compilation handler, but it results in extremely odd failures (for example, a given class will be cached as a zero value in the programs mapping, which means the program won't be found, even if it's on disk. As a brute force attempt to prove that the idea can work, I'm thinking about short circuiting the auto-reload functionality so that it always reloads a given class from disk. I'm not sure that this will actually prove beneficial, as modules would still be persistent. As always, any thoughts or suggestions would be welcome. Bill

4 8

Design advice sought: Backend implementation
by Bill Welliver 01 Apr '12

01 Apr '12

I'd like to solicit some design feedback for a new feature that I'd like to contribute. I apologize for the length of this message, but hopefully it contains all of the details needed to get the conversation started. First, some quick background: Over the past few years I've written a few modules[1] that provide access to a number of technologies that are either part of Darwin or one of Apple's Darwin-based OSes (OSX, iOS, etc). A common feature that keeps occurring is their reliance on an active run loop. Normally, this is either NSRunloop or CFRunLoop (they are distinct APIs, but they share a common set of event sources.) In the past, I've resorted to adding a persistent call-out to the default back end, which is similar to the approach taken by the GTK2 module. This is normally good enough for sitatuions where events are relatively infrequent, such as GUI-input work. However, it's not always suitable for higher interrupt volumes and it also has the side effect of presenting a continual, though low, load on the CPU. This isn't a huge problem, but it's unclean and if one were to increase the frequency of the poll-out to the CF/NS run loop, the load becomes higher, and thus harder to ignore. A Solution: After doing some research on better ways to approach the problem, I discovered that CF/NS run loops use kqueue at their core. As a result, a kqueue can be added to the run loop and polled for events. That's convenient, because pike uses kqueue on Darwin in its default backend, Pike.PollDeviceBackend. Swapping out the direct call to kevent() with one that calls the run loop results in "native" Pike I/O working the way it should, plus Darwin layered functionality working properly as well (and low CPU utilization, too). I think that this is a useful new feature to add to Pike, but I've got some concerns about how best to include it. Right now, I've created a branch called hww3/cfrunloop_backend[2] that includes the functionality and swaps out the existing implementation under Darwin. That is, of course, the simplest approach, but I think is probably not the best idea: Pros: - Uses kqueue() at its core, so the existing backend will fire events in the same way. - Allows a number of technologies to function normally when used from with Pike processes, without the use of hacks. Cons: - There is exactly one Run Loop per thread, which, if used universally, could present issues because this means behavior would differ from other Backends. - There is slightly more overhead per trip through the backend due to events being single-shot. This means that the kqueue has to be re-added to the runloop each loop. I don't think it's a major overhead, it still exists. Alternate Implementations: A second approach would be to provide an additional backend implementation, say Pike.CFBackend, that's available on Darwin based systems. I see one or two problems with this, though: - There would need to be a way to activiate this selectively at runtime, something like set_default_backend(Pike.CFBackend()), which probably doesn't exist right now, right? - Because 90% of the implementation would be shared with PollDeviceBackend, I think it would involve a fair amount of code duplication inside of backend.cmod, which I think would make maintenance more difficult. A third (and right now, I believe the best) approach would be to add one or two methods to Pike.Backend that could be implemented by PollDeviceBackend on Darwin and be used to activate this alternate mode. For example: int(0..1) has_client_mode() which would return true if there were a client optimization (I suggest client because CFRunLoop would be more useful for client apps than traditional server based apps, though that's certainly not an either/or situaiton) and: void enable_client_mode(int(0..1)) that would trigger calls to CFRunLoopRunInMode() instead of kevent() directly. Input Sought: I think either of the two alternative approaches would be just fine, assuming that the concerns could be addressed. I'm just not sure which would be best from a design and implementation standpoint (I sort of think the last option would be simplest for _me_ to get working, but if someone has desire to help tackle it, I'd be game to play along). The upshot of allowing the proposed backend changes for other folks using Pike are that: a) SDL and GL becomes usable out of the box on OSX b) I am prepared to contribute a few pieces of code, namely: - FSEvents module - Updated Filesystem.Monitor that uses FSEvents on Darwin and inotify on Linux to eliminate polling - DNS_SD querying support on OSX - ObjectiveC bridge (possibly) Hopefully we can have a bit of discussion about the options and approaches and come up with a solution that works without being terribly inconvenient. Please do drop me a note if anything about this proposal is unclear. Best, Bill [1] Public.ObjectiveC, Public.System.FSEvents, Public.IO.IOWarror, additions to DNS-SD; SDL and GL on OSX also share this requirement. [2] http://hg.welliver.org/pike/changesets, not yet pushed to the pike master repo.

5 6

gobject-introspection
by Marcus Comstedt (ACROSS) (Hail Ilpalazzo!) ＠ Pike (-) developers forum 01 Apr '12

01 Apr '12

Hi guys. I was feeling bored so I started work on a Pike binding for GLib:s object introspection repository (aka "gir"). It's still horribly incomplete, but it can already handle simple stuff like this: ---8<--- import GI.repository; void main() { Notify.init("notifytest"); Notify.Notification.new("Hello world", "This is an example", "dialog-information")->show(); } ---8<--- The branch is available as "marcus/gobject-introspection" on the git server if you want to check it out or (*gasp*) contribute. :-)

1 1

abi and building with bundles
by Bill Welliver 27 Mar '12

27 Mar '12

I noticed a few problems that exist when building Pike using bundles. I'm not very familiar with how that all works, so I thought I'd report them here in the hope that someone more comfortable with making changes to this can take a closer look: 1. If you specify an ABI that isn't the "default" for a given system using --with-abi, the ABI specific compiler flags don't seem to be passed on to any subsequent bundles. Thus, you get all kinds of problems with mismatched abis when trying to link. A temporary workaround seems to be to define CFLAGS and pass them in for the whole build process. 2. A problem specific to Nettle seems to be that there's a small c++ test program that gets built as part of the Nettle bundle. When building for a non-default ABI, this test program can't link against the built library, causing the whole bundle to fail. A temporary workaround seems to be to define CXXFLAGS and pass these flags (such as -m32) as part of the overall build process. Bill

1 0

need permissions help on pelix
by H. William Welliver III 21 Mar '12

21 Mar '12

I'm trying to create some new release folders and unfortunately the permissions seem to be incorrect (I'm in the pike group): $ ls -l /pike/data/ftp/pub/pike/ total 20 -rw-r--r-- 1 nilsson pike 804 Sep 14 2004 README drwxrwsr-x 33 jhs pike 1024 Mar 19 22:12 all drwxr-sr-x 12 peter pike 512 Jan 3 2011 alpha drwxrwsr-x 14 peter pike 512 Apr 16 2011 beta drwxr-sr-x 2 jhs pike 512 Aug 16 2002 contrib drwxr-sr-x 2 jhs pike 512 Aug 2 2002 docs drwxr-sr-x 2 mast pike 1024 Mar 19 22:06 latest-stable drwxr-sr-x 2 jhs pike 512 May 12 2001 libs drwxr-sr-x 2 jhs pike 512 Aug 2 2002 man drwxr-sr-x 4 jhs pike 512 Aug 2 2002 patches Can someone help out with that? Thanks, Bill

2 1

Re: paging Peter Bortas
by Bill Welliver 14 Mar '12

14 Mar '12

I've been a bit behind on my email replies, hopefully this delay can be forgiven... > it shouldn't be any more dificult that making a caudium release. Well, that's a mess of its own that I've been dealing with :) > how about starting with an alpha build. > pick a version and throw it out so people can start testing. Yes, but how? It's more than just doing a "make export", as the bundles have to be included and all that, right? > if there is anything missing in this step of the process, we'll just > find out. > No doubt, but as my time is somewhat limited, I'd rather avoid spending an evening sorting it out if someone else has a set of notes written down. > apart from that i don't think there is all that much to it, other than > writing an announcement and uploading the tarball. (of course there may > be things, and it is probably those you are asking about, but even if > there are, i can't imagine anything that must be done before a version > can be released.) Best, Bill

1 0

paging Peter Bortas
by H. William Welliver III 16 Feb '12

16 Feb '12

I don't have Peter's email address, so hopefully he's monitoring this… I'd like to get working on a 7.8 release but don't really have any idea what's involved, aside from change log entries (which I'm working on, slowly). Anything you might have for me to go on in that department (even if it's a rough outline) would be greatly appreciated! Bill

1 0

configure.in question: compiler but not ld flags
by H. William Welliver III 22 Dec '11

22 Dec '11

When adding configure tests, where does one place flags intended for the compilation phase but not the linking phase? The flag I need to add (-x objective-c) doesn't seem like it should be a problem, but for some reason, using it when linking causes gcc to enter compile mode, rather than linking mode. Right now, it appears that adding items to either CFLAGS or CPPFLAGS, they all end up in LD (CFLAGS directly, and CPPFLAGS via DEFINES). It seems to me that CPPFLAGS and LDFLAGS should be independent of each other (though I imagine it might occur that certain flags are used in both modes). Bill

5 10

Jump to page:

2026

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

Pike-devel