[Gcl-devel] Re: [Maxima] Requesting input on some possible low-level changes

Greetings, and thanks for this!  Problem is, that for the purposes of
the optimization in question, something can still be usefully done in
the (apply #'aref ...) et.al. cases (eg. add implicit (the fixnum ..)
to indices).  I guess this cannot be completely implemented via
compiler-macros -- I'm wondering if there is a better way?

Take care,

Steve Haflich <smh@franz.com> writes:

>    From: Camm Maguire <camm at enhanced>
>    
>    In any case, our define-compiler-macro appears to be lacking in at
>    least one respect, namely it doesn't skip over 'funcall as required by
>    the spec.  I.e. (funcall #'foo ...) is not expanded.  I have a fix to
>    this which seems to be working.  What I'd like to know, however, is if
>    'apply, 'map, and any other functions taking a function descriptor as
>    an argument is also supposed to be expanded.
> 
> No, the ANS only specifies that funcall be handled.  Compiler macros
> should not be invoked for apply or mapping forms.
> 
> A plausible reason for this is that for a compiler macro to be useful,
> in many situations it needs to know the number of arguments the
> operator will receive at run time, and for keyword args, it often
> wants to see the actual keyword arguments at compile time.  (Compiler
> macros typically will punt if this information is not available to
> them.)  There is no reasonable way to destructure an apply or map form
> against the `macro' lambda list of a compiler macro.  For funcall it
> is quite practical.
> 
> Note that the compiler macro receives the funcall form as its &whole
> (so that it can return it if it decides to decline to expand) but that
> the compiler is responsible for unravelling the funcall form so the
> compiler-macro's macro argument list is properly bound.
> 
> 
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> 
> 

-- 
Camm Maguire			     			camm@enhanced.com
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