The function 'string.gmatch' now has an optional 'init' argument,
similar to 'string.find' and 'string.match'. Moreover, there was
some reorganization in the manipulation of indices in the string
library.
This commit also includes small janitorial work in the manual
and in comments in the interpreter loop.
New functions to reset/kill a thread/coroutine, mainly (only?) to
close any pending to-be-closed variable. ('lua_resetthread' also
allows a thread to be reused...)
A to-be-closed variable must be closed when a block ends, so even
a 'return foo()' cannot directly returns the results of 'foo'; the
function must close the scope before returning.
It is an error for a to-be-closed variable to have a non-closable
non-nil value when it is being closed. This situation does not seem to
be useful and often hints to an error. (Particularly in the C API, it is
easy to change a to-be-closed index by mistake.)
(Long time without testing with '-DHARDSTACKTESTS'...)
With the introduction of to-be-closed variables, calls to 'luaF_close'
can move the stack, but some call sites where keeping pointers to the
stack without correcting them.
Added opcodes for all seven arithmetic operators with K operands
(that is, operands that are numbers in the array of constants of
the function). They cover the cases of constant float operands
(e.g., 'x + .0.0', 'x^0.5') and large integer operands (e.g.,
'x % 10000').
The variable to be closed in a generic 'for' loop now is the
4th value produced in the loop initialization, instead of being
the loop state (the 2nd value produced). That allows a loop to
use a state with a '__toclose' metamethod but do not close it.
(As an example, 'f:lines()' might use the file 'f' as a state
for the loop, but it should not close the file when the loop ends.)
The repetitive code of the arithmetic and bitwise operators in
the main iterpreter loop was moved to appropriate macros.
(As a detail, the function 'luaV_div' was renamed 'luaV_idiv',
as it does an "integer division" (floor division).
The mechanism of "caching the last closure created for a prototype to
try to reuse it the next time a closure for that prototype is created"
was removed. There are several reasons:
- It is hard to find a natural example where this cache has a measurable
impact on performance.
- Programmers already perceive closure creation as something slow,
so they tend to avoid it inside hot paths. (Any case where the cache
could reuse a closure can be rewritten predefining the closure in some
variable and using that variable.)
- The implementation was somewhat complex, due to a bad interaction
with the generational collector. (Typically, new closures are new,
while prototypes are old. So, the cache breaks the invariant that
old objects should not point to new ones.)
The implicit variable 'state' in a generic 'for' is marked as a
to-be-closed variable, so that the state will be closed as soon
as the loop ends, no matter how.
Taking advantage of this new facility, the call 'io.lines(filename)'
now returns the open file as a second result. Therefore,
an iteraction like 'for l in io.lines(name)...' will close the
file even when the loop ends with a break or an error.
"Better" and similar to error messages for invalid function arguments.
*old message: 'for' limit must be a number
*new message: bad 'for' limit (number expected, got table)
Added new instruction 'OP_TFORPREP' to prepare a generic for loop.
Currently it is equivalent to a jump (but with a format 'iABx',
similar to other for-loop preparing instructions), but soon it will
be the place to create upvalues for closing loop states.
A closing method cannot be called in its own stack slot, as there may
be returning values in the stack after that slot, and the call would
corrupt those values. Instead, the closing method must be copied to the
top of the stack to be called.
Moreover, even when a function returns no value, its return istruction
still has to have its position (which will set the stack top) after
the local variables, otherwise a closing method might corrupt another
not-yet-called closing method.
Start of the implementation of "scoped variables" or "to be closed"
variables, local variables whose '__close' (or themselves) are called
when they go out of scope. This commit implements the syntax, the
opcode, and the creation of the corresponding upvalue, but it still
does not call the finalizations when the variable goes out of scope
(the most important part).
Currently, the syntax is 'local scoped name = exp', but that will
probably change.
The multiplication (m*b) used to test whether 'm' is non-zero and
'm' and 'b' have different signs can underflow for very small numbers,
giving a wrong result. The use of explicit comparisons solves this
problem. This commit also adds several new tests for '%' (both for
floats and for integers) to exercise more corner cases, such as
very large and very small values.
As hinted in the manual for Lua 5.3, the emulation of the metamethod
for '__le' using '__le' has been deprecated. It is slow, complicates
the logic, and it is easy to avoid this emulation by defining a proper
'__le' function.
Moreover, often this emulation was used wrongly, with a programmer
assuming that an order is total when it is not (e.g., NaN in
floating-point numbers).
