When you call pmc_new, the init() routine is run before the PMC is anchored to the root set. This is a problem for things like aggregates, because they are likely to want to allocate a big Buffer during initialization. And disabling GC entirely just feels wrong -- especially with pmc_new_sized, it is very believable that this is a very good time to be collecting garbage.
In short, it feels special-casey enough to me to warrant the following patch, which adds a new item to the root set for just this purpose. It could probably be better named. Dan, whaddaya think? -- Gimme a job! http://foxglove.dnsalias.org/~sfink/job.html C, perl, networking, performance optimization, Java, XML. Index: include/parrot/interpreter.h =================================================================== RCS file: /home/perlcvs/parrot/include/parrot/interpreter.h,v retrieving revision 1.38 diff -u -r1.38 interpreter.h --- include/parrot/interpreter.h 22 Mar 2002 20:24:05 -0000 1.38 +++ include/parrot/interpreter.h 29 Mar 2002 06:04:38 -0000 @@ -49,7 +49,6 @@ FLOATVAL time; } ProfData; - typedef struct Parrot_Interp { struct IReg int_reg; struct NReg num_reg; @@ -83,6 +82,9 @@ #if 0 str_func_t *string_funcs; #endif + + PMC* creating_pmc; /* A PMC while it's being created, to avoid + getting garbage collected during its init */ Interp_flags flags; /* Various interpreter flags that * signal that runops should do Index: pmc.c =================================================================== RCS file: /home/perlcvs/parrot/pmc.c,v retrieving revision 1.11 diff -u -r1.11 pmc.c --- pmc.c 10 Mar 2002 21:19:46 -0000 1.11 +++ pmc.c 29 Mar 2002 06:28:43 -0000 @@ -39,6 +39,7 @@ return NULL; } + interpreter->creating_pmc = pmc; pmc->flags = 0; pmc->data = 0; @@ -53,6 +54,7 @@ } pmc->vtable->init(interpreter, pmc, 0); + interpreter->creating_pmc = NULL; return pmc; } @@ -67,6 +69,7 @@ return NULL; } + interpreter->creating_pmc = pmc; pmc->flags = 0; pmc->data = 0; @@ -81,6 +84,7 @@ } pmc->vtable->init(interpreter, pmc, size); + interpreter->creating_pmc = NULL; return pmc; } Index: resources.c =================================================================== RCS file: /home/perlcvs/parrot/resources.c,v retrieving revision 1.35 diff -u -r1.35 resources.c --- resources.c 26 Mar 2002 16:33:01 -0000 1.35 +++ resources.c 29 Mar 2002 06:04:28 -0000 @@ -377,6 +377,10 @@ } } + /* Mark a PMC while it is being created */ + if (interpreter->creating_pmc) + last = mark_used(interpreter->creating_pmc, last); + /* Now walk the pmc stack */ for (cur_chunk = interpreter->pmc_reg_top; cur_chunk; cur_chunk = cur_chunk->prev) {
