Nicholas Clark wrote:
[ CCs cleared by some ]
... However there's a lot of source outside pp*.c and the SV/AV/HV/CV/GV manipulation code.
A lot of that are helper functions for pp code, but anyway yes, the code exists and is an API.
Which is the stuff we're trying to keep working unchanged.
If its not much called it doesn't matter, but see below.
Speed-wise, I think the problem I *think* I was trying to address here was that there's a lot of XS and core code that assumes that SV flag checking is a fast operation
Yes XS is the big problem here. The huge difference between perl5 and parrot/perl6 is the handling of (scalar) types. In perl5 everything is flags based with cascades of switch statements. In parrot there is either a vtable or a MMD sub. For scalar types we basically don't need any flag bits in parrot.
I've (with not much success) already presented a plan to get both worlds together:
* PMCs become variable sized * upgrading is similar to perl5
A perl5 IV PMC could therefore inherit vtable, MMD and layout from a core Integer PMC and have an additional flag word. Interoperbility would work at the opcode level.
leo
