On 2017-04-13 09:08, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
On Wed, 12 Apr 2017 16:30:38 -0700, bart4858 wrote:
(Although I think Python would have difficulty in turning x+=1 into a
single opcode, if using normal object references and a shared object
model.)
You know, since Python actually exists and isn't just a hypothetical
language, we can find out what it actually does, not just guess :-)
import dis
code = compile("x += 1", "", "single")
dis.dis(code)
1 0 LOAD_NAME 0 (x)
3 LOAD_CONST 0 (1)
6 INPLACE_ADD
7 STORE_NAME 0 (x)
10 LOAD_CONST 1 (None)
13 RETURN_VALUE
There's an op-code for looking up the name 'x', another to push the
constant 1 on the stack, an op-code for "INPLACE_ADD", followed by an op-
code for STORE_NAME again.
In principle, we could replace the LOAD_CONST and INPLACE_ADD with a
single op-code that combines the two. Whether that would speed anything
up is another question.
Is it possible to skip the STORE_NAME op-code? If you knew *for sure*
that the target (x) was a mutable object which implemented += using an in-
place mutation, then you could, but the only built-in where that applies
is list so even if you could guarantee x was a list, it hardly seems
worth the bother.
If the reference to be stored by STORE_NAME is the same as the reference
returned by LOAD_NAME, then STORE_NAME could be omitted.
That would just mean remembering that address.
I'm still trying to think whether it's ever possible to lose all
references to the object when INPLACE_ADD is called, leading to the
object having been garbage-collected by the time it returns.
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