python-peps/pep-0280.txt

PEP: 280
Title: Optimizing access to globals
Version: $Revision$
Last-Modified: $Date$
Author: skip@pobox.com, jeremy@alum.mit.edu, guido@python.org, tim.one@comcast.net, 
Status: Draft
Type: Standards Track
Created: 10-Feb-2002
Python-Version: 2.3
Post-History:


Abstract

    This PEP attempts to summarize various approaches for avoiding the
    dictionary lookup for accessing globals and built-ins in most
    cases.  There are several competing approaches, which originated
    in historical order by authors Montanaro, Hylton, and Van Rossum.
    The fourth author is added for his valuable feedback during all
    stages.

    The expectation is that eventually one approach will be picked and
    implemented; possibly multiple approaches will be prototyped
    first.


Montanaro's approach: tracking globals

    XXX (Skip, please check in a description!).


Hylton's approach: using a dlict

    XXX (Jerely, please check in a description!)

    See Jeremy's Python10 DevDay slides at
    http://www.python.org/~jeremy/talks/spam10/PEP-267-1.html
    and his Wiki at
    http://www.zope.org/Members/jeremy/CurrentAndFutureProjects/FastGlobals


Van Rossum's approach: using a celldict

    (Note: Jason Orendorff writes: """I implemented this once, long
    ago, for Python 1.5-ish, I believe.  I got it to the point where
    it was only 15% slower than ordinary Python, then abandoned it.
    ;) In my implementation, "cells" were real first-class objects,
    and "celldict" was a copy-and-hack version of dictionary.  I
    forget how the rest worked."""  Reference:
    http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2002-February/019876.html)

    Let a cell be a really simple Python object, containing a pointer
    to a Python object and a pointer to a cell.  Both pointers may be
    NULL.  A Python implementation could be:

        class cell(object):

            def __init__(self):
                self.objptr = NULL
                self.cellptr = NULL

    The cellptr attribute is used for chaining cells together for
    searching built-ins; this will be explained later.

    Let a celldict be a mapping from strings (the names of a module's
    globals) to objects (the values of those globals), implemented
    using a dict of cells.  A Python implementation could be:

        class celldict(object):

            def __init__(self):
                self.__dict = {} # dict of cells

            def getcell(self, key):
                c = self.__dict.get(key)
                if c is None:
                    c = cell()
                    self.__dict[key] = c
                return c

            def cellkeys(self):
                return self.__dict.keys()

            def __getitem__(self, key):
                c = self.__dict.get(key)
                if c is None:
                    raise KeyError, key
                value = c.objptr
                if value is NULL:
                    raise KeyError, key
                else:
                    return value

            def __setitem__(self, key, value):
                c = self.__dict.get(key)
                if c is None:
                    c = cell()
                    self.__dict[key] = c
                c.objptr = value

            def __delitem__(self, key):
                c = self.__dict.get(key)
                if c is None or c.objptr is NULL:
                    raise KeyError, key
                c.objptr = NULL

            def keys(self):
                return [k for k, c in self.__dict.iteritems()
                        if c.objptr is not NULL]

            def items(self):
                return [k, c.objptr for k, c in self.__dict.iteritems()
                        if c.objptr is not NULL]

            def values(self):
                preturn [c.objptr for c in self.__dict.itervalues()
                        if c.objptr is not NULL]

            def clear(self):
                for c in self.__dict.values():
                    c.objptr = NULL

            # Etc.

    It is possible that a cell exists corresponding to a given key,
    but the cell's objptr is NULL; let's call such a cell empty.  When
    the celldict is used as a mapping, it is as if empty cells don't
    exist.  However, once added, a cell is never deleted from a
    celldict, and it is possible to get at empty cells using the
    getcell() method.

    The celldict implementation never uses the cellptr attribute of
    cells.

    We change the module implementation to use a celldict for its
    __dict__.  The module's getattr, setattr and delattr operations
    now map to getitem, setitem and delitem on the celldict.  The type
    of <module>.__dict__ and globals() is probably the only backwards
    incompatibility.

    When a module is initialized, its __builtins__ is initialized from
    the __builtin__ module's __dict__, which is itself a celldict.
    For each cell in __builtins__, the new module's __dict__ adds a
    cell with a NULL objptr, whose cellptr points to the corresponding
    cell of __builtins__.  Python pseudo-code (ignoring rexec):

        import __builtin__

        class module(object):

            def __init__(self):
                self.__dict__ = d = celldict()
                d['__builtins__'] = bd = __builtin__.__dict__
                for k in bd.cellkeys():
                    c = self.__dict__.getcell(k)
                    c.cellptr = bd.getcell(k)

            def __getattr__(self, k):
                try:
                    return self.__dict__[k]
                except KeyError:
                    raise IndexError, k

            def __setattr__(self, k, v):
                self.__dict__[k] = v

            def __delattr__(self, k):
                del self.__dict__[k]

    The compiler generates LOAD_GLOBAL_CELL <i> (and STORE_GLOBAL_CELL
    <i> etc.) opcodes for references to globals, where <i> is a small
    index with meaning only within one code object like the const
    index in LOAD_CONST.  The code object has a new tuple, co_globals,
    giving the names of the globals referenced by the code indexed by
    <i>.  No new analysis is required to be able to do this.

    When a function object is created from a code object and a celldict,
    the function object creates an array of cell pointers by asking the
    celldict for cells corresponding to the names in the code object's
    co_globals.  If the celldict doesn't already have a cell for a
    particular name, it creates and an empty one.  This array of cell
    pointers is stored on the function object as func_cells.  When a
    function object is created from a regular dict instead of a
    celldict, func_cells is a NULL pointer.

    When the VM executes a LOAD_GLOBAL_CELL <i> instruction, it gets
    cell number <i> from func_cells.  It then looks in the cell's
    PyObject pointer, and if not NULL, that's the global value.  If it
    is NULL, it follows the cell's cell pointer to the next cell, if it
    is not NULL, and looks in the PyObject pointer in that cell.  If
    that's also NULL, or if there is no second cell, NameError is
    raised.  (It could follow the chain of cell pointers until a NULL
    cell pointer is found; but I have no use for this.)  Similar for
    STORE_GLOBAL_CELL <i>, except it doesn't follow the cell pointer
    chain -- it always stores in the first cell.

    There are fallbacks in the VM for the case where the function's
    globals aren't a celldict, and hence func_cells is NULL.  In that
    case, the code object's co_globals is indexed with <i> to find the
    name of the corresponding global and this name is used to index the
    function's globals dict.

    Additional ideas:

    - Never make func_cell a NULL pointer; instead, make up an array
      of empty cells, so that LOAD_GLOBAL_CELL can index func_cells
      without a NULL check.

    - Make c.cellptr equal to c when a cell is created, so that
      LOAD_GLOBAL_CELL can always dereference c.cellptr without a NULL
      check.

    With these two additional ideas added, here's Python pseudo-code
    for LOAD_GLOBAL_CELL:

	def LOAD_GLOBAL_CELL(self, i):
	    # self is the frame
	    c = self.func_cells[i]
	    obj = c.objptr
	    if obj is not NULL:
		return obj # Existing global
	    return c.cellptr.objptr # Built-in or NULL

    XXX Incorporate Tim's most recent posts.  (Tim, can you do this?)


Comparison

    XXX Here, a comparison of the three approaches should be added.