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Improvements to instance variable shaping #7516

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Improvements to instance variable shaping #7516

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Commits on May 29, 2024

  1. Acquire variables in depth-first order 

    We acquire a list of likely instance variables by walking the
target class and all parent classes looking for instance variable
instructions in the methods in the method table. Previously, this
logic would add variables from the bottom up, checking the current
class's methods first and then the superclass and so on. This had
the effect of creating new layouts for the shared instance vars
rather than storing vars from parent classes in the same slots for
all child classes.

The new logic use a recursive call to add variables starting with
the top class and progressing down the hierarchy. Variable names
are first inserted into a sorted TreeSet at east level, and then
any new variables go into a LinkedHashSet to ensure parent
variables are laaid out before child variables. This ensures that
all child classes will use the same slots for instance variables
originally accessed in a parent class.

This does not currently improve caching of variable accessors, but
it may in the future. If we cache accessors based on the class
they originate from, we can cache parent accessors in all children
without having to do more guarding than we do at present.

Example of multi-class hierarchy preserving layout:

class A; def initialize; @foo = 1; @baz = 1; end; end; class B < A; def initialize; @bar = 1; @foo = 2; end; end; class C < A; def initialize; @quux = 1; @baz = 2; end; end; A.new; B.new; C.ne

Printing out class and found variables:

A
[@baz, @foo]
B
[@baz, @foo, @bar]
C
[@baz, @foo, @quux]

Note that in all three instances, the @baz and @foo variables
occupy the same first two slots. As long as the hierarchy has not
changed, we can rely on this layout in child classes.
    @headius
    headius committed May 29, 2024
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  2. Start moving shape reference into shaped objects 

    In order to evolve the shape of objects as more instance variables
are discovered, we need to be able to access  multiple different
shaped instances with their own layouts. Previously, only one
shape could be associated with a given class, based on a static
inspection of all instance variable accesses in the class's
hierarchy. In order to keep stale-shaped objects functional, this
commit adds a shape reference to all shaped RubyObject subtypes.
With this we can allocate a first object using no instance vars
(falling back on the default varTable layout) and as instance vars
are encountered modify allocation to create wider object shapes.

The step here simply adds the shape reference to all shaped
objects; evolving that shape and updating the allocator will come
in future commits.
    @headius
    headius committed May 29, 2024
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