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compiler/pass

The pass system provides a way of reading and modifying resolved trees.

Passes are split into two categories: optimisations and warnings. The former should attempt to simplify code, making it more performant. Warnings attempt to find potential bugs or stylistic issues in your code.

Each pass is defined and registered with defpass.

State

Every pass receives a state object. This contains various bits of information about the current compiler. Some important fields include:

  • :meta: Contains information about native definitions. This is just a mapping of variable’s full names to the information given in a .meta.* file.

  • :libs: A list of all loaded libraries. Each library is a struct containing the library’s nodes (:out), documentation (:docs), display name (:name) and path (:path).

Usage analysis

Sometimes you will need to get the definitions or usages of a variable. Firstly you’ll need to include "usage" in the category list in defpass. You can then access information about the variable by using var-usage.

add-pass!

Native defined at lib/compiler/pass.lisp:69:1

Register a PASS created with defpass.

(changed!)

Macro defined at lib/compiler/pass.lisp:73:2

Mark this pass as having a side effect.

(defpass name args &body)

Macro defined at lib/compiler/pass.lisp:30:2

Define a pass with the given NAME and BODY taking the specified ARGS.

BODY can contain key-value pairs (like struct) which will be set as options for this pass.

Inside the BODY you can call changed! to mark this pass as modifying something.

var-usage

Native defined at lib/compiler/pass.lisp:77:1

Get usage information about the specified VAR. This returns a struct containing:

  • :defs: A list of all definitions. Each definition is a struct containing its type (:tag), the defining node (:node) and corresponding value (:value). Node that not all definitions have a value.

  • :usages: A list of most usages. This does not include usages from nodes which are considered “dead”.