Re: Conservative GC isn't safe

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Ken Raeburn <raeburn@raeburn.org>
> Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2016 14:09:44 -0500
> Cc: Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>,
>  eggert@cs.ucla.edu,
>  emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> >> But after computing "aref_addr (string, ifrom)", it may very well be
> >> that `string` is dead and the compiler may then decide not to write
> >> it into the stack.
> > 
> > It will still be there in the caller.
> 
> Not if Fsubstring (or whatever function) is applied directly to the return value from some other call.

No, it still will be there.

You need to keep in mind how these variables get to Lisp, and for what
purposes.  Our code is written for certain purposes, and that mandates
how data flows in the code.  If you go high enough up the stack, you
will find every Lisp object value that matters at some level.

> As Björn described, the caller may not keep it around at all, just shift it from register to register, and the callee can scribble over those registers.

The number of registers is finite, even in the x86_64 architectures.
The compiler cannot keep storing values in registers, because it needs
to leave enough of them available for the next level of function
invocation, about which it knows nothing before that function is
called.  Go deep enough, and values will be pushed on the stack
because the compiler needs to free a register.

> Even if there’s an automatic variable assigned the value, if it’s not used later, the compiler may optimize it away; I’ve lost track of how many times GDB has indicated to me that it recognizes a variable name but at the current point in the code it’s been optimized out so GDB can’t show it to me.

The fact that GDB cannot tell you the value, and instead throws the
"optimized out" thing at you, is just a sign that GCC didn't leave
behind enough information for GDB to get its act together, and/or that
GDB has bugs, and/or that DWARF is not expressive enough to cover some
ingenious optimization technique.  It doesn't necessarily tell
anything about where the value really is.  If anything, it means the
value is not in a register, i.e. likely on the stack (where else?).