Integer div and mod by zero previously trapped in hardware (SIGFPE),
uncatchable even inside try/except — a single bad divisor terminated the
process. Both backends now emit a divisor-zero guard before each integer
idiv that raises a catchable EDivByZero exception via the normal exception
machinery, matching standard Pascal/Delphi semantics.
- SysUtils: add EDivByZero = class(Exception) and the _RaiseDivByZero helper
that raises EDivByZero('Division by zero').
- QBE + native x86-64: emit a divisor==0 check before integer div/rem
(32- and 64-bit); on zero, call SysUtils__RaiseDivByZero (which longjmps).
- The guard is emitted only when SysUtils is in scope (EDivByZero resolves
through the symbol table); without SysUtils, division traps as before.
This mirrors Delphi's placement of EDivByZero in System.SysUtils and keeps
the always-linked runtime free of stdlib class machinery.
- Tests: in-process e2e proves the guard does not disturb normal division on
both backends; shell-out cli tests (real compiler + linked stdlib) prove
catchable div/mod-by-zero on both backends.
- Rationale recorded in language-rationale.adoc.
All three fixpoints green (FIXPOINT_OK, NATIVE_FIXPOINT_OK,
NATIVE_INTERNAL_OK); full suite OK (3345 tests).
TList<T> now exposes a `default` array property, so elements can be read
and written with the familiar subscript syntax instead of .Get(i):
L[0] := 100; // L.SetItem(0, 100)
WriteLn(L[0] + L[1]); // L.Get(i)
Adds TList<T>.SetItem (a pointer-target store, so the compiler's ARC
discipline releases the old element and retains the new for managed T)
and the property Items[AIndex]: T read Get write SetItem; default.
Also fixes the generic-instance clone path in the semantic analyser: it
copied every property-decl field except IsDefault, so a default property
declared on a generic template (TList<T>) lost its default flag on
instantiation and List[i] did not resolve. The clone now carries
IsDefault.
Verified List[i] read, write, and polymorphic element dispatch
(List[i].Area through a base-typed element) on both backends. Adds
TE2ETListTests.TestRun_TList_DefaultProperty_{ReadWrite,Polymorphic}.
Note: this makes the stdlib depend on the `default` directive (added in
the previous commit), so the pre-release bootstrap binary is refreshed to
a default-aware stage-2 in a follow-up.
Resolves the TStringList.Objects / TList<T> retention question from the
bug backlog as an explicit design decision (language-rationale,
'Collection Ownership'):
- TList<T>/TStack<T>/TQueue<T> managed elements ARE retained on store —
this already works (generic stores lower to ARC-aware pointer writes);
TE2ETListTests.TestRun_TList_ClassElements_RetainedAcrossScope now
pins it on both backends (object survives its creating scope).
- TStringList.Objects[] stays NON-OWNING by design: the API type is
Pointer and the integer-cast idiom (TObject(PtrUInt(N)), used in 27
places in the compiler itself) makes blind retention impossible.
Convention documented at the declaration and in the rationale.
- Known limitation recorded: generic Clear/Destroy do not yet release
remaining managed elements (needs a Default(T)-style zero-store);
tracked in the leak backlog.
Suite: 2946 OK; FIXPOINT_OK; NATIVE_FIXPOINT_OK.
With the default-argument statement bug fixed, the borrowed-local
elision blocked in 91f44ec is sound and enabled: a const-string argument
that is a plain local or by-value/const parameter variable emits no
caller pin at all — the frame's own reference outlives the call.
Exclusions guard the aliasing edges: address-taken locals (explicit @,
passed to var/out params), locals captured by nested procedures (both
via a per-function blocklist rebuilt in EmitVarAllocs), and calls whose
signature has a var/out string param (F(L, L) lets the callee release
L's buffer through the alias). Nine IR contract tests cover every
shape, including the new exclusion guards.
Tail wins on the remaining profile:
- QBEMangle: fast path returns the input unchanged when it contains no
mangled characters (1.3M calls were rebuilding clean names one concat
per character).
- TStringList.FindSorted: compares the probe slot in place through the
CompareStr/CompareText builtins instead of copying it into a local
and dispatching through Compare — several ARC ops per binary-search
step on the hottest lookup path.
- _StringFormatN: the sizing pass uses a pure DecimalWidth count
instead of rendering every %d argument twice.
Compiler self-compile: 0.78 s -> 0.60 s wall, 8.60G -> 6.45G
instructions. Verified through two self-hosted generations, gen-2
native emission, both fixpoints and the full suite (2870 tests).
Const-string args were pinned (AddRef before the call, Release after)
regardless of shape. ConstArgMode now classifies them: string literals
and named consts are immortal and emit no ARC ops at all; +1 owned
temps (function/method/getter returns) emit a single post-call Release
that consumes the transferred reference — previously these leaked one
buffer per call (the pin pair netted to zero and EmitOwnedArgReleases
deliberately skipped const-string params); every other shape keeps the
pin. The hot TStringList lookup signatures (Compare, KeyEquals,
HashOf, Find, FindSorted, IndexOf) become const.
Borrowed elision for plain local variables — the larger win — is
deliberately NOT enabled: it is sound at the ARC level, but removing
the balanced pin pairs changes caller register allocation and exposes a
latent use-before-def of a callee-saved register in the native
backend's EmitInterfaceCall (a second-generation compiler then reads
the caller's leftover %r13 as an AST pointer and crashes). The full
repro and bisect trail are recorded in the bug log; the camPin branch
carries a pointer to it.
Verified through two self-hosted generations plus both fixpoints;
contract pinned by 7 IR tests in cp.test.constarg.pas.
The generic keyed containers used documented linear key scans. They now
build the same lazy open-addressing index as TStringList: threshold 16,
kept at <= 50% load, maintained on Add, invalidated by Remove/Clear/
Destroy (storage stays insertion-ordered, so TOrderedDictionary indexed
access is unchanged).
Hashing an arbitrary key type works through monomorphisation: the
generic bodies call GCHashOf(Key), which resolves per instantiation
against new overloads (string hashes its bytes FNV-1a, matching the
content semantics of '=' on strings; Integer/Int64/Pointer use a
multiplicative mix). Instantiating a keyed container with a type that
has no GCHashOf overload is a compile-time error; the threshold const
lives in the interface because generic bodies are analysed at their
instantiation site.
Neutral on the compiler self-compile (its dictionaries are small); this
is stdlib quality for user programs. Contract pinned by 7 new
in-process tests (cp.test.maphash.pas) written against the linear
implementation first.
Profiling the compiler self-compile (--emit-ir, callgrind) showed 86% of
all instructions inside linear scans of five unsorted TStringLists
(FUnitSymbols 68%, FMethodIndex 12%, FStrLits 4%, FUnitIfaces 2%);
TStringList.Find averaged 145 Compare calls per lookup, and each
iteration paid six ARC ops through Compare's by-value string params.
Unsorted lists with >= 16 entries now build a lazy open-addressing hash
index on first Find: FNV-1a over the bytes, case-folded when the list is
case-insensitive, kept at <= 50% load so an empty slot terminates every
probe. Duplicate keys keep the first-added index, preserving the
IndexOf contract that overload registration relies on. Appends update
the table in place; Delete/Insert/Put/Clear/CustomSort and the
Sorted/CaseSensitive setters invalidate it for lazy rebuild. Sorted
lists keep using binary search; small lists keep the linear scan.
Compiler self-compile: 4.75 s -> 0.91 s wall (5.2x), 71.6G -> 10.5G
instructions (6.8x). Behaviour contract pinned by 12 new in-process
tests in cp.test.stringlistfind.pas, written against the old linear
implementation first.
Align the QBE backend unit names with the dotted naming convention
already used by the native backend (blaise.codegen.native.*).
uCodeGen.pas → blaise.codegen.pas
uCodeGenQBE.pas → blaise.codegen.qbe.pas
Updated all uses clauses (~70 test files, main compiler units),
documentation references (README + 5 docs/*.adoc files), and
comment references in runtime/stdlib.
CodePointLength now delegates to _Utf8CountCodePoints in hand-written
x86_64 assembly. Processes 32 bytes/iteration with AVX2 (runtime-
detected via CPUID) and 16 bytes/iteration with SSE2, falling back to
scalar for tail bytes. The algorithm counts non-continuation bytes
(bytes where (b & 0xC0) != 0x80) using signed pcmpgtb against -65.
Seven new functions for Unicode-aware string operations:
- CodePointSize: byte width of a UTF-8 sequence from its lead byte
- CodePointLength: count codepoints in a string (O(n) scan)
- CodePointCopy: extract substring by codepoint index and count
- CodePointAt: codepoint value at a codepoint position
- CodePointPos: find substring, return codepoint index
- CodePointByteIndex: convert codepoint index to byte index
- CodePointFromByteIndex: decode codepoint at a byte position (O(1))
All functions use PChar arithmetic for zero-allocation performance.
The mandatory-() migration (commit 57c0660) missed ~1000 bare zero-arg
function and method calls across the compiler, stdlib, and test suite.
Without (), these were silently treated as variable reads, producing
broken QBE IR (%_var_ temporaries instead of call instructions).
Added semantic error diagnostics in uSemantic.pas to catch bare references
to functions/procedures that require () for a call. This prevents silent
miscompilation and gives users a clear error message.
Fixed all bare calls across 69 files: compiler pipeline (uParser,
uSemantic, uCodeGenQBE, uLexer, uPasTokeniser, etc.), stdlib (classes),
and the full test suite (inline test programs and test framework code).
FIXPOINT_OK at 262,220 lines. 2627 tests pass. Rolling bootstrap from
v0.10.0 verified.
With mandatory () on all zero-argument calls (51ebf23), the
IsNoArgFuncCall/NoArgFuncDecl fields on TIdentExpr and the
synthesised TFuncCallExpr codegen path are dead code. Remove them.
This exposed ~300 bare function calls missed by the original
migration script across compiler, runtime, stdlib, tests, and
embedded Blaise source strings. Fix all of them.
Add IsProcFieldCall support to TMethodCallExpr so that
H.Handler() works for procedure-type fields — the parser creates
TMethodCallExpr for Obj.Name(), and the semantic pass now detects
when 'Name' is a procedural-typed field rather than a method,
routing through the indirect-call codegen path.
Update fixpoint.sh to fall back to an existing blaise_rtl.a when
the release binary is too old to build the runtime.
2627 tests pass, FIXPOINT_OK.
Make parentheses mandatory on every function, procedure, method, and
constructor call — even those with zero arguments. A bare identifier
or field access is now unambiguously a variable/field/property read;
appending () makes it a call.
Mechanically migrated all 144 source files (compiler, runtime, stdlib,
tests, kanban tool). Fixed several latent bugs exposed by the AST node
transition from TFieldAccessExpr.IsMethodCall to TMethodCallExpr:
- IsBuiltinToString applied to record methods (added tyClass guard)
- IsVarParam not set for value record/static-array parameters in
AnalyseMethodCallExpr (extended to check skParameter + aggregate type)
- Native backend used movq (pointer load) for record receivers instead
of leaq (address-of) in EmitMethodCallExpr
- ResolveDiamond now handles TMethodCallExpr for diamond-operator
constructor calls
Updated grammar.ebnf (MethodCall, ProcCall, Factor rules) and
language-rationale.adoc with the design decision. Marked the
future-improvements.adoc entry as implemented.
All 2627 tests pass. Fixpoint verified (FIXPOINT_OK).
TThread.Create(False) appeared to silently skip execution (GitHub #73).
Root cause: Start took an extra _ClassAddRef so the trampoline could
release it on exit. This kept the refcount at 1 after Free, preventing
Destroy (and its WaitFor/pthread_join) from running — the main program
exited before the thread finished.
Fix: remove the trampoline's ARC reference entirely. The caller's
reference is the only one; releasing it triggers Destroy → WaitFor →
pthread_join, which blocks until the thread has fully exited. This is
safe because pthread_join guarantees the trampoline has returned before
Destroy frees the object.
Also remove FreeOnTerminate — ARC makes it redundant. In Delphi/FPC it
exists because manual Free is the only cleanup path; in Blaise, scope
exit or reassignment automatically joins and frees the thread. The
migration analyser can flag this for ported code.
Document the TThread ARC lifetime model in language-rationale.adoc and
add class/method documentation comments to classes.pas.
Remove sLineBreak (Delphi alias for LineEnding) and PathDelim (Delphi
alias for DirectorySeparator). Blaise keeps exactly three platform
constants: LineEnding, DirectorySeparator, PathSeparator.
Platform constant values are now derived from GTarget (the compilation
target) via TargetLineEnding/TargetDirectorySeparator/TargetPathSeparator
in blaise.codegen.target, so cross-compilation produces the correct
values without conditional compilation.
Three fixes that were causing six e2e failures:
Local array consts collided at link time. Function/block/unit-level
`const X: array[...] = (...)` were emitted as `export data $X` with no
mangling. The RTL's own `Days` const (rtl.platform.posix.pas) then
clashed with any user program declaring a `Days` const
(`multiple definition of 'Days'`). Local array consts now use a mangled,
file-local label (`__bac_N_Name`): the mangled name is set in semantic
(AnalyseArrayConstDecls -> ResolvedQbeName / ConstArrayQbe), carried to
the bare-ident read path via TIdentExpr.ConstArraySymbol, and emitted as
non-exported `data` so two separately-compiled objects cannot clash.
Class/record consts keep their exported, type-qualified label.
TComponent fought ARC and crashed. The destructor force-Freed children
it held only as raw pointers, while a caller's variable still referenced
them — a use-after-free at scope exit, surfacing as infinite
Destroy->RemoveComponent->ClassRelease recursion. Ownership is now honest
with ARC: FOwner is [Unretained]; AddComponent takes a strong ref via
_ClassAddRef; Destroy releases the owner's hold rather than Freeing, so a
child the caller still holds survives and an unheld child is destroyed;
RemoveComponent only unlinks the slot (the dying child's ref already
reached zero).
Deflaked TestRun_Thread_Terminate_Flag. The worker could finish via its
`I > 1000` break before the main thread's Terminate landed, racing the
printed flag between 0 and 1. The loop now exits only via the terminate
flag (with a high safety cap), so FTerminated is deterministically True.
Unit tests in cp.test.constants.pas updated to assert the mangled,
non-exported label.
SplitIntoList — the sole backend for TStringList.SetText and LoadFromFile —
trimmed leading and trailing spaces from each split segment. That is correct
for CSV-style splitting but wrong for line-splitting: a TStringList must store
each line verbatim, including indentation.
Removed the trimming so each segment is added as Copy(S, Start, Len) untouched.
SplitIntoList has exactly one caller (SetText), so no trimming-dependent code
is affected.
This also fixes a latent test-infrastructure bug: the threaded test runner
parses each subprocess suite's stdout via TStringList.Text and identifies
failure-detail lines by their two-space indentation. With indentation stripped,
those lines never matched, AddFailure was never called, and the merged result
reported zero failures — so the plain summary printed OK even when [Threaded]
suites failed. With lines preserved, the summary now correctly reports failures.
Regression test: TestRun_TextSet_PreservesLeadingWhitespace asserts on raw
stdout so the spaces inside [] are checked without round-tripping through Text.
Self-hosting fixpoint verified clean.
Now that Exit(X) is supported (0f63626), replace the historical
'Result := X; Exit;' workaround with the Exit(X) function-result shorthand
across compiler, runtime, and stdlib (305 sites).
Only same-indentation pairs are merged: a 'Result := X;' immediately followed
by an 'Exit;' at the same indentation level. Sites where the trailing 'Exit;'
is less-indented than the assignment are left untouched — there the Exit
belongs to an enclosing for/else/if block, not to the assignment, so merging
would change control flow (e.g. the xor/and numeric-result branch in
uSemantic falling through to the Boolean-operand check). 14 such sites are
deliberately not converted.
Three converted sites sit inside a real try/finally (uSemantic overload/
generic resolution); each try body already contained bare Exit; statements
and its finally body is a plain local-list Free, so control flow is unchanged.
A new e2e test (TestRun_ExitValueThroughFinally) confirms Exit(X) from inside
a try/finally runs the finally body and returns the value.
Self-hosting fixpoint verified clean (stage-2 IR == stage-3 IR).
Both methods accumulated a result string with repeated `Result := Result + …`
inside a loop — each iteration allocates a fresh buffer and copies the entire
accumulator forward, quadratic in total content size.
Rewrite both using TStringBuilder (geometric buffer growth, single ToString
at the end). On a self-compile via --output the GetText hot path drops from
~17 s to ~1.7 s (~10× speedup); GetCommaText gets the same fix proactively.
Add TestRun_TextGet_ManyLines: 500-line list with mixed empty/non-empty entries,
spot-checks total length and key substrings after the rewrite.
Linear scan over FData returning the index of the first equal element
or -1 when not found. Matches the semantics of TSet<T>.IndexOf which
the rest of the unit already exposes, and saves callers from writing
the hand-rolled scan that bench_lists.pas demonstrates.
Adds two e2e tests covering the integer/found and string/not-found
paths.
Wires up for..in on TList<T> from generics.collections. Two compiler
fixes were required:
- uSemantic: TClassName<T>.Method(args) inside a generic method body
failed to resolve because AnalyseMethodCallExpr looked up the literal
name with the unsubstituted type parameter. Now mirrors the existing
field-access path: if the receiver name contains '<' and lookup fails,
apply ResolveScopeBoundTypeParams + FindTypeOrInstantiate before
re-trying the lookup.
- uCodeGenQBE: constructor-with-args path emitted
$_FieldCleanup_TListEnumerator<String> with literal angle brackets
which QBE rejects. Mangle the class name like the no-arg path
already does.
Add blaise_thread.pas runtime unit wrapping pthread_create, pthread_join,
pthread_mutex_init/lock/unlock/destroy and sysconf for GetCPUCount.
Implement TThread (Create, Start, Terminate, WaitFor, Execute virtual,
FreeOnTerminate) and TCriticalSection (Enter/Leave) in classes.pas using
ARC-safe ref counting in the thread trampoline.
Fix EmitFieldCleanupFn to walk the parent chain when emitting the Destroy
call — previously a subclass without its own Destroy would generate an
empty cleanup, causing leaked resources from parent destructors.
Link -lpthread in both the compiler driver and E2E test base.
Include 7 E2E tests covering basic execution, WaitFor blocking, Terminate
flag, Finished flag, multiple threads, mutex-protected counter, and
inherited Destroy cleanup.
Separate always-linked runtime code (system.pas, ARC, strings, platform
abstraction) from opt-in standard library units (sysutils, classes, math,
dateutils, generics, etc.). This mirrors the Go runtime/ vs stdlib, Rust
core vs std, and Swift SwiftRuntime vs SwiftCore patterns.
- runtime/ contains code linked into every binary + C shims
- stdlib/ contains units imported explicitly via uses clause
- Single platform abstraction layer (rtl.platform.*) in runtime/,
shared by both runtime/ and stdlib/ units
- bcl.testing renamed to blaise.testing across all 95+ test files
- Updated PasBuild project.xml, fixpoint.sh, README, unit search paths
- All 1931 tests pass, fixpoint OK (stage-3/stage-4)
