Lecture

Method Dispatch Optimization

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In course

CS-420: Advanced compiler construction

Students learn several implementation techniques for modern functional and object-oriented programming languages. They put some of them into practice by developing key parts of a compiler and run time system for a simple functional programming language. ...

Description

This lecture covers the optimization of method dispatch in object-oriented languages. It starts with the basics of virtual methods tables and hierarchy, then delves into memory organization and dispatching matrices. The concept of inline caching is introduced as a way to speed up method calls at monomorphic call sites. The lecture explains how inline caching works, its implementation, and provides examples to illustrate its pros and cons. Polymorphic inline caching is discussed as a solution for polymorphic call sites. The lecture also explores membership tests, including relative numbering and Cohen's encoding. Techniques for multiple subtyping settings, such as range compression, packed encoding, and PQ encoding, are explained. The lecture concludes with hybrid techniques for membership tests in Java implementations.

Instructor

Michel Schinz

Teaching & PhD Courses Advanced compiler construction CS-420 Students learn several implementation techniques for modern functional and object-oriented programming languages. They put some of them into practice by developing key parts of a compiler and run time system for a simple functional programming language. Practice of object-oriented programming CS-108 Students improve their knowledge of Java and put it into practice by implementing a sizeable project. They learn how t

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Theoretical computer science

Programming language theory: High-level programming languages

Related concepts (32)

Multiple dispatch

Multiple dispatch or multimethods is a feature of some programming languages in which a function or method can be dynamically dispatched based on the run-time (dynamic) type or, in the more general case, some other attribute of more than one of its arguments. This is a generalization of single-dispatch polymorphism where a function or method call is dynamically dispatched based on the derived type of the object on which the method has been called.

Java virtual machine

A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally describes what is required in a JVM implementation. Having a specification ensures interoperability of Java programs across different implementations so that program authors using the Java Development Kit (JDK) need not worry about idiosyncrasies of the underlying hardware platform.

Free Java implementations

Free Java implementations are software projects that implement Oracle's Java technologies and are distributed under free software licences, making them free software. Sun released most of its Java source code as free software in May 2007, so it can now almost be considered a free Java implementation. Java implementations include compilers, runtimes, class libraries, etc. Advocates of free and open source software refer to free or open source Java virtual machine software as free runtimes or free Java runtimes.

Dispatch table

In computer science, a dispatch table is a table of pointers or memory addresses to functions or methods. Use of such a table is a common technique when implementing late binding in object-oriented programming. The following shows one way to implement a dispatch table in Perl, using a hash to store references to code (also known as function pointers).

Object-oriented programming

Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or properties), and the code is in the form of procedures (often known as methods). A common feature of objects is that procedures (or methods) are attached to them and can access and modify the object's data fields. In this brand of OOP, there is usually a special name such as or used to refer to the current object.

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