[Caml-list] Reason for static data in caml runtime

["Christoph Höger" <christoph.hoeger@tu-berlin.de>]

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Dear all,

after investigating the interaction of native code and the runtime
environment (in particular the GC), I am puzzled about the static
storage of some data (e.g. the young_pointer, global roots etc):

* if I am not mistaken, each function obtains the young pointer in a
register (%rax on x86)

* the same value is stored globally in a variable allocated by the
executable

* several other variables are allocated that way

I wonder why this is necessary. If the generated code uses one register
anyway, why not put a pointer to the necessary global data structures in
there as well? (say, in the first element of the minor heap).

I am probably missing something here, but at first glance this strategy
prevents concurrent ocaml execution in one process and at the same time
it seems to be fixable, right?

thanks for any comments,

Christoph
-- 
Christoph Höger

Technische Universität Berlin
Fakultät IV - Elektrotechnik und Informatik
Übersetzerbau und Programmiersprachen

Sekr. TEL12-2, Ernst-Reuter-Platz 7, 10587 Berlin

Tel.: +49 (30) 314-24890
E-Mail: christoph.hoeger@tu-berlin.de


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