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TITLE

Parrot Calling Conventions

VERSION

1

CURRENT

    Maintainer: Dan Sugalski
    Class: Internals
    PDD Number: 03
    Version: 1
    Status: Developing
    Last Modified: 26 April 2002
    PDD Format: 1
    Language: English

HISTORY

version 1

None. First version

CHANGES

Version 1.0

None. First version

ABSTRACT

This PDD describes Parrot's inter-routine calling conventions.

DESCRIPTION

Responsibility for environment preservation

The caller is responsible for preserving any environment it is interested in keeping. This includes any and all registers, lexical scoping and scratchpads, opcode libraries, and so forth.

Use of the saveall opcode is recommended if the caller wishes to save everything, and the restoreall opcode to restore everything saveall saved.

Calling conventions

The following registers are used in calling all subs and methods

P0

Holds the object representing the subroutine.

P1

Holds the continuation for the caller, assuming this sub was called with callcc. Otherwise NULL.

P2

Holds the object the sub was called on. (For method calls)

I0

True if the sub is being called with prototyped parameters.

I1

The number of items pushed onto the stack.

The following registers are used only when calling a subroutine for which there is a compile-time prototype.

I5 through I31

The first 27 integer parameters.

S5 through S31

The first 27 string parameters.

N5 through N31

The first 27 numeric parameters.

P5 through P31

The first 27 PMC parameters.

All overflow parameters, and all parameters for subs called without a known prototype, are pushed on the stack in reverse order--that is the topmost entry on the stack is the first entry in the parameter list, and the bottom entry the last entry in the parameter list.

The PMC for a hash, array, or list is passed if one of the entries in the parameter list is a hash, array, or list. The aggregate is not flattened. (Though when accessing the parameters it may be)

Parameters are passed in S, I, and N registers only if the sub's prototype specifically indicates it takes parameters of that type.

Note that it doesn't matter what the order of the integer, string, numeric, and PMC parameters are in the parameter list up until overflow occurs.

Return conventions

On return from a function, the following registers are set. Return values are placed in registers only if the function is prototyped to do so. All values on the stack are in reverse order, such that the top value on the stack is the first value returned.

I0

Holds the number of return values on the stack.

I1

Holds the number of return values in integer registers.

I2

Holds the number of return values in string registers.

I3

Holds the number of return values in PMC registers.

I4

Holds the number of return valies in numeric registers.

P5-P31

PMC return values

I5-I31

Integer return values

S5-S31

String return values

N5-N31

Numeric return values

stack

Overflow values, or values for functions that don't have a return prototype.

REFERENCES