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244 lines
9.4 KiB
HTML
244 lines
9.4 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
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<html>
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<head>
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<title>Status & Roadmap</title>
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<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
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<meta name="Author" content="Mike Pall">
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<meta name="Copyright" content="Copyright (C) 2005-2012, Mike Pall">
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<meta name="Language" content="en">
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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="bluequad.css" media="screen">
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<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="bluequad-print.css" media="print">
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<style type="text/css">
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ul li { padding-bottom: 0.3em; }
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</style>
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</head>
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<body>
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<div id="site">
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<a href="http://luajit.org"><span>Lua<span id="logo">JIT</span></span></a>
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</div>
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<div id="head">
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<h1>Status & Roadmap</h1>
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</div>
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<div id="nav">
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<ul><li>
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<a href="luajit.html">LuaJIT</a>
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<ul><li>
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<a href="install.html">Installation</a>
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</li><li>
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<a href="running.html">Running</a>
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</li></ul>
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</li><li>
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<a href="extensions.html">Extensions</a>
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<ul><li>
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<a href="ext_ffi.html">FFI Library</a>
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<ul><li>
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<a href="ext_ffi_tutorial.html">FFI Tutorial</a>
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</li><li>
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<a href="ext_ffi_api.html">ffi.* API</a>
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</li><li>
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<a href="ext_ffi_semantics.html">FFI Semantics</a>
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</li></ul>
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</li><li>
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<a href="ext_jit.html">jit.* Library</a>
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</li><li>
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<a href="ext_c_api.html">Lua/C API</a>
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</li></ul>
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</li><li>
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<a class="current" href="status.html">Status</a>
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<ul><li>
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<a href="changes.html">Changes</a>
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</li></ul>
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</li><li>
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<a href="faq.html">FAQ</a>
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</li><li>
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<a href="http://luajit.org/performance.html">Performance <span class="ext">»</span></a>
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</li><li>
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<a href="http://luajit.org/download.html">Download <span class="ext">»</span></a>
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</li><li>
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<a href="http://wiki.luajit.org/">Wiki <span class="ext">»</span></a>
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</li><li>
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<a href="http://luajit.org/list.html">Mailing List <span class="ext">»</span></a>
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</li></ul>
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</div>
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<div id="main">
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<p>
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The <span style="color: #0000c0;">LuaJIT 1.x</span> series represents
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the current <span style="color: #0000c0;">stable branch</span>.
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Only a single bug has been discovered in the last three years. So, if
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you need a rock-solid VM, you are encouraged to fetch the latest
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release of LuaJIT 1.x from the <a href="http://luajit.org/download.html"><span class="ext">»</span> Download</a>
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page.
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</p>
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<p>
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<span style="color: #c00000;">LuaJIT 2.0</span> is the currently active
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<span style="color: #c00000;">development branch</span>.
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It still has <b>Beta Test</b> status, but it's not undergoing substantial
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changes anymore.
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It has <a href="http://luajit.org/performance.html"><span class="ext">»</span> much better performance</a> than LuaJIT 1.x.
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It's nearly feature-complete, so you should definitely
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start to evaluate it for new projects right now.
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</p>
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<h2>Current Status</h2>
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<p>
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This is a list of the things you should know about the LuaJIT 2.0 beta test:
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>
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Obviously there will be some <b>bugs</b> in a VM which has been
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rewritten from the ground up. Please report your findings together with
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the circumstances needed to reproduce the bug. If possible, reduce the
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problem down to a simple test case.<br>
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There is no formal bug tracker at the moment. The best place for
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discussion is the <a href="http://luajit.org/list.html"><span class="ext">»</span> LuaJIT mailing list</a>. Of course
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you may also send your bug reports <a href="contact.html">directly to me</a>,
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especially when they contain lengthy debug output or if you require
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confidentiality.
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</li>
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<li>
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The x86 JIT compiler only generates code for CPUs with support for
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<b>SSE2</b> instructions. I.e. you need at least a P4, Core 2/i3/i5/i7,
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Atom or K8/K10 to get the full benefit.<br>
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If you run LuaJIT on older CPUs without SSE2 support, the JIT compiler
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is disabled and the VM falls back to the LuaJIT interpreter. This is faster
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than the Lua interpreter, but not nearly as fast as the JIT compiler of course.
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Run the command line executable without arguments to show the current status
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(<tt>JIT: ON</tt> or <tt>JIT: OFF</tt>).
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</li>
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<li>
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The VM is complete in the sense that it <b>should</b> run all Lua code
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just fine. It's considered a serious bug if the VM crashes or produces
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unexpected results — please report this. There are only very few
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known incompatibilities with standard Lua:
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<ul>
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<li>
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The Lua <b>debug API</b> is missing a couple of features (return
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hooks for non-Lua functions) and shows slightly different behavior
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(no per-coroutine hooks, no tail call counting).
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</li>
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<li>
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Some of the <b>configuration options</b> of Lua 5.1 are not supported:
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<ul>
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<li>The <b>number type</b> cannot be changed (it's always a <tt>double</tt>).</li>
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<li>The stand-alone executable cannot be linked with <b>readline</b>
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to enable line editing. It's planned to add support for loading it
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on-demand.</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li>
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Most other issues you're likely to find (e.g. with the existing test
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suites) are differences in the <b>implementation-defined</b> behavior.
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These either have a good reason (like early tail call resolving which
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may cause differences in error reporting), are arbitrary design choices
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or are due to quirks in the VM. The latter cases may get fixed if a
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demonstrable need is shown.
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</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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<li>
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The <b>JIT compiler</b> falls back to the
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interpreter in some cases. All of this works transparently, so unless
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you use <tt>-jv</tt>, you'll probably never notice (the interpreter is
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<a href="http://luajit.org/performance.html"><span class="ext">»</span> quite fast</a>, too). Here are the known issues:
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<ul>
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<li>
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Most known issues cause a <b>NYI</b> (not yet implemented) trace abort
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message. E.g. for calls to some internal library
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functions. Reporting these is only mildly useful, except if you have good
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example code that shows the problem. Obviously, reports accompanied with
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a patch to fix the issue are more than welcome. But please check back
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with me, before writing major improvements, to avoid duplication of
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effort.
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</li>
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<li>
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Some checks are missing in the JIT-compiled code for obscure situations
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with <b>open upvalues aliasing</b> one of the SSA slots later on (or
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vice versa). Bonus points, if you can find a real world test case for
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this.
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</li>
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<li>
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Currently some <b>out-of-memory</b> errors from <b>on-trace code</b> are not
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handled correctly. The error may fall through an on-trace
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<tt>pcall</tt> (x86) or it may be passed on to the function set with
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<tt>lua_atpanic</tt> (x64).
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</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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</ul>
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<h2>Roadmap</h2>
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<p>
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Please refer to the
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<a href="http://www.freelists.org/post/luajit/LuaJIT-Roadmap-20122013"><span class="ext">»</span> LuaJIT
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Roadmap 2012/2013</a> for the latest release plan. Here's the general
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project plan for LuaJIT 2.0:
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>
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The main goal right now is to stabilize LuaJIT 2.0 and get it out of
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beta test. <b>Correctness</b> has priority over completeness. This
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implies the first stable release will certainly NOT compile every
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library function call and will fall back to the interpreter from time
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to time. This is perfectly ok, since it still executes all Lua code,
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just not at the highest possible speed.
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</li>
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<li>
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The next step is to get it to compile more library functions and handle
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more cases where the compiler currently bails out. This doesn't mean it
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will compile every corner case. It's much more important that it
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performs well in a majority of use cases. Every compiler has to make
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these trade-offs — <b>completeness</b> just cannot be the
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overriding goal for a low-footprint, low-overhead JIT compiler.
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</li>
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<li>
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More <b>optimizations</b> will be added in parallel to the last step on
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an as-needed basis. Sinking of stores
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to aggregates and sinking of allocations are high on the list.
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More complex optimizations with less pay-off, such as value-range-propagation
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(VRP) will have to wait.
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</li>
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<li>
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LuaJIT 2.0 has been designed with <b>portability</b> in mind.
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Nonetheless, it compiles to native code and needs to be adapted to each
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architecture. The two major work items are porting the the fast interpreter,
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which is written in assembler, and porting the compiler backend.
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Most other portability issues like endianess or 32 vs. 64 bit CPUs
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have already been taken care of.<br>
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Several ports are already available, thanks to the
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<a href="http://luajit.org/sponsors.html"><span class="ext">»</span> LuaJIT sponsorship program</a>.
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More ports will follow in the future — companies which are
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interested in sponsoring a port to a particular architecture, please
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use the given contact address.
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</li>
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<li>
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<b>Documentation</b> about the <b>internals</b> of LuaJIT is still sorely
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missing. Although the source code is included and is IMHO well
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commented, many basic design decisions are in need of an explanation.
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The rather un-traditional compiler architecture and the many highly
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optimized data structures are a barrier for outside participation in
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the development. Alas, as I've repeatedly stated, I'm better at
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writing code than papers and I'm not in need of any academic merits.
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Someday I will find the time for it. :-)
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</li>
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<li>
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Producing good code for unbiased branches is a key problem for trace
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compilers. This is the main cause for "trace explosion".
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<b>Hyperblock scheduling</b> promises to solve this nicely at the
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price of a major redesign of the compiler. This would also pave the
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way for emitting predicated instructions, which is a prerequisite
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for efficient <b>vectorization</b>.
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</li>
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</ul>
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<br class="flush">
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</div>
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<div id="foot">
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<hr class="hide">
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Copyright © 2005-2012 Mike Pall
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<span class="noprint">
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·
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<a href="contact.html">Contact</a>
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</span>
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</div>
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</body>
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</html>
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