On 29/07/2022 21.42, Arthur O'Dwyer via Std-Proposals wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 29, 2022 at 2:26 PM Marcin Jaczewski
> <marcinjaczewski86_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>
> pt., 29 lip 2022 o 20:20 Arthur O'Dwyer
> <arthur.j.odwyer_at_[hidden]> napisał(a):
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 28, 2022 at 5:26 PM Marcin Jaczewski via
> Std-Proposals <std-proposals_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> >>
> >> Currently there are multiple problems linked to lifetime of
> function parameters.
> >> Simply current default behavior does not fit all corner cases.
> >>
> >> Example is `std::unique` that generates subpar code because the
> call
> >> site is a firewall that prevents the compiler to see at once
> destructor and move operation.
> >
> >
> > Can you elaborate on this? I admit I've never thought about
> `std::unique` in this context before; but now that I have spent an
> hour or so thinking about it, I still don't see how its current
> behavior can be improved. One might rewrite `std::unique` to use
> swap instead of move-assignment, but one can't really rewrite it
> to use relocation because `std::unique` is never responsible for
> destroying anything. N objects go in, N objects come out (and in
> the same memory locations, too).
> > https://p1144.godbolt.org/z/8v1Yj1eGK
> >
> > What would you do differently here?
> >
> Sorry, I mistyped, I mean type `std::unique_ptr` not algorythm
> `std::unique`.
>
>
> Aha. In that case, is your proposal any different from the existing
> attribute [[trivial_abi]]?
> https://quuxplusone.github.io/blog/2018/05/02/trivial-abi-101/
> https://libcxx.llvm.org//DesignDocs/UniquePtrTrivialAbi.html
> https://godbolt.org/z/f59T4Tev1
>
> ([[trivial_abi]] is vendor-specific, not part of the ISO standard; but
> if your proposal really just boils down to "Hey, WG21 should just
> standardize [[trivial_abi]]," then you should say that.)
>

IMO, that's wrong. The standard leaves the ABI to the implementation.
Standardizing [[trivial_abi]] means the standard acknowledges multiple
ABIs, and requires the user to micro-manage the ABI of each type if they
care about performance.


The implementations should just switch to a better ABI - callee-destroy,
and pass-by-register if it can prove no self-references are involved
(e.g. by type-based alias analysis, trivial for std::unique_ptr).


Yes, switching ABIs is a huge pain, but it has been managed in the past.
gcc switched from reference-counted std::string to non-reference-counted
std::string with SBO, and there were minor ABI updates when bugs were
found in the implementation. The implementations are stuck in a deep
hole, but [[trivial_abi]] makes that hole a little deeper.