WARNING: proof of conept

also note the Setfield.jl package

A macro @mem is provided for multi-level assignments a.b.c.d.e = v that uses fieldoffset to calculate the memory offset of the to-be-assigned field relative to the rightmost mutable level and uses pointer_from_objref on that rightmost mutable level, adds this offset to the obtained pointer and uses unsafe_store! to write the value to that memory location. It compiles down to a few mov assembly instructions, if the types and symbols are statically determinable.

This is a different approach then replacing the whole¹ immutable of the right-most mutable with a new, modified one, as in

1. Julep: setfield! for mutable references to immutables JuliaLang/julia#17115

• we propose making it possible to have setfield! modify fields inside of immutable objects that are wrapped in mutable objects
• To support this proposal, the setfield! function will get a multi-arg form, with the following behaviors: setfield!(x, a, b, c, value) mutates the right most mutable object to change the value of its fields to be equivalent to copying the immutable objects and updating the referenced field.
• tl;dr The syntax: x.a.b.c = 3 would now be valid, as long as at least one of the referenced fields is mutable.

2. WIP: Make mutating immutables easier JuliaLang/julia#21912

• proposes an @ operator as in x@a = 2 for an immutable x
• The ways this works is that under the hood, it creates a new immutable object with the specified field modified and then assigns it back to the appropriate place. Syntax wise, everything to the left of the @ is what's being assigned to, everything to the right of the @ is what is to be modified.

There are two important justifications to make on which this approach relies:

1. That immutables, allocated with Ref must not be assumed to stay constant when using unsafe_store!.
2. That the memory layout of bitstypes is exaclty what we achieve with fieldoffset.

Furthermore, although the assignment becomes just a few mov assembly instructions, it is not quite clear which optimizations might break by using unsafe_store!.

^[1] Conceptually the whole - this might also get optimized to just a few mov instructions. The reason for this package is primarily C-interoperability.

In order to wrap C/C++ libraries in Julia, it is necessary to represent the C-structs as Julia types of the same layout. That can be achieved for nested C-structs only with nested immutable Julia types (bitstypes). More precisely, the most top level Julia type can be a mutable one, but all contained Julia types need to be immutable (bitstypes).

The Julia documentation writes

Because C doesn't support multiple return values, often C functions will take pointers to data that the function will modify.

Consider the following C/C++ function

/** Computes the overlay-space pixel coordinates of where the ray intersects the overlay with the
* specified settings. Returns false if there is no intersection. */
bool ComputeOverlayIntersection(
	uint64_t ulOverlayHandle,
	const VROverlayIntersectionParams_t *pParams,
	VROverlayIntersectionResults_t *pResults
);

Here pResults should hold a pointer to a VROverlayIntersectionResults_t C-struct that is defined in the following way

enum ETrackingUniverseOrigin
{
	…
};

struct HmdVector3_t
{
	float v[3];
};

struct HmdVector2_t
{
	float v[2];
};

struct VROverlayIntersectionParams_t
{
	HmdVector3_t vSource;
	HmdVector3_t vDirection;
	ETrackingUniverseOrigin eOrigin;
};

struct VROverlayIntersectionResults_t
{
	HmdVector3_t vPoint;
	HmdVector3_t vNormal;
	HmdVector2_t vUVs;
	float fDistance;
};

In order to provide C-layout compatible Julia structs, we might use

const ETrackingUniverseOrigin = UInt32 # sizeof(ETrackingUniverseOrigin) == 4

struct HmdVector3_t # sizeof(HmdVector3_t) == 12
  v :: SArray{Tuple{3},Float32,1,3}
end

struct HmdVector2_t # sizeof(HmdVector2_t) == 8
  v :: SArray{Tuple{2},Float32,1,2}
end

struct VROverlayIntersectionParams_t # sizeof(VROverlayIntersectionParams_t) == 28
  vSource :: HmdVector3_t
  vDirection :: HmdVector3_t
  eOrigin :: ETrackingUniverseOrigin
end

struct VROverlayIntersectionResults_t # sizeof(VROverlayIntersectionResults_t) == 36
  vPoint :: HmdVector3_t
  vNormal :: HmdVector3_t
  vUVs :: HmdVector2_t
  fDistance :: Float32
end

A Ref{VROverlayIntersectionResults_t} will be passed to Julia's ccall and the C/C++ function will alter the underlying immutable - it will mutate the immutable in an arbitrary C-style way.

Therefore we assume that immutables x, allocated on the heap via Ref(x) are not assumed to be constant anymore by Julia and one can modify them in a C-style way, i.e. modify any parts of the immutables memory.

Consider the Julia immutable types Pconst and Cconst

struct Pconst # sizeof(Pconst) == 8
  x :: Float32
  y :: Float32
end

struct Cconst # sizeof(Cconst) == 12
  r :: Float32
  g :: Float32
  b :: Float32
end

and the mutable type Vmutbl

mutable struct Vmutbl # sizeof(Vmutbl) == 20
  p :: Pconst
  c :: Cconst
end

for

p = Pconst(1f0,2f0)     # Pconst(1.0f0, 2.0f0)
c = Cconst(0f0,1f0,0f0) # Cconst(0.0f0, 1.0f0, 0.0f0)
v = Vmutbl(p,c)         # Vmutbl(Pconst(1.0f0, 2.0f0), Cconst(0.0f0, 1.0f0, 0.0f0))

we can alter the top-level fields of v

v.p = Pconst(3f0,2f0)
v # Vmutbl(Pconst(3.0f0, 2.0f0), Cconst(0.0f0, 1.0f0, 0.0f0))

but not the more nested ones, because they are immutable

v.p.x = 5f0
# ERROR: setfield! immutable struct of type Pconst cannot be change

since we assume that these immutables do not need to stay constant, we can replace them at their memory location

@mem v.p.x = 5f0
v # Vmutbl(Pconst(5.0f0, 3.0f0), Cconst(0.0f0, 1.0f0, 0.0f0))

This currently also works for StaticArrays

mutable struct A
   data :: SArray{Tuple{4,3,2},Float32,3,4*3*2}
end

a = A(1:4*3*2)
# A( Float32[1.0  5.0  9.0;  2.0  6.0  10.0; 3.0  7.0  11.0; 4.0  8.0  12.0]
#    Float32[13.0 17.0 21.0; 14.0 18.0 22.0; 15.0 19.0 23.0; 16.0 20.0 24.0])

a.data[1,1,2] # 13.0
@mem a.data[1,1,2] = 77f0 # 77.0
a.data[1,1,2] # 77.0

for I = CartesianIndices(a.data)
  (x,y,z) = Tuple(I)
  @mem a.data[x,y,z] = x+y+z
end
# A( Float32[3.0 4.0 5.0; 4.0 5.0 6.0; 5.0 6.0 7.0; 6.0 7.0 8.0]
#    Float32[4.0 5.0 6.0; 5.0 6.0 7.0; 6.0 7.0 8.0; 7.0 8.0 9.0])

More examples might be extracted from test/mutate.jl.

These macros determine a memory address just like @mem where

• @ptr returns a Ptr{X} where X is the type of the value at that memory location
• @voidptr just reinterprets @ptr to Ptr{Nothing}
• @ptrtyped of T just reinterprets @ptr to Ptr{T}

using StaticArrays

m = Ref(SVector{8,UInt8}(reverse([0xde, 0xad, 0xbe, 0xef, 0xba, 0xad, 0xf0, 0x0d])))
unsafe_load(@ptr m[][8]) # 0xde
unsafe_load(@ptr m[][7]) # 0xad
unsafe_load(@typedptr UInt32 m[][3]) # 0xbeefbaad

More examples might be extracted from test/mutate.jl.

(experimental feature)

There are some cases where @mem is set up to refuse writing to memory by assertions, that are enabled for @yolo.

mutable struct C # mutable non-bitstype
  x :: Float32
end
struct B # immmutable non-bitstype
  x :: Float32
  c :: C
end
mutable struct A # mutable non-bitstype
  b :: B
end

c = C(1f0)
b = B(2f0,c)
a = A(b)

a.b.x = 3f0 # ↯ ERROR: setfield! immutable struct of type B cannot be changed

f(a::A, v::Float32) = @mem a.b.x = v

f(a,3f0)
# ↯ ERROR: From type 'B' the field 'x' is of type 'Float32' and it is located in type 'B' at offset 0.
#          The base type 'B' is immutable.

Since C is a non-bitstype, this make B also a non-bitstype but since B is immutable, pointer_from_objref won't work. To obtain the memory location of b, @yolo interprets b inside of a as a pointer to a B and uses that.

f(a::A, v::Float32) = @yolo a.b.x = v
f(a,3f0)
a.b.x # 3.00

In the same example, suppose we wanted to change a.b.c inside of a.b

f(a::A, c::C) = @yolo a.b.c = c
f(a,C(3f0))

From type B the field c is of type C and it is located in type B at offset 8. Since C is a non-bitstype, @yolo will use pointer_from_objref on the right hand side to obtain a pointer to that and then replace the reference to c inside a.b.

WARNING: this probably produces memory leaks!

Finally, this right hand side rhs could be an immutable non-isbitstype, in which case pointer_from_objref does not work anymore. @yolo then uses unsafe_load(reinterpret(Ptr{Ptr{Nothing}},pointer_from_objref(Ref(rhs)))) to obtain the pointer that will be assigned then.

WARNING: this probably produces memory leaks!

More examples might be extracted from test/mutate.jl.

Already implemented features:

• written out getfield is considered, as in getfield(a.b.c,:d).e =v
• written out dereferencing with [] is considered, as in a.b.c[].d = v
• continuous array indexing a[10] = v, for StaticArrays

To be done:

• currently we use getfield for . instead of getproperty (getproperty is what is called by .)
• += operations and similiar
• continuous array indexing a[10] = v, e.g. for static arrays

Known bugs:

• a throwing @mem at repl-level produces MethodError: Cannot 'convert' an object of type String to an object of type Symbol

… go to andreasnoack for the instant advice, saving me a lot of time, pfitzseb for the elaborate discussion and the #internals slack channel for their approval.