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Tags and type checking in LISP: hardware and software approaches

Authors:

Peter Steenkiste,

John HennessyAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 22, Issue 10

Pages 50 - 59

https://doi.org/10.1145/36205.36183

Published: 01 October 1987 Publication History

Abstract

One of the major factors that distinguishes LISP from many other languages (Pascal, C, Fortran, etc.) is the need for run-time type checking. Run-time type checking is implemented by adding to each data object a tag that encodes type information. Tags must be compared for type compatibility, removed when using the data, and inserted when new data items are created. This tag manipulation, together with other work related to dynamic type checking and generic operations, constitutes a significant component of the execution time of LISP programs. This has led both to the development of LISP machines that support tag checking in hardware and to the avoidance of type checking by users running on stock hardware. To understand the role and necessity of special-purpose hardware for tag handling, we first measure the cost of type checking operations for a group of LISP programs. We then examine hardware and software implementations of tag operations and estimate the cost of tag handling with the different tag implementation schemes. The data shows that minimal levels of support provide most of the benefits, and that tag operations can be relatively inexpensive, even when no special hardware support is present.

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Cited By

Kim CKim JKim SKim DKim NNa GOh YCho HLee J(2017)Typed ArchitecturesACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review10.1145/3093315.303772651:2(77-90)Online publication date: 4-Apr-2017
https://doi.org/10.1145/3093315.3037726
Jagannathan SWright A(2005)Effective flow analysis for avoiding run-time checksStatic Analysis10.1007/3-540-60360-3_41(207-224)Online publication date: 31-May-2005
https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-60360-3_41
Hölzle UUngar D(2000)Do Object-Oriented Languages Need Special Hardware Support?Object-Oriented Programming10.1007/3-540-49538-X_14(283-302)Online publication date: 25-Aug-2000
https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-49538-X_14
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Index Terms

Tags and type checking in LISP: hardware and software approaches
1. Computer systems organization
  1. Architectures
    1. Serial architectures
2. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. General programming languages
      1. Language features
        Data types and structures
      2. Language types

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Tags and type checking in LISP: hardware and software approaches
ASPLOS II: Proceedings of the second international conference on Architectual support for programming languages and operating systems

One of the major factors that distinguishes LISP from many other languages (Pascal, C, Fortran, etc.) is the need for run-time type checking. Run-time type checking is implemented by adding to each data object a tag that encodes type information. Tags ...
Tags and type checking in LISP: hardware and software approaches

One of the major factors that distinguishes LISP from many other languages (Pascal, C, Fortran, etc.) is the need for run-time type checking. Run-time type checking is implemented by adding to each data object a tag that encodes type information. Tags ...
Tags and type checking in LISP: hardware and software approaches

One of the major factors that distinguishes LISP from many other languages (Pascal, C, Fortran, etc.) is the need for run-time type checking. Run-time type checking is implemented by adding to each data object a tag that encodes type information. Tags ...

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM SIGPLAN Notices

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 22, Issue 10

Oct. 1987

189 pages

ISSN:0362-1340

EISSN:1558-1160

DOI:10.1145/36205

Editor:
Randy Katz
Univ. of California, Berkeley

Issue’s Table of Contents

ASPLOS II: Proceedings of the second international conference on Architectual support for programming languages and operating systems
October 1987
205 pages
ISBN:0818608056
DOI:10.1145/36206
Editor:
Randy Katz
Univ. of California, Berkeley
,
General Chair:
Martin Freeman
Stanford University and Philips/Signetics

Copyright © 1987 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s).

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 October 1987

Published in SIGPLAN Volume 22, Issue 10

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Cited By

Kim CKim JKim SKim DKim NNa GOh YCho HLee J(2017)Typed ArchitecturesACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review10.1145/3093315.303772651:2(77-90)Online publication date: 4-Apr-2017
https://doi.org/10.1145/3093315.3037726
Jagannathan SWright A(2005)Effective flow analysis for avoiding run-time checksStatic Analysis10.1007/3-540-60360-3_41(207-224)Online publication date: 31-May-2005
https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-60360-3_41
Hölzle UUngar D(2000)Do Object-Oriented Languages Need Special Hardware Support?Object-Oriented Programming10.1007/3-540-49538-X_14(283-302)Online publication date: 25-Aug-2000
https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-49538-X_14
Korsloot MMulder H(1991)Sequential architecture models for Prolog: A performance comparisonNew Generation Computing10.1007/BF030371629:3-4(201-219)Online publication date: 1-Aug-1991
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/BF03037162
McCreight E(1988)Microprocessor Features a la CarteArchitektur und Betrieb von Rechensystemen10.1007/978-3-642-73451-9_26(357-367)Online publication date: 1988
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-73451-9_26
Tsai PGan YSanchez DOskin MInoue K(2018)Rethinking the memory hierarchy for modern languagesProceedings of the 51st Annual IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture10.1109/MICRO.2018.00025(203-216)Online publication date: 20-Oct-2018
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Kim CKim JKim SKim DKim NNa GOh YCho HLee J(2017)Typed ArchitecturesACM SIGPLAN Notices10.1145/3093336.303772652:4(77-90)Online publication date: 4-Apr-2017
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Srisa-an WDan Lo CChang J(2003)Active Memory ProcessorIEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing10.1109/TMC.2003.12172302:2(89-101)Online publication date: 1-Apr-2003
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