Conceptually, all functions get their vararg arguments in a vararg
table. The storing of vararg arguments in the stack is always treated
as an optimization.
When calling 'luaK_storevar', the 'expdesc' for the variable must be
created before the one for the expression, to satisfy the assumptions
for register allocation. So, in a statement like 'global a = exp', where
'a' is actually '_ENV.a', this variable must be handled before the
initializing expression 'exp'.
A vararg table can be virtual. If the vararg table is used only as
a base in indexing expressions, the code does not need to create an
actual table for it. Instead, it compiles the indexing expressions
into direct accesses to the internal vararg data.
Moreover, each function being parsed has its own table.
The code is cleaner when each table is used for one specific purpose:
The scanner uses its table to anchor and unify strings, mapping strings
to themselves; the parser uses it to reuse constants in the code,
mapping constants to their indices in the constant table. A different
table for each task avoids false collisions.
Optimize this opcode for the common case. For long names or method
calls after too many constants, operation can be coded as a move
followed by 'gettable'.
In function 'luaK_exp2val', used to generate code for indices: Macro
'hasjumps' does not consider the case when the whole expression is a
"jump" (a test). In all other of its uses, the surrounding code ensures
that the expression cannot be VJMP.
The parameter 'nresults' in 'lua_call' and similar functions has a
limit of 250. It already had an undocumented (and unchecked) limit of
SHRT_MAX, but it is seldom larger than 2.
New instruction format 'ivABC' (a variant of iABC where parameter vC has
10 bits) allows constructors of up to 1024 elements to be coded without
EXTRAARG.
Instead of a fixed limit of 50 registers (which, in a bad worst case,
can limit the nesting of constructors to 5 levels), the compiler
computes an individual limit for each constructor based on how many
registers are available when it runs. This limit then controls the
frequency of SETLIST instructions.
Several definitions that don't need to be "global" (that is, that
concerns only specific parts of the code) moved out of llimits.h,
to more appropriate places.
Undoing previous commit. Returning TValue increases code size without
any visible gains. Returning the tag is a little simpler than returning
a special code (HOK/HNOTFOUND) and the tag is useful by itself in
some cases.
Instead of receiving a parameter telling them where to put the result
of the query, these functions return the TValue directly. (That is,
they return a structure.)
In 'lcode.c', when adding constants to the list of constants of a
function, integers represent themselves in the cache and floats
with integral values get a small delta to avoid collision with
integers. (This change avoids creating artificial addresses; the old
implementation converted integers to pointers to index the cache.)
Some places don't need the "fast path" macro tointegerns, either
because speed is not essential (lcode.c) or because the value is not
supposed to be an integer already (luaV_equalobj and luaG_tointerror).
Moreover, luaV_equalobj should always use F2Ieq, even if Lua is
compiled to "round to floor".