From: Lennon Day-Reynolds <rcoder@...>
Date: 2004-07-03T08:15:31+09:00
Subject: Re: slow method searching?

I think I found it:

eval.c from ruby-1.8.1, in 'method_missing', lines 4908-4910
    nargv = ALLOCA_N(VALUE, argc+1);
    nargv[0] = ID2SYM(id);
    MEMCPY(nargv+1, argv, VALUE, argc);

At that point, the 'argv' array includes the object on which the
method lookup failed. So, the 'method_missing' throw includes a bulk
memory copy of the object contents. I'm not sure why it would work
that way instead of just returning another reference to the same
object, but there must be some reason.

Lennon

On Sat, 3 Jul 2004 08:01:16 +0900, Carlos <angus@quovadis.com.ar> wrote:
> 
> [David Garamond <lists@zara.6.isreserved.com>, 2004-07-02 23.56 CEST]
> > $ time ruby -e'a=(1..200000).to_a; a.classx'
> > -e:1: undefined method `classx' for #<Array:0x4027c18c> (NoMethodError)
> >
> > real    0m3.768s
> > user    0m1.640s
> > sys     0m0.010s
> >
> > $ time ruby -e'a=(1..200000).to_a; b=nil; b.classx'
> > -e:1: undefined method `classx' for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)
> 
> In my computer, there is a noticeable delay between the "-e:1" and the rest
> of the exception message.
> 
> During that time, there is a lot of "mremap" system calls whose meaning I
> don't know (GC? OS swapping(?)? A very long longjmp(!?)?).
> 
> Before I paste the last lines of the strace, which show the mremaps, I will
> write yet another paragraph (this), because if I'm going to waste internet
> bandwidth with non-answers, I'll do it good :).
> 
> write(2, "-e:1", 4)                     = 4
> brk(0)                                  = 0x8158000
> brk(0x8187000)                          = 0x8187000
> mmap2(NULL, 270336, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0)
> = 0x402d1000
> brk(0)                                  = 0x8187000
> brk(0)                                  = 0x8187000
> brk(0x816b000)                          = 0x816b000
> brk(0)                                  = 0x816b000
> mremap(0x402d1000, 270336, 536576, MREMAP_MAYMOVE) = 0x402d1000
> mremap(0x402d1000, 536576, 536576, MREMAP_MAYMOVE) = 0x402d1000
> mremap(0x402d1000, 536576, 1069056, MREMAP_MAYMOVE) = 0x402d1000
> mremap(0x402d1000, 1069056, 1069056, MREMAP_MAYMOVE) = 0x402d1000
> mremap(0x402d1000, 1069056, 2134016, MREMAP_MAYMOVE) = 0x402d1000
> write(2, ": ", 2)                       = 2
> write(2, "undefined method lassx\' for #<"..., 49) = 49
> write(2, " (", 2)                       = 2
> write(2, "NoMethodError", 13)           = 13
> write(2, ")\n", 2)                      = 2
> exit_group(1)                           = ?
> 
> Good luck.
> 
>