[Haskell-cafe] Explicit garbage collection
Edward Kmett
ekmett at gmail.com
Wed Jan 6 22:28:34 EST 2010
I don't believe you can get quite the semantics you want. However, you can
get reasonably close, by building a manual store and backtracking.
{-# LANGUAGE Rank2Types #-}
-- lets define an Oracle that tracks whether or not you might need the
reference, by backtracking.
module Oracle
( Oracle, Ref
, newRef, readRef, writeRef, modifyRef, needRef
) where
import Control.Applicative
import Control.Arrow (first)
import Control.Monad
import Data.IntMap (IntMap)
import qualified Data.IntMap as M
import Unsafe.Coerce (unsafeCoerce)
import GHC.Prim (Any)
-- we need to track our own worlds, otherwise we'd have to build over ST,
change optimistically, and track how to backtrack the state of the Store.
Much uglier.
-- values are stored as 'Any's for safety, see GHC.Prim for a discussion on
the hazards of risking the storage of function types using unsafeCoerce as
anything else.
data World s = World { store :: !(IntMap Any), hwm :: !Int }
-- references into our store
newtype Ref s a = Ref Int deriving (Eq)
-- our monad that can 'see the future' ~ StateT (World s) []
newtype Oracle s a = Oracle { unOracle :: World s -> [(a, World s)] }
-- we rely on the fact that the list is always non-empty for any oracle you
can run. we are only allowed to backtrack if we thought we wouldn't need the
reference, and wound up needing it, so head will always succeed.
runOracle :: (forall s. Oracle s a) -> a
runOracle f = fst $ head $ unOracle f $ World M.empty 1
instance Monad (Oracle s) where
return a = Oracle $ \w -> [(a,w)]
Oracle m >>= k = Oracle $ \s -> do
(a,s') <- m s
unOracle (k a) s'
-- note: you cannot safely define fail here without risking a crash in
runOracle
-- Similarly, we're not a MonadPlus instance because we always want to
succeed eventually.
instance Functor (Oracle s) where
fmap f (Oracle g) = Oracle $ \w -> first f <$> g w
instance Applicative (Oracle s) where
pure = return
(<*>) = ap
-- new ref allocates a fresh slot and inserts the value into the store. the
type level brand 's' keeps us safe, and we don't export the Ref constructor.
newRef :: a -> Oracle s (Ref s a)
newRef a = Oracle $ \(World w t) ->
[(Ref t, World (M.insert t (unsafeCoerce a) w) (t + 1))]
-- readRef is the only thing that ever backtracks, if we try to read a
reference we claimed we wouldn't need, then we backtrack to when we decided
we didn't need the reference, and continue with its value.
readRef :: Ref s a -> Oracle s a
readRef (Ref slot) = Oracle $ \world ->
maybe [] (\a -> [(unsafeCoerce a, world)]) $ M.lookup slot (store world)
-- note, writeRef dfoesn't 'need' the ref's current value, so needRef will
report False if you writeRef before you read it after this.
writeRef :: a -> Ref s a -> Oracle s a
writeRef a (Ref slot) = Oracle $ \world ->
[(a, world { store = M.insert slot (unsafeCoerce a) $ store world
})]
{-
-- alternate writeRef where writing 'needs' the ref.
writeRef :: a -> Ref s a -> Oracle s a
writeRef a (Ref slot) = Oracle $ \World store v -> do
(Just _, store') <- return $ updateLookupWithKey replace slot store
[(a, World store' v)]
where
replace _ _ = Just (unsafeCoerce a)
-}
-- modifying a reference of course needs its current value.
modifyRef :: (a -> a) -> Ref s a -> Oracle s a
modifyRef f r = do
a <- readRef r
writeRef (f a) r
-- needRef tries to continue executing the world without the element in the
store in question. if that fails, then we'll backtrack to here, and try
again with the original world, and report that the element was in fact
needed.
needRef :: Ref s a -> Oracle s Bool
needRef (Ref slot) = Oracle $ \world ->
[ (False, world { store = M.delete slot $ store world })
, (True, world)
]
-- test case:
refMaybe b dflt ref = if b then readRef ref else return dflt
refIgnore ref = return "blablabla"
refFst ref = fst <$> readRef ref
test = do
a <- newRef "x"
b <- newRef 1
c <- newRef ('z', Just 0)
-- no performLocalGC required
x <- needRef a
y <- needRef b
z <- needRef c
u <- refMaybe y "t" a -- note that it wouldn't actually read "a",
-- but it won't be known until runtime.
w <- refIgnore b
v <- refFst c
return (x, y, z)
-- This will disagree with your desired answer, returning:
*Oracle> runOracle test
Loading package syb ... linking ... done.
Loading package array-0.2.0.0 ... linking ... done.
Loading package containers-0.2.0.1 ... linking ... done.
(False,False,True)
rather than (True, False, True), because the oracle is able to see into the
future (via backtracking) to see that refMaybe doesn't use the reference
after all.
This probably won't suit your needs, but it was a fun little exercise.
-Edward Kmett
On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 4:05 PM, Miguel Mitrofanov <miguelimo38 at yandex.ru>wrote:
>
> On 6 Jan 2010, at 23:21, Edward Kmett wrote:
>
> You probably just want to hold onto weak references for your
>> 'isStillNeeded' checks.
>>
>
> That's what I do now. But I want to minimize the network traffic, so I want
> referenced values to be garbage collected as soon as possible - and I
> couldn't find anything except System.Mem.performIO to do the job - which is
> a bit too global for me.
>
> Otherwise the isStillNeeded check itself will keep you from garbage
>> collecting!
>>
>
> Not necessary. What I'm imagining is that there is essentially only one way
> to access the value stored in the reference - with readRef. So, if there
> isn't any chance that readRef would be called, the value can be garbage
> collected; "isStillNeeded" function only needs the reference, not the value.
>
> Well, yeah, that's kinda like weak references.
>
>
> http://cvs.haskell.org/Hugs/pages/libraries/base/System-Mem-Weak.html
>>
>> -Edward Kmett
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 9:39 AM, Miguel Mitrofanov <miguelimo38 at yandex.ru>
>> wrote:
>> I'll take a look at them.
>>
>> I want something like this:
>>
>> refMaybe b dflt ref = if b then readRef ref else return dflt
>> refIgnore ref = return "blablabla"
>> refFst ref =
>> do
>> (v, w) <- readRef ref
>> return v
>> test =
>> do
>> a <- newRef "x"
>> b <- newRef 1
>> c <- newRef ('z', Just 0)
>> performLocalGC -- if necessary
>> x <- isStillNeeded a
>> y <- isStillNeeded b
>> z <- isStillNeeded c
>> u <- refMaybe y "t" a -- note that it wouldn't actually read "a",
>> -- but it won't be known until runtime.
>> w <- refIgnore b
>> v <- refFst c
>> return (x, y, z)
>>
>> so that "run test" returns (True, False, True).
>>
>>
>> Dan Doel wrote:
>> On Wednesday 06 January 2010 8:52:10 am Miguel Mitrofanov wrote:
>> Is there any kind of "ST" monad that allows to know if some STRef is no
>> longer needed?
>>
>> The problem is, I want to send some data to an external storage over a
>> network and get it back later, but I don't want to send unnecessary data.
>>
>> I've managed to do something like that with weak pointers,
>> System.Mem.performGC and unsafePerformIO, but it seems to me that
>> invoking
>> GC every time is an overkill.
>>
>> Oh, and I'm ready to trade the purity of runST for that, if necessary.
>>
>> You may be able to use something like Oleg's Lightweight Monadic Regions
>> to get this effect. I suppose it depends somewhat on what qualifies a
>> reference as "no longer needed".
>>
>> http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~ccshan/capability/region-io.pdf
>>
>> I'm not aware of anything out-of-the-box that does what you want, though.
>>
>> -- Dan
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