Why isn’t `chronosInternalRetFuture` gensymmed?

[SirNickolas]

https://github.com/status-im/nim-chronos/blob/f3b77d86615813690c5ab5e7cbe841521be2a20f/chronos/asyncmacro2.nim#L126-L133

If you take the body of a procedure after it is processed by .async, put it into a new procedure, and apply .async to it, chronosInternalRetFuture will refer to the wrong variable. std/asyncmacro does not suffer from this.

P.S. If you are curious, I’m trying to make my asyncIters library work with Chronos.

[cheatfate]

Because await is template in chronos and it uses chronosInternalRetFuture.

[SirNickolas]

But you can inject a separate await template for the procedure being transformed so that it will use chronosInternalRetFuture`gensym123456. Since await is already a template, this will not incur additional code bloating.

[arnetheduck]

Do you have an isolated repro fot this?

[SirNickolas]

With ease. Here you are:

import std/macros
when not declared assert:
  import std/assertions
when defined useChronos:
  import chronos/asyncloop
else:
  import std/asyncdispatch

macro wrapWithSubproc(body) =
  body.expectKind nnkStmtList
  body[0].expectKind nnkStmtList
  let n = body[0].len - 1
  let ret = body[0][n]
  ret.expectKind nnkReturnStmt
  body[0].del n # Detach from the body.

  result = quote:
    proc inner {.async, genSym.} = `body`
    await inner()
    `ret` # Reattach here.
  echo treeRepr result

proc outer: Future[string] {.async.} =
  wrapWithSubproc:
    return "ok"

doAssert waitFor(outer()) == "ok"

1. async processes the body of outer and replaces return "ok" with some code. It consists of two parts: completing the future and exiting from the procedure.
2. This code is passed to wrapWithSubproc. The macro splits it into the aforementioned parts. The return part is left where it is, and the future-completion part is injected into inner.
3. async processes the body of inner.

• When you compile with asyncdispatch, you get the following output:

  StmtList
    ProcDef
      Ident "inner`gensym6"
      Empty
      Empty
      FormalParams
        Empty
      Pragma
        Ident "async"
        Ident "genSym"
      Empty
      StmtList
        StmtList
          StmtList
            StmtList
            Call
              Ident "complete"
              Sym "retFuture"
              StrLit "ok"
    Command
      OpenSymChoice 2 "await"
      Call
        Ident "inner`gensym6"
    ReturnStmt
      NilLit
  

  Notice the Sym "retFuture". It refers to a Future[string] variable declared in outer. When run, the code completes successfully.

• When you compile with chronos, the output is instead:

  StmtList
    ProcDef
      Ident "inner`gensym1"
      Empty
      Empty
      FormalParams
        Empty
      Pragma
        Ident "async"
        Ident "genSym"
      Empty
      StmtList
        StmtList
          StmtList
            Call
              Ident "complete"
              Cast
                BracketExpr
                  Ident "Future"
                  Ident "string"
                Ident "chronosInternalRetFuture"
              StrLit "ok"
    Command
      Sym "await"
      Call
        Ident "inner`gensym1"
    ReturnStmt
      NilLit
  

  Here, we see Ident "chronosInternalRetFuture". But at step 3, async will rewrite inner and inject another chronosInternalRetFuture into it, which will shadow the outer’s one. Indeed, when you run it, you get a FutureDefect: An attempt was made to complete a Future more than once.

N.B. Of course, in my library, I do not assume that return-related code has any particular shape. I traverse it and search for my own annotations I put there before.