refcounted_he_(new|fetch)_pvn: Don't roll-own code

[khwilliamson]

The function bytes_from_utf8() already does what what these two instances of duplicated code do.

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• This set of changes does not require a perldelta entry.

[tonycoz]

My only issue with this is bytes_from_utf8() always pays the cost of an allocation, even when all of the characters are invariants, while the original code only pays that cost if an invariant is found.

[khwilliamson]

I don't thing these hv functions have any business re-implementing utf8 translations. It's unfortunate the API is the way it is. I first tried the equivalent function utf8_to_bytes which is destructive of the input. We know that the translated version will be no longer, and likely shorter than the original. So that should work. But I kept getting segfaults with what appeared to be valid writes. I came to the conclusion it must be writing to some shared or read-only memory.

So what to do. What strikes me immediately is to change the len parameter from STRLEN to SSize_t. I think we can get away with that without affecting existing code; but if I'm wrong this won't fly. If that is feasible, then a negative length would signal the function to just return the input if there are no variants. The caller would check if the return pointer is the same as the passed one.

[khwilliamson]

Another option is to convert bool *is_utf8p to an enum with an extra value that says turn off this flag and return the original source if everything is an invariant

[khwilliamson]

That's not going to work either. How about a new function Size_t utf8_to_bytes_flags(U8 ** s, int type)

• Returns 0 if **s could not be converted; otherwise returns the number of bytes in the converted version. Does nothing if **s doesn't need conversion; otherwise *s will point to the converted version. By default, the conversion is destructive, meaning *s is converted itself. The type is an enum with three states:
• a) destructive
• b) non-destructive, so that new memory is allocated for the conversion should there need to be converting.
• c) non-destructive plus mortalized, so that any new memory will be deallocated without the caller needing to deal with it.

[khwilliamson]

I have worked on this, and come with the following API proposal. Feedback welcome

"utf8_to_bytes_type"
"utf8_to_bytes"
"bytes_from_utf8"
    NOTE: "utf8_to_bytes" is experimental and may change or be removed
    without notice.

    These each convert a string encoded as UTF-8 into the equivalent
    native byte representation, if possible.

    "utf8_to_bytes_type" has the more modern API, and is the easiest to
    use. On input, "s_ptr" is a pointer to the string to be converted
    (so that the first byte will be at *sptr[0]), and *lenp is its
    length.

    It returns non-zero if the end result is native bytes; zero if there
    are code points in the string not expressible in native byte
    encoding. In many situations, treating the return as a boolean is
    sufficient, but it actually returns an enum "xxx" so you can tease
    apart the reason it succeeded. "noop" means that the input already
    was in bytes, so no action was necessary. "converted" means that the
    conversion was successful. "cant_convert" is a synonym you can use
    for 0 or "false".

    In all cases, *s_ptr and *lenp will have correct and consistent
    values, unchanged if the return is either 0 or "noop"; otherwise
    updated as necessary.

    If the return is "converted" and "type" is 0 (or the equivalent
    "overwrite"), the converted value overwrote the input string. *s_ptr
    will be unchanged, but *lenp will be updated to its new (shortened)
    length.

    If the return is "converted" and "type" is "preserve", the original
    string is never changed. Instead a new "NUL"-terminated string is
    allocated, and *s_ptr is changed to point to that new memory. The
    caller is responsible for freeing that memory. "type" can also be
    set to "use_temp". In this case the original string is also
    preserved, and the converted string placed in newly allocated
    memory, but that will have been marked for automatic destruction (by
    using "SAVEFREEPV").

    Note that the caller has to free the memory at *s_ptr if and only if
    it called this function with "type" set to "preserve", and the
    function returned "converted".

    Upon successful return, the number of variants in the string can be
    computed by having saved the value of *lenp before the call, and
    subtracting the after-call value of *lenp from it. This is also true
    for the other two functions described below.

    Plain "utf8_to_bytes" also converts a UTF-8 encoded string to bytes,
    but there are more glitches that the caller has to be prepared to
    handle.

    The input string is passed with one less indirection level, "s".

    If the conversion was successful or a noop
        The function returns "s" (unchanged) and *lenp will contain the
        correct length.

    If the conversion failed
        The function returns NULL and sets *lenp to -1, cast to
        "STRLEN". This means that you will have to use a temporary
        containing the string length to pass to the function if you will
        need the value afterwards.

    "bytes_from_utf8" also converts a potentially UTF-8 encoded string
    "s" to bytes. It preserves "s", allocating new memory for the
    converted string.

    In contrast to the other two functions, the input string to this one
    need not be UTF-8. If not, the caller has set *is_utf8p to be
    "false", and the function does nothing, returning the original "s".

    Also do nothing if there are code points in the string not
    expressible in native byte encoding, returning the original "s".

    Otherwise, *is_utf8p is set to 0, and the return value is a pointer
    to a newly created string containing the native byte equivalent of
    "s", and whose length is returned in *lenp, updated. The new string
    is "NUL"-terminated. The caller is responsible for arranging for the
    memory used by this string to get freed.

    The major problem with this function is that memory is allocated
    and filled even when no conversion was necessary..

        U8         utf8_to_bytes_type(      U8 **s_ptr, STRLEN *lenp,
                                            U32 type)
        U8 *       utf8_to_bytes     (      U8 *s, STRLEN *lenp)
        U8 *  Perl_utf8_to_bytes     (pTHX_ U8 *s, STRLEN *lenp)
        U8 *       bytes_from_utf8   (      const U8 *s, STRLEN *lenp,
                                            bool *is_utf8p)
        U8 *  Perl_bytes_from_utf8   (pTHX_ const U8 *s, STRLEN *lenp,
                                            bool *is_utf8p)

[bulk88]

 but that will have been marked for automatic destruction (by
    using "SAVEFREEPV").

I didnt read the full commit, but the api looks flexible and efficient.

It covers 3 states. -input is output, array of U8s not changed -input was converted in place to output, and input contents destroyed (but alloc was reused/in place) -input was converted, input preserved, output is new malloc

One question, is there any way to undo in perlapi SAVEFREEPV? like for sv_usepvn_flags?

[khwilliamson]

One question, is there any way to undo in perlapi SAVEFREEPV? like for sv_usepvn_flags?

I don't believe so

[tonycoz]

Rather than requiring the caller to decode the return value to decide whether the string should be released, perhaps add another pointer to pointer:

U8         utf8_to_bytes_type(      U8 **s_ptr, STRLEN *lenp,
                                            U32 type, void **free_me)

utf8_to_bytes_type() would set *free_me to NULL and iff the caller needs to free ortake ownership of the PV, it sets *free_me to that pointer. This way a caller can just:

U8 *orig = ...;
STRLEN len = ...;
void *free_me; // possibly U8 * instead
utf8_bytes_to_type(&orig, &len, preserve, &free_me);
// process orig for len bytes
Safefree(free_me); // Safefree() handles NULL like free()

To make the call even less error prone, supply the original string pointer/length by value to avoid the caller having to remember to initialize them:

U8 *outstr;
STRLEN outlen;
void *free_me;
utf8_bytes_to_type(&outstr, &outlen, origstr, origlen, preserve, &free_me);
// process outstr for outlen bytes
Safefree(free_me);

If utf8_to_bytes_type() returns or accepts an enum, its return and parameter types should reflect that.

Please document the enum values for the type parameter and return types as lists.

Hopefully the the enum names will decorated to avoid name conflicts.

One question, is there any way to undo in perlapi SAVEFREEPV? like for sv_usepvn_flags?

It's not needed here, since you can call with type = preserve.

But in general there's no easy way to do that (like release() for std::unique_ptrin C++.

It would be nice to have that for both this and sv_2mortal(), and there's at least one place that manually does this for mortal SVs.

[khwilliamson]

I forgot about this pull request when I created a more refined version of the utf8_to_bytes proposal. I did that in #22703, now closed. And this has been updated to the latest.

One thing I realized when converting existing calls to the new way was that there was a problem with const. The same function now has to be callable in cases where it both changes the input, and is required to not change the input, depending on a flag. To solve this, I made the function internal, and created macros that don't cast away const except when the actual function isn't going to change it. This protects the caller from calling the destructive version with a const string.

The macros are currently named utf8_to_bytes_overwrite() utf8_to_bytes_new_pv(), and utf8_to_bytes_temp_pv(). Better name ideas welcome

These hide from the user the new enum parameter that the internal function is called with.

Using @tonycoz idea of an extra parameter that the internal function sets to indicate that there is a need for freeing the converted string means the enum return type can be gotten rid of, and the functions return bool. Only the new-pv case actually needs that, so having the macros as the public interface hides this parameter except when needed.

I had this parameter as a pointer to a bool. @tonycoz idea of making it point to the memory to be freed is a better idea, but in all cases in the core, that doesn't simplify things; they each need to do more things than free the memory when the function has created that memory.

Included in this pr are the conversions to use the new function in all the core files. These are intended to not be actually merged at the same time as the rest, but showed how this would work out in practice.