[Cython] Fwd: Re: [cython-users] checking for "None" in nogil function

[mark florisson]

On 7 May 2012 18:06, Stefan Behnel <stefan_ml at behnel.de> wrote:
> mark florisson, 07.05.2012 18:18:
>> On 7 May 2012 17:16, mark florisson wrote:
>>> On 7 May 2012 17:12, Stefan Behnel wrote:
>>>> Dag Sverre Seljebotn, 07.05.2012 18:07:
>>>>> On 05/07/2012 06:04 PM, mark florisson wrote:
>>>>>> On 7 May 2012 12:10, Stefan Behnel wrote:
>>>>>>> BTW, is there a reason why we shouldn't allow a "not None" declaration for
>>>>>>> cdef functions? Obviously, the caller would have to do the check in that
>>>>>>> case.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Why can't the callee just check it? If it's None, just raise an
>>>>>> exception like usual?
>>>>>
>>>>> It's just that there's a lot more potential for rather easy optimization if
>>>>> the caller does it.
>>>>
>>>> Exactly. The NoneCheckNode is easy to get rid of at any stage in the
>>>> pipeline, whereas a hard coded None check has a fixed cost at runtime.
>>>
>>> I see, yes. I expect a pointer comparison to be reasonably
>>> insignificant compared to function call overhead, but it would also
>>> reduce the code in the instruction cache. If you take the address of
>>> the function though, or if you declare it public in a pxd, you
>>> probably don't want to do that, as you still want to be safe when
>>> called from C. Could do the same trick as in the 'less annotations'
>>> CEP though, that would be nice.
>>
>> ... or you could document that 'not None' means the caller cannot pass
>> it in, but that would be weird as you could do it from Cython and get
>> an exception, but not from C :) That would be better specified in the
>> documentation of the function as its contract or whatever.
>
> "not None" on a cdef function means what all declarations on cdef functions
> mean: the caller is responsible for doing the appropriate type conversions
> and checks.
>
> If a function accepts an int32 and the caller puts a float32 on the stack,
> it's not the fault of the callee. The same applies to extension type
> arguments and None checks.
>
> Stefan
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Well, 'with gil' makes the callee do something. I would personally
expect not None to be enforced at least conceptually in the function
itself. In any case, I also think it's really not an important issue,
as it's likely pretty uncommon to call it from C. If it does break, it
will be easy enough to figure out (unless you accidentally corrupt
your memory :) So either solution would be fine with me.