Important: These notes are not designed to subsitute for class sessions. Importantly, they do not cover all content required for the exams or for implementing HWs. These are just an aid for re-implementing the class compiler, after you've already come to class and completed the in-class activities!

Tail calls

Here’s a little program to sum the first N natural numbers:

(define (sum n)
  (if (zero? n)
    n
    (+ n (sum (sub1 n)))))
(print (sum (read-num)))

What will happen if we call (sum 1000000)? We overflow the stack.

In our interpreter, we can fix this:

(define (sum n total)
  (if (zero? n)
    total
    (sum (sub1 n) (+ n total))))
(print (sum (read-num) 0))

Our compiler, however, still segfaults. What’s going on here? The question isn’t why our compiler segfaults–why wouldn’t it? It has a finite amount of stack space, after all, and we’re doing a lot of function calls here. Each call to sum adds a few values to the stack. So why isn’t the interpreter overflowing the stack?

Let’s postpone the answer to that question. First, let’s look at the assembly instructions we produce for our little sum program: 

global _entry
extern _error
extern _read_num
extern _print_value
extern _print_newline
_entry:
	mov [rsp + -24], rdi
	add rsp, -24
	call _read_num
	sub rsp, -24
	mov rdi, [rsp + -24]
	mov [rsp + -24], rax
	mov rax, 0
	mov [rsp + -32], rax
	add rsp, -8
	call _function_sum_957043065
	sub rsp, -8
	mov [rsp + -8], rdi
	mov rdi, rax
	add rsp, -8
	call _print_value
	sub rsp, -8
	mov rdi, [rsp + -8]
	mov rax, 159
	ret
_function_sum_957043065:
	mov rax, [rsp + -8]
	cmp rax, 0
	mov rax, 0
	setz al
	shl rax, 7
	or rax, 31
	cmp rax, 31
	jz _else__2
	mov rax, [rsp + -16]
	jmp _continue__3
_else__2:
	mov rax, [rsp + -8]
	sub rax, 4
	mov [rsp + -40], rax
	mov rax, [rsp + -8]
	mov [rsp + -48], rax
	mov rax, [rsp + -16]
	mov r8, [rsp + -48]
	add rax, r8
	mov [rsp + -48], rax
	add rsp, -24
	call _function_sum_957043065
	sub rsp, -24
_continue__3:
	ret

Look at the end of the program, there. In the else case of our conditional expression, we’re pushing a bunch of arguments to the stack and then calling our function. After we come back from that call we’ll execute two instructions: we’ll restore the stack pointer and then return again. In other words, we’re really not doing any work once our function returns! We have this stack frame storing our local variables and function parameters, but we’re not accessing any of them! It seems like once we’re doing that function call, we shouldn’t really need an extra stack frame; instead, we should be able to just re-use the one we already have–essentially, replacing the call with a jmp.

When can we do this? Well, we should be able to do this whenever we don’t have any work to do after a function is called. If we’re just going to return whatever another function returns, without modification, we should be able to re-use our stack frame: we’re guaranteed not to need any of the things we’ve stored there.

Function calls in this position are called tail calls. Take a look at this little program: 

(define (f x) (+ 3 x))
(define (sum-f n total)
  (if (zero? n)
    total
    (sum-f (sub1 n) (+ (f n) total))))
(print (sum-f (read-num) 0))

Is the call to f in tail position? No–after f returns, we have to do more work.

How about this program?

(define (even n) (if (zero? n) true (odd (sub1 n))))
(define (odd n) (if (zero? n) false (not (even n))))
(print (even (read-num)))

Is even’s call to odd a tail call? Yes. Is odd’s call to even a tail call? No–after even returns, there’s more work to do (specifically, negating the value). We’ve decided that we want to compile function calls differently when they are in tail position. So, let’s add an argument to the compiler that will be true if the expression being compiled is in tail position and false otherwise. We’ll need to add it to every call to compile_exp; here are some of the more interesting ones: 

let rec compile_exp (defns : defn list) (tab : int symtab) (stack_index : int)
    (exp : s_exp) (is_tail : bool) : directive list =
  match exp with
  (* ... *)
  | Lst [Sym "print"; e] ->
      compile_exp defns tab stack_index e false
      @ [ Mov (stack_address stack_index, Reg Rdi)
	; Mov (Reg Rdi, Reg Rax)
	; Add (Reg Rsp, Imm (align_stack_index stack_index))
	; Call "print_value"
	; Sub (Reg Rsp, Imm (align_stack_index stack_index))
	; Mov (Reg Rdi, stack_address stack_index)
	; Mov (Reg Rax, operand_of_bool true) ]
  | Lst (Sym "do" :: exps) when List.length exps > 0 ->
      List.mapi
	(fun i exp ->
	  compile_exp defns tab stack_index exp
	    (if i = List.length exps - 1 then is_tail else false))
	exps
      |> List.concat
  | Lst [Sym "if"; test_exp; then_exp; else_exp] ->
      let else_label = Util.gensym "else" in
      let continue_label = Util.gensym "continue" in
      compile_exp defns tab stack_index test_exp false
      @ [Cmp (Reg Rax, operand_of_bool false); Jz else_label]
      @ compile_exp defns tab stack_index then_exp is_tail
      @ [Jmp continue_label] @ [Label else_label]
      @ compile_exp defns tab stack_index else_exp is_tail
      @ [Label continue_label]
  | Lst [Sym "+"; e1; e2] ->
      compile_exp defns tab stack_index e1 false
      @ [Mov (stack_address stack_index, Reg Rax)]
      @ compile_exp defns tab (stack_index - 8) e2 false
      @ [Mov (Reg R8, stack_address stack_index)]
      @ [Add (Reg Rax, Reg R8)]

In our recursive calls, we have essentially two cases:

When we call compile_exp, either to compile the body of a function or our main program body, is_tail will start out as true. 

let compile_defn defns defn =
  let ftab =
    defn.args |> List.mapi (fun i arg -> (arg, -8 * (i + 1))) |> Symtab.of_list
  in
  [Label (defn_label defn.name)]
  @ compile_exp defns ftab (-8 * (List.length defn.args + 1)) defn.body true
  @ [Ret]

let compile (program : s_exp list) : string =
  let defns, body = defns_and_body program in
  [ Global "entry"
  ; Extern "error"
  ; Extern "read_num"
  ; Extern "print_value"
  ; Extern "print_newline"
  ; Label "entry" ]
  @ compile_exp defns Symtab.empty (-8) body true
  @ [Ret]
  @ (List.map (compile_defn defns) defns |> List.concat)
  |> List.map string_of_directive
  |> String.concat "\n"

Now we need to use is_tail to reuse the current stack frame if a function call is in tail position. We can add another case like this: 

let rec compile_exp (defns : defn list) (tab : int symtab) (stack_index : int)
    (exp : s_exp) (is_tail : bool) : directive list =
  match exp with
       (* ... *)
  | Lst (Sym f :: args) when is_defn defns f && is_tail ->
      let defn = get_defn defns f in
      if List.length args = List.length defn.args then
	let compiled_args =
	  args
	  |> List.mapi (fun i arg ->
		 compile_exp defns tab (stack_index - (8 * i)) arg false
		 @ [Mov (stack_address (stack_index - (8 * i)), Reg Rax)])
	  |> List.concat
	in
	let moved_args =
	  args
	  |> List.mapi (fun i _ ->
		 [ Mov (Reg R8, stack_address (stack_index - (8 * i)))
		 ; Mov (stack_address ((i + 1) * -8), Reg R8) ])
	  |> List.concat
	in
	compiled_args @ moved_args @ [Jmp (defn_label f)]
      else raise (BadExpression exp)

We’re first compiling each argument and storing it in the next available stack index. We then move all of these arguments to the base of the stack (right after rsp), since that’s where function arguments go! Then, we can just jump to the right label. Notice that we’re not changing rsp when we call a function in tail position: this is exactly what it means for us to reuse a stack frame.

Tail calls in the interpreter

As we saw, our interpreter already seems to be doing this–it didn’t overflow the stack when we interpreted a tail-recursive program. Why? Well, the interpreter is written in OCaml, which properly implements tail calls by reusing stack frames. So as long as the interpreter’s calls to itself are in tail position, everything will work out! See the lecture capture for a little more about this.