lua-users home
lua-l archive

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]


On 9/19/2010 9:14 PM, Jonathan Castello wrote:

Maybe metamethod calls have an extra C-call that precede them?


The other way around, actually. A call to a Lua function avoids increasing the call depth in the VM. The key statement is a 'goto' in the handling of OP_CALL. It just resumes the same loop with a different frame. When a metamethod is invoked, the function goes through luaD_call which calls to a nested luaV_execute.

So I'm thinking it might be nice to handle metamethods the same way. When a metamethod is encountered that is a Lua function, instead of nesting, just set up the call frame then return to the execute loop with a restart flag. I think it's correct to assume that any single instruction can be replaced with a OP_CALL to an equivalent function and nothing will go haywire.

--
- tom
telliamed@whoopdedo.org