Re: [Bug] OP_SELF uses an unnecessary extra register

[Egor Skriptunoff <egor.skriptunoff@...>]

On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 4:28 PM, Soni L. wrote:

While playing with the Lua parser I noticed OP_SELF uses an unnecessary extra register, but this is only visible if you have more than 256 constants.

    771    [258]    LOADK        3 -257    ; "print"
    772    [258]    SELF         1 1 3

This is not a bug.

Instruction "SELF 1 1 -257" is impossible due to limitation of 9 bits per constant index (operand C) for opcode SELF.

On the contrary, LOADK can address any constant using 18-bit field (field Bx).

That's why all constants except first 256 have to be passed through intermediate register.