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  • Marius Gerbershagen's avatar
    implement faster function calls · d336b305
    Marius Gerbershagen authored
    The previous function call sequence for ordinary global functions
    looked as follows.
    
    1. check whether the function is defined, i.e. whether
       symbol->symbol.gfdef is not NULL
    2. set the_env->function to symbol->symbol.gfdef
    3. call the function pointer symbol->symbol.gfdef->cfun.entry
    
    This commit implements a performance optimization that enables us to
    skip the first step. The basic idea is to replace symbol->symbol.gfdef
    with a closure that signals an undefined-function condition.
    
    However, straightforwardly implementing this would have the
    disadvantage that it would consume a larger amount of memory for each
    symbol without a function definition. To get around this, we reorder
    the fields of the ecl_symbol struct such that the symbol can serve as
    the function object itself, introducing an entry point that is only
    used for undefined functions.
    
    Benchmarking shows an improvement of about 10% in thight loops
    compared to the old method.
    d336b305