308762 - jsshell Enable gc("filename", true) to return the gc results as a string

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core :: JavaScript Engine, enhancement)

Description

[timeless]

we're about to start some gc investigations and one of the things we'd like to 
be able to do is have js code that tests things and automatically decides what 
is happening wrt objects. i'm aware that this results in a bit of jitter (if 
you get strings), and we can deal with that. it does not alter the normal 
behavior of gc() or gc("logfilename").

proposed inputs:
false, odd  => don't print
true, even (including void) => print

void, 0 => return void - current behavior
true, false, 1, 2 => return bool (true if something was gc'd, false otherwise)
3, 4 => return how much the gc recovered
otherwise => return the string that would be printed

Comment 1

[timeless]

Attachment: enhance gc() to take a second argument that controls the return value and whether to print to stdout

Comment 2

[Brendan Eich [:brendan]]

Comment on attachment 196280 [details] [diff] [review]
enhance gc() to take a second argument that controls the return value and whether to print to stdout

Old request, redirecting, may need dialog about design first.

/be

Comment 3

[Igor Bukanov]

timeless: 

is it still useful to have this gc() extension with exactly the modes proposed given that now days jsshell provides countHeap:

js> help("countHeap")
help("countHeap")
JavaScript-C 1.7 pre-release 3 2007-04-01
Command                  Description
=======                  ===========
countHeap([start[, kind]])
  Count the number of live GC things in the heap or things reachable from
  start when it is given and is not null. kind is either 'all' (default) to
  count all things or one of 'object', 'double', 'string', 'function',
  'qname', 'namespace', 'xml' to count only things of that kind

If the modes are not essential, I would prefer to have a simple flag to return the current gc() output as an object with some properties.

Comment 4

[Igor Bukanov]

Comment on attachment 196280 [details] [diff] [review]
enhance gc() to take a second argument that controls the return value and whether to print to stdout

The patch requires an update.

Comment 5

[André Bargull [:anba]]

Closing stale bug as INCOMPLETE.