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Chapter 9 Subprograms

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Fundamentals of Subprograms
General characteristics of subprograms: 1. A subprogram has a single entry point 2. The caller is suspended during execution of the called subprogram 3. Control always returns to the caller when the called subprograms execution terminates

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Fundamentals of Subprograms (Continued)

- Basic definitions: - A subprogram definition is a description of the actions of the subprogram abstraction - A subprogram call is an explicit request that the subprogram be executed - A subprogram header is the first line of the definition, including the name, the kind of subprogram, and the formal parameters - The parameter profile of a subprogram is the number, order, and types of its parameters - The protocol of a subprogram is its parameter profile plus, if it is a function, its return type

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Fundamentals of Subprograms (Continued)

- A subprogram declaration provides the protocol, but not the body, of the subprogram Q: Why do we need subprogram declarations? - A formal parameter is a dummy variable listed in the subprogram header and used in the subprogram - An actual parameter represents a value or address used in the subprogram call statement

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Fundamentals of Subprograms (Continued)

- Actual/Formal Parameter Correspondence: 1. Positional 2. Keyword e.g. SORT(LIST

=> A, LENGTH => N);

Advantage: order is irrelevant Disadvantage: user must know the formal parameters names not common nor commonly understood - Default Values:
e.g. procedure SORT(LIST : LIST_TYPE;
LENGTH : INTEGER := 100); ... SORT(LIST => A);

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Fundamentals of Subprograms (Continued)

- Procedures provide user-defined statements - Functions provide user-defined operators Design Issues for Subprograms 1. What parameter passing methods are provided? 2. Are parameter types checked? 3. Are local variables static or dynamic? 4. What is the referencing environment of a passed subprogram? 5. Are parameter types in passed subprograms checked?

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Design Issues for Subprograms (continued)

6. Can subprogram definitions be nested? 7. Can subprograms be overloaded? 8. Are subprograms allowed to be generic? 9. Is separate or independent compilation supported? Answer these questions for C? Java? JavaScript?

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Local referencing environments

- If local variables are stack-dynamic: - Advantages: a. Support for recursion b. Storage for locals is shared among some subprograms - Disadvantages: a. Allocation/deallocation time b. Indirect addressing c. Subprograms cannot be history sensitive

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Local referencing environments (continued)

- Static locals are the opposite - Language Examples: 1. FORTRAN 77 and 90 - most are static, but the implementor can choose either (User can force static with SAVE) 2. C - both (variables declared to be static are) (default is stack dynamic) 3. Pascal, Java, and Ada - dynamic only

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Parameter Passing Methods

- We discuss these at several different levels: - Semantic Models: in mode, out mode, in-out mode - Conceptual Models of Transfer: 1. Physically move a value 2. Move an access path

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Parameter Passing Methods (continued)

- Implementation Models: 1. Pass-by-value (in mode) - Either by physical move or access path - Disadvantages of access path method: - Must write-protect in the called subprogram - Accesses cost more (indirect addressing) - Disadvantages of physical move: - Requires more storage (duplicated space) - Cost of the moves (if the parameter is large)

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Parameter Passing Methods (continued)

2. Pass-by-result (out mode) - Locals value is passed back to the caller - Physical move is usually used - Disadvantages: a. If value is passed, time and space b. In both cases, order dependence may be a problem e.g.
procedure sub1(y: int, z: int); ... sub1(x, x);

Value of x in the caller depends on order of assignments at the return

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Parameter Passing Methods (continued)

3. Pass-by-value-result (in-out mode) - Physical move, both ways - Also called pass-by-copy - Disadvantages: - Those of pass-by-result - Those of pass-by-value 4. Pass-by-reference (in-out mode) - Pass an access path - Also called pass-by-sharing - Advantage: passing process is efficient (no copying and no duplicated storage)

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Parameter Passing Methods (continued)

- Disadvantages: a. Slower accesses b. Allows aliasing: i. Actual parameter collisions: e.g. procedure sub1(a: int, b: int); ... sub1(x, x); ii. Array element collisions: e.g. sub1(a[i], a[j]); /* if i = j */ Also, sub2(a, a[i]); (a different one) iii. Collision between formals and globals - Root cause of all of these is: The called subprogram is provided wider access to nonlocals than is necessary - Pass-by-value-result does not allow these aliases (but has other problems!)

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Parameter Passing Methods (continued)

5. Pass-by-name (multiple mode) - By textual substitution - Formals are bound to an access method at the time of the call, but actual binding to a value or address takes place at the time of a reference or assignment - Purpose: flexibility of late binding

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Parameter Passing Methods (continued)

- Resulting semantics: - If actual is a scalar variable, it is pass-by-reference - If actual is a constant expression, it is pass-by-value - If actual is an array element, it is like nothing else e.g.
procedure sub1(x: int; y: int); begin x := 1; y := 2; x := 2; y := 3; end; sub1(i, a[i]);

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Parameter Passing Methods (Continued)

- If actual is an expression with a reference to a variable that is also accessible in the program, it is also like nothing else e.g. (assume k is a global variable)
procedure sub1(x: int; y: int; z: int); begin k := 1; y := x; k := 5; z := x; end; sub1(k+1, j, i);

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Parameter Passing Methods (Continued)

- Disadvantages of pass by name: - Very inefficient references - Too tricky; hard to read and understand - Language Examples: 1. FORTRAN - Before 77, pass-by-reference - 77 - scalar variables are often passed by value-result 2. ALGOL 60 - Pass-by-name is default; pass-by-value is optional 3. ALGOL W - Pass-by-value-result 4. C - Pass-by-value

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Parameter Passing Methods (Continued)

5. Pascal and Modula-2 - Default is pass-by-value; pass-by-reference is optional 6. C++ - Like C, but also allows reference type parameters, which provide the efficiency of pass-by-reference with in-mode semantics 7. Ada - All three semantic modes are available - If out, it cannot be referenced - If in, it cannot be assigned 8. Java - Like C++, except only references

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Parameter Passing Methods (continued)

- Type checking parameters (Now considered very important for reliability) - FORTRAN 77 and original C: none - Pascal, FORTRAN 90, Java, and Ada: it is always required - ANSI C and C++: choice is made by the user

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Parameter Passing Methods (continued)

- Implementing Parameter Passing - ALGOL 60 and most of its descendants use the run-time stack - Value - copy it to the stack; references are indirect to the stack - Result - same - Reference - regardless of form, put the address in the stack - Name - run-time resident code segments or subprograms evaluate the address of the parameter; called for each reference to the formal; these are called thunks - Very expensive, compared to reference or value-result

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Parameter Passing Methods (continued)

Ada - Simple variables are passed by copy (value-result) - Structured types can be either by copy or reference - This can be a problem, because a) Of aliases (reference allows aliases, but value-result does not) b) Procedure termination by error can produce different actual parameter results

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Parameter Passing Methods (continued)

- Multidimensional Arrays as Parameters - If a multidimensional array is passed to a subprogram and the subprogram is separately compiled, the compiler needs to know the declared size of that array to build the storage mapping function - C and C++ - Programmer is required to include the declared sizes of all but the first subscript in the actual parameter - This disallows writing flexible subprograms - Solution: pass a pointer to the array and the sizes of the dimensions as other parameters; the user must include the storage mapping function, which is in terms of the size parameters (See example, p. 371)

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Parameter Passing Methods (Continued)

- Pascal - Not a problem (declared size is part of the arrays type) - Ada - Constrained arrays - like Pascal - Unconstrained arrays - declared size is part of the object declaration (See example p. 371) (Java is similar) - Pre-90 FORTRAN - Formal parameter declarations for arrays can include passed parameters - e.g.
SUBPROGRAM SUB(MATRIX, ROWS, COLS, RESULT) INTEGER ROWS, COLS REAL MATRIX (ROWS, COLS), RESULT ... END

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Parameter Passing Methods (continued)

- Design Considerations for Parameter Passing 1. Efficiency 2. One-way or two-way - These two are in conflict with one another! Good programming => limited access to variables, which means one-way whenever possible Efficiency => pass by reference is fastest way to pass structures of significant size - Also, functions should not allow reference parameters - > sideeffect

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Parameters that are Subprogram Names

- Issues: 1. Are parameter types checked? - Early Pascal and FORTRAN 77 do not - Later versions of Pascal and FORTRAN 90 do - Ada does not allow subprogram parameters - Java does not allow method names to be passed as parameters - C and C++ - pass pointers to functions; parameters can be type checked

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Parameters that are Subprogram Names (contd)

2. What is the correct referencing environment for a subprogram that was sent as a parameter? - Possibilities: a. It is that of the subprogram that enacted it - Shallow binding b. It is that of the subprogram that declared it - Deep binding c. It is that of the subprogram that passed it - Ad hoc binding (Has never been used)

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Parameters that are Subprogram Names (Continued)

- For static-scoped languages, deep binding is most natural - For dynamic-scoped languages, shallow binding is most natural - Example:

sub1 sub2 sub3 call sub4(sub2) sub4(subx) call subx

call sub3

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Parameters that are Subprogram Names (Continued) What is the referencing environment of sub2 when it is called in sub4? - Shallow binding => sub2, sub4, sub3, sub1 - Deep binding => sub2, sub1 Overloaded Subprograms - Definition: An overloaded subprogram is one that has the same name as another subprogram in the same referencing environment - C++ and Ada have overloaded subprograms built-in, and users can write their own overloaded subprograms

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Generic Subprograms
- A generic or polymorphic subprogram is one that takes parameters of different types on different activations - Overloaded subprograms provide ad hoc polymorphism - A subprogram that takes a generic parameter that is used in a type expression that describes the type of the parameters of the subprogram provides parametric polymorphism - Examples of parametric polymorphism 1. Ada - Types, subscript ranges, constant values, etc., can be generic in Ada subprograms and packages e.g. - see next page

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Separate & Independent Compilation

- Definition: Independent compilation is compilation of some of the units of a program separately from the rest of the program, without the benefit of interface information - Definition: Separate compilation is compilation of some of the units of a program separately from the rest of the program, using interface information to check the correctness of the interface between the two parts. - Language Examples: - FORTRAN II to FORTRAN 77 - independent - FORTRAN 90, Ada, C++, Java - separate - Pascal - allows neither

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Design Issues for Functions

1. Are side effects allowed? a. Two-way parameters (Ada does not allow) b. Nonlocal reference (all allow) 2. What types of return values are allowed? - Language Examples (for possible return types): 1. FORTRAN, Pascal - only simple types 2. C - any type except functions and arrays 3. Ada - any type (but subprograms are not types) 4. C++ and Java - like C, but also allow classes to be returned

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Accessing Nonlocal Environments

- Definition: The nonlocal variables of a subprogram are those that are visible but not declared in the subprogram - Definition: Global variables are those that may be visible in all of the subprograms of a program - Methods: 1. FORTRAN COMMON - The only way in pre-90 FORTRANs to access nonlocal variables - Can be used to share data or share storage 2. Static scoping - see Chapter 5

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Accessing Nonlocal Environments (Continued)

3. External declarations - C - Subprograms are not nested - Globals are created by external declarations (they are simply defined outside any function) - Access is by either implicit or explicit declaration - Declarations (not definitions) give types to externally defined variables (and say they are defined elsewhere) 4. External modules - Ada - See Chapter 11 5. Dynamic Scope - discussed in Chapter 5

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User-Defined Overloaded Operators

- Nearly all programming languages have overloaded operators for better or worse - Users can further overload operators in C++ and Ada (Not carried over into Java)

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User-Defined Overloaded Operators (Continued) - Example (Ada) (assume VECTOR_TYPE has been defined to be an array type with INTEGER elements):
function "*"(A, B : in VECTOR_TYPE) return INTEGER is SUM : INTEGER := 0; begin for INDEX in A'range loop SUM := SUM + A(INDEX) * B(INDEX); end loop; return SUM; end "*";

- Are user-defined overloaded operators good or bad? Discuss.

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Coroutines
- A coroutine is a subprogram that has multiple entries and controls them itself - Also called symmetric control - A coroutine call is named a resume - The first resume of a coroutine is to its beginning, but subsequent calls enter at the point just after the last executed statement in the coroutine

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