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[3.6] bpo-28810: Update lnotab_notes.txt (GH-665) #919

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50 changes: 28 additions & 22 deletions Objects/lnotab_notes.txt
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
@@ -1,17 +1,18 @@
All about co_lnotab, the line number table.

Code objects store a field named co_lnotab. This is an array of unsigned bytes
disguised as a Python string. It is used to map bytecode offsets to source code
line #s for tracebacks and to identify line number boundaries for line tracing.
disguised as a Python bytes object. It is used to map bytecode offsets to
source code line #s for tracebacks and to identify line number boundaries for
line tracing.

The array is conceptually a compressed list of
(bytecode offset increment, line number increment)
pairs. The details are important and delicate, best illustrated by example:

byte code offset source code line number
0 1
6 2
50 7
0 1
6 2
50 7
350 207
361 208

Expand All @@ -24,7 +25,8 @@ look like:
The above doesn't really work, but it's a start. An unsigned byte (byte code
offset) can't hold negative values, or values larger than 255, a signed byte
(line number) can't hold values larger than 127 or less than -128, and the
above example contains two such values. So we make two tweaks:
above example contains two such values. (Note that before 3.6, line number
was also encoded by an unsigned byte.) So we make two tweaks:

(a) there's a deep assumption that byte code offsets increase monotonically,
and
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -52,7 +54,7 @@ the example above, assemble_lnotab in compile.c should not (as was actually done
until 2.2) expand 300, 200 to
255, 255, 45, 45,
but to
255, 0, 45, 128, 0, 72.
255, 0, 45, 127, 0, 73.

The above is sufficient to reconstruct line numbers for tracebacks, but not for
line tracing. Tracing is handled by PyCode_CheckLineNumber() in codeobject.c
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -83,30 +85,34 @@ Consider this code:

1: def f(a):
2: while a:
3: print 1,
3: print(1)
4: break
5: else:
6: print 2,
6: print(2)

which compiles to this:

2 0 SETUP_LOOP 19 (to 22)
>> 3 LOAD_FAST 0 (a)
6 POP_JUMP_IF_FALSE 17
2 0 SETUP_LOOP 26 (to 28)
>> 2 LOAD_FAST 0 (a)
4 POP_JUMP_IF_FALSE 18

3 9 LOAD_CONST 1 (1)
12 PRINT_ITEM
3 6 LOAD_GLOBAL 0 (print)
8 LOAD_CONST 1 (1)
10 CALL_FUNCTION 1
12 POP_TOP

4 13 BREAK_LOOP
14 JUMP_ABSOLUTE 3
>> 17 POP_BLOCK
4 14 BREAK_LOOP
16 JUMP_ABSOLUTE 2
>> 18 POP_BLOCK

6 18 LOAD_CONST 2 (2)
21 PRINT_ITEM
>> 22 LOAD_CONST 0 (None)
25 RETURN_VALUE
6 20 LOAD_GLOBAL 0 (print)
22 LOAD_CONST 2 (2)
24 CALL_FUNCTION 1
26 POP_TOP
>> 28 LOAD_CONST 0 (None)
30 RETURN_VALUE

If 'a' is false, execution will jump to the POP_BLOCK instruction at offset 17
If 'a' is false, execution will jump to the POP_BLOCK instruction at offset 18
and the co_lnotab will claim that execution has moved to line 4, which is wrong.
In this case, we could instead associate the POP_BLOCK with line 5, but that
would break jumps around loops without else clauses.
Expand Down