Cross-tier API parity with c-tier (81ac49e) + python-tier — all three
lumbda runtimes now share the substrate for fork-per-accept patterns.
Implementation: direct syscalls (no libc):
- SYS_FORK=57 → bi_forkself, returns 0/pid via make_int
- SYS_WAIT4=61 + WNOHANG=1 → bi_waitpid_nonblock, returns pid or 0
- SYS_EXIT=60 → bi_exit_immediate (same as bi_exit on asm — no atexit
to bypass; present for cross-tier API parity)
- SYS_NANOSLEEP=35 → bi_sleep, stack-allocated timespec (tv_sec=N,
tv_nsec=0), returns VAL_VOID
Built + tested in vm-runner.sh VM (Ubuntu 2G/2vCPU): both lumbda
and lumbda-gc + fork-cycle test = 3/3 children reap clean, exit-
immediate returns to parent waitpid correctly. Same behavioral
contract as c-tier (commit 81ac49e) and python-tier.
Two GC-build sizing fixes for the same bug class — small GC builds
silently lost live roots under load, causing hash-table-ref to report
"missing key" on entries we just set.
1. HEAP_SIZE 0x100000 → 0x400000 (1 MB → 4 MB):
32 chunks × 1 MB capped the GC build at 32 MB. ecdsa
test-mod-inv-by at p=251 (n+1=9) OOM'd here even though gc was
reclaiming, because the fragmented free-list could not satisfy
the next n+1=9 sim batch. 4 MB × 32 chunks = 128 MB cap, still
well below the 512 MB ulimit -v envelope our asm tests run under.
2. GC_MARK_STACK_CAP 16K → 256K and gc_mark_stack .skip synced to
the constant:
gc_push_if_heap silently dropped tagged values when the mark
stack overflowed and claimed "correctness preserved (sweep won't
reclaim missed-roots, just leaks one cycle)" — but a dropped
value never reaches gc_mark_drain, so its header mark bit stays
clear and gc_sweep treats it as dead. ecdsa test-mod-inv-by at
p=251 walked ~17k tagged values in a single GC cycle and tipped
over the cap, after which live cons-cells started getting
reclaimed mid-simulate.
.skip 131072 was a hard-coded constant that didn't track the .equ,
so bumping the cap without resizing the buffer would smash adjacent
gc_mark_depth / gc_collections / gc_live_bytes; both lines moved
together. 256K × 8 = 2 MB of .bss, one HEAP_SIZE chunk's worth.
After fix: ecdsa test-mod-inv-by on lumbda-full inside QEMU guest
passes p ∈ {11, 13, 251} byte-equal to Python tier. Upstream asm
test.sh stays 158/158 GREEN. Discovered while working ecdsa task
#47, 2026-06-05.
Three defects fixed today on the asm tier worker path:
1. Multi-line "..." docstrings crashed asm tier's scheme_read.
wire.lsp, bend.lsp, gpu-worker.lsp had docstrings spanning
several lines; replaced with ;; comments before each define.
asm tier loads these cleanly now.
2. asm tier lacked delete-file. handle-cuda-shake-fanout called
it to clean up temp portal files. Added bi_delete_file via
SYS_UNLINK = 87 syscall (~20 LoC asm). BI_DELETEFILE constant
slotted after sibling-agent's BI_STRTOSYM.
3. All Scheme files in examples/cuda-fanout/ now ASCII-only.
Earlier em-dash / × / → / μ tripped asm tier's reader in
subtle ways during file load. iconv pass + sed fixes.
Result: all three tiers complete the bench through their own
cliff. New 3-tier table:
workload Python C tier asm tier
small (3 × 16 B) 1.27 ms 0.16 ms 0.21 ms
small (100 × 16 B) 3.43 ms 0.40 ms 1.99 ms
medium (1000) 23.24 ms 2.77 ms CLIFF
med (10k) 218.82 ms CLIFF CLIFF
huge (50k) 1,099 ms CLIFF CLIFF
huge (100k) 2,219 ms CLIFF CLIFF
huge (1M) 23,811 ms CLIFF CLIFF
asm tier at 0.21 ms beats Python by 6× at smallest workload,
matches C at the bottom (~30% slower). asm cliffs at 1000;
C tier cliffs at 10k. Both cliffs are reader/buffer limits
inside the tier, not network or kernel. CUDA kernel itself
finishes 1M × 16B in ~47 ms — three orders of magnitude under
any tier's wire cost at huge scale.
bench_tiers.py made cliff-resilient: respawns worker on per-
workload failure & continues, so the full row prints for every
tier instead of bailing on first cliff.
www/index.html: full 3-column table + honest framing of when
each tier earns its slot.
When heap_alloc walks off the end of a chunk with < 16 tail bytes,
.ha_grow_no_pad skips padding and mmaps a fresh chunk — but
gc_chunk_end[N] for the abandoned chunk stayed at its full mmap
end while %r15 (high-water) sat 1..15 bytes short. The gap held
mmap-zeros that gc_sweep's .gsw_walk decoded as fake dead blocks
(header == 0, payload size == 0, mark == 0). The walker stepped
through the zeros 8 bytes at a time, and on the iteration where
%rbx == chunk_end - 8 the .gsw_dead path stored the free-list
next-pointer to 0x8(%rbx) == chunk_end — the first byte of an
unmapped page — and segfaulted with error 7.
Reproducer (inside QEMU guest, was crashing all three asm
binaries):
lumbda-full tests/unit/test-mod-solinas.lsp
→ segfault at <ptr ending 000> ip:4017d9
(.gsw_dead: mov %rdx, 0x8(%rbx))
Fix: at .ha_grow_no_pad, snapshot %r15 into gc_chunk_end[N] before
allocating the new chunk. In the padded path above the label this
is a no-op (r15 already == r13). In the un-padded path it pins
the walk bound to the high-water mark so the sweep never enters
the gap.
After fix, on lumbda-full inside the ecdsa QEMU guest:
- ecdsa test-mod-solinas: 39/39 PASS (Solinas vs Litinski
byte-equal at p ∈ {11, 13, 251})
- upstream asm test.sh: 158/158 PASS
Discovered while diagnosing ecdsa task #45.
Reader's .sr_string used a fixed 256-byte stack buffer with no
bounds check. Strings longer than ~272 bytes (256 + saved
registers) corrupted the saved return address and produced a
general protection fault on ret.
Reproducer:
(display (string-length "AAAA...")) ; > 272 A's → #GP at .sr_string ret
Fix:
- bump stack buffer 256 → 4096 (one page)
- add bounds check (cmpq $4080) before every char write
- on overflow exit cleanly via new die_str_overflow rather than
smashing %rip
Discovered while diagnosing ecdsa task #34: lumbda asm tier
crashed when loading ecdsa/lumbda/mod-arith.lsp because one
mod-mul! docstring is 955 bytes. Post-fix, mod-arith.lsp loads
clean and ecdsa test-mod-arith.lsp passes 33/33 on asm-full;
upstream asm test.sh stays 158/158.
Closes the last asm-tier gap for hosting bend workers:
(read-line port) → string or #f
Reads bytes one at a time from the port's fd until '\n' or EOF.
Strips the trailing newline. Returns #f when no bytes were
available (peer closed / pipe drained).
Verified end-to-end on 3090-ai:
λ> (define p (spawn-process-stdio "./shake256-fanout" (quote (--daemon))))
λ> (display (read-line (cdr p))) (newline)
ready
λ> (display "quit\n" (car p))
λ> (flush-port (car p))
λ> (display (read-line (cdr p))) (newline)
bye
asm tier can now spawn, write, flush, read line — the full
subprocess capability gpu-worker.lsp's daemon pool needs.
Implementation:
- Stack scratch buffer: 4096 bytes via %rbp (heap-safe; %r15 is
lumbda's heap pointer, do not touch)
- One-byte-at-a-time SYS_READ via fd from decode_port
- Max line: 4094 bytes (fits the daemon protocol — "ready",
"done /path", "bye" all under 100)
- heap_alloc(8 + len) + length header + byte copy + TAG_STRING
matches the Python/C tier string format byte-for-byte
- GC_NAIVE path stamps HT_STRING header for the GC pass
BI_READLINE = 123; GC_* renumbered to 124..128; BI_COUNT = 129
(GC_NAIVE) / 124. bn_readline added to symbol table + name array.
Remaining asm-tier gaps for full gpu-worker.lsp hosting:
- *argv* binding (used to parse --port)
- define-syntax + syntax-rules (used by bend.lsp macros — handled
by splitting bend-macros.lsp out in a prior commit)
- error builtin (also handled by portable bend-error wrapper)
Per-tier matrix:
Python tier ✓ macro + function client; full worker host
C tier ✓ macro + function client; full worker host
asm tier ✓ function client; subprocess primitives complete;
gpu-worker.lsp needs *argv* + a few other helpers
before pure-asm hosting is fully working
ecdsa cross-tier validation on lumbda-gc and bump-only lumbda blocked
on `case` being unbound. R7RS standard control form — present on
Python (lumbda.py) and C (c/) tiers, but on asm reachable only via
cl_full_prelude's define-macro form (carved into lumbda-full only).
Mirrors commit 865be28 (when/unless via Path B dispatch table).
Path B (special-form dispatch table extension):
- sf_case length-prefixed symbol name
- sym_case_val interned at init_special_forms
- dispatch case in .eval_top alongside .ev_when / .ev_unless
(placed before the .ifdef CL_FULL macro-lookup block so the
dispatch shadow takes precedence over the cl_full_prelude macro
on lumbda-full — no conflict, the macro just becomes dead code)
- .ev_case evaluator: eval key once, push on stack, walk clauses;
each clause's datum list compared by pointer equality (eqv? on
the asm tier — fixnums, symbols, booleans, characters, nil are
all interned/unboxed to unique values). `else` matches uncondi-
tionally. Match → .ev_begin (TCO). No match → .ev_begin_void.
Available on every asm tier (plain `lumbda`, `lumbda-gc`,
`lumbda-full`). Binary size impact:
lumbda 60768 → 61040 (+272, +0.45%)
lumbda-gc 69496 → 69768 (+272, +0.39%)
lumbda-full 72000 → 72264 (+264, +0.37%)
All 158 asm tests still pass. Sanity tests: single-datum, multi-datum,
symbol key (eqv?), else, empty body, no-match, nested case — all
correct on all three tiers.
ecdsa search.lsp now produces byte-identical winner (v3-clifford-only
score 0) across five tiers: Python, C, asm-bump, asm-gc, asm-full.
ecdsa cross-tier validation blocked on `when` and `unless` being
unbound on the asm tier. R7RS standard control forms — present on
Python (lumbda.py) and C (c/) tiers, but absent on asm because the
existing macro facility (define-macro) only ships under CL_FULL.
Path B chosen (special-form dispatch table extension):
- sf_when / sf_unless length-prefixed symbol names
- sym_when_val / sym_unless_val interned at init_special_forms
- dispatch cases in .eval_top alongside .ev_and / .ev_or
- .ev_when / .ev_unless evaluators reuse .ev_begin for the body
branch and .ev_begin_void for the skip branch (TCO preserved)
Available on every asm tier (plain `lumbda`, `lumbda-gc`,
`lumbda-full`). Binary size impact:
lumbda 60488 → 60768 (+280, +0.46%)
lumbda-gc 69224 → 69496 (+272, +0.39%)
lumbda-full 71720 → 72000 (+280, +0.39%)
All 158 asm tests still pass. Tested truthy/falsy/multi-form bodies
on all three tiers. ecdsa search.lsp now runs on asm-full with output
byte-identical to Python tier (v3-clifford-only winner, score 0).
Note: ecdsa search.lsp also depends on `case`, which is only present
under CL_FULL (carved into cl_full_prelude as a define-macro form).
That gap blocks lumbda-gc cross-tier validation and is out of scope
for this commit.
Two coupled defects surfaced during ecdsa cross-tier validation against
the asm tier.
Defect #28 — _start ignored argv. Invoking `asm/lumbda-gc file.lsp`
silently discarded argv[1] and dropped into a REPL that blocked on a
pty when run under SSH. Walk argc/argv after init_builtins + prelude
load and before repl_top: for each argv[i] starting at i=1, skip
arg if it begins with '-' (flag stub), otherwise allocate a Scheme
string from the C string, wrap in a 1-element arg list, dispatch
through apply_proc_raw on the BI_LOAD builtin. If any non-flag arg
ran, jump to repl_exit instead of entering the REPL. Mirrors the
c/main.c script-mode semantics. The RET_VAL macro on the builtin
return path pops r12/rbp/rbx in an order that corrupts %rbp (it
restores the pre-call %r12 into rbp), so the loop counter saves
%rbp around the apply_proc_raw call.
Defect #30 — eq? was only present under CL_FULL. The plain `lumbda`
and `lumbda-gc` binaries shipped without the alias `(define eq? eqv?)`,
so any .lsp expecting eq? (every cross-tier file we own) hit
"unbound variable: eq?" the moment it tried a status check. Lift
that single alias into a new always-on `default_prelude` block with
its own `load_default_prelude` loader (modelled after
load_cl_full_prelude), and call it unconditionally from _start
between rng_seed and the CL_FULL block.
Verification:
- `make asm-build` clean
- `make asm-test`: 158 passed, 0 failed (full suite green)
- `(eq? 1 1)` -> #t on all three tiers via stdin pipe AND file arg
- `~/git/lumbda/asm/lumbda-gc /tmp/asm-test.lsp` exits 0 with #t printed
Closes the remaining asm-side gaps from ticket 0005's follow-up
discussion. Every test in tests/cl-compat.lsp and tests/ursa.lsp
now runs unmodified on default asm (Scheme port) and asm-full (full
CL path) — no more commented-out tests or shim syntax.
Landed (all in default asm — useful beyond cl-compat):
* (values . xs) / (call-with-values producer consumer). values
packs a tagged pair (mval_marker . xs) when multiple; a lone arg
passes through unchanged so legacy single-value code is
undisturbed. call-with-values invokes the producer, destructures
the multi-value packet if present, applies consumer positionally.
The marker is a gensymed symbol interned once at init, so no
user-constructed pair can masquerade as a multi-value packet.
* (exit [code]) builtin. Default code is 0 when called with no
args. Passes through to the SYS_EXIT syscall.
* #(...) vector literal in the reader. .sr_hash now dispatches on
'(' as a vector literal alongside 't' and 'f'. list_to_vector_
reader is a standalone helper callable from the reader (separate
from bi_listtovec which uses the GETARG builtin convention).
Matches R7RS vector literal syntax. Existing vector builtins
already handled construction; this just teaches the reader.
* deep_equal extended to vectors. equal? now descends into vectors
(length + elementwise recursive compare), matching R7RS.
Previously only strings and pairs were handled; vectors fell
through to shallow pointer compare which only matched identical
heap objects.
Test file reverts (picking up the new capabilities):
* tests/cl-compat.lsp — multiple-value-bind test restored
(previously commented out because asm lacked values /
call-with-values).
* tests/ursa-scheme.lsp — #(1 0 1 0 1 0) literal restored
(previously worked around with (vector->list (digits ...)));
(exit 1) failure trailer restored (previously removed because
asm had no exit builtin).
* tests/ursa.lsp — same digits literal restoration.
Verified:
* asm regression: 158/158.
* asm-full regression: 158/158.
* Zoë-favorites across Python + C + asm + asm-full: all suites
green with native reader syntax and multi-value tests.
* make test-all stays green.
Four fixes that turn the asm-full infrastructure from "loads cl-compat
but crashes on cl-loop-emit output" into "runs Zoë Trout's full CL
test suite (18/19) end-to-end." Zoë's original `examples/ursa.lisp.txt`
now produces matching answers to the Python and C tiers on asm-full.
1. asm/lumbda.s bi_apply — second arg was being clobbered. The
previous impl did `GETARG %rbx; GETARG %rdi; movq %rbx, %rdi;
... movq %r12, %rsi` — so the args-list got overwritten by the
proc, and %r12 (empty after two GETARGs) became the arg list
instead. `(apply f '(1 2 3))` silently reduced to `(f)`. Fix:
`GETARG %rbx; GETARG %rsi; movq %rbx, %rdi; call apply_proc_raw`.
2. asm/lumbda.s bi_expt — decrements rcx by 1 until zero. Negative
exponents looped forever. cl-loop's look-ahead termination stages
step values in a let* BEFORE the terminate check, so a range that
ends at 0 ends up evaluating `(expt 2 -1)` on the last step. Fix:
guard negative exponents, return 0. asm is integer-only; returning
a rational would need a new type. Zero truncates the out-of-range
iter's contribution, which the look-ahead termination discards
anyway — the result is correct.
3. asm/lumbda.s GC roots — macro_env_head was not marked. Under
GC_NAIVE (which CL_FULL implies), any collection during a macro-
heavy workload (like miller-rabin's expanding cl-loops) reclaimed
the macro table nodes. Next use failed with "unbound variable:
cl-when" or similar. Fix: mark macro_env_head alongside the
global env (same 24-byte (sym, val, next) shape as env nodes, so
gc_mark_env handles it). Guarded .ifdef CL_FULL.
4. asm/lumbda.s prelude — added `cadar` (used by
cl-loop-finalizer-expr). The previous omission triggered an
"unbound variable: cadar" in any cl-loop with a `finally (return
X)` finalizer.
5. cl-compat.lsp — two new helpers routed around asm's reduced
list-processing builtins:
* `cl-append` for n-list concatenation. asm's builtin `append`
is 2-arg only; cl-loop-emit appends five spec groups
(range + then + simple + across + counter). Reducing with
2-arg append works on every tier.
* `cl-zip` for parallel 2-list zip (already in earlier commit,
mentioned here for completeness — asm's `map` is single-list
only).
Verification on asm/lumbda-full:
* /tmp/ursa-load-test.lsp — 18/19 pass (the one remaining fail
is a random-state expectation, not an asm bug).
* (primep 97) → 97
* (primep 100) → #f
* (lucas-lehmer-primep 13) → #t (M₁₃ = 8191, prime)
* (lucas-lehmer-primep 11) → #f (M₁₁ = 2047 = 23·89)
* (of-n-bits 8) → random integer in [128, 256) with top bit set
* (prime-of-n-bits 8) → random 8-bit prime
make test-all stays green. All three asm variants still 158/158 on
their local test suites. asm's minimal footprint preserved — every
new line above is under .ifdef CL_FULL except the expt/apply fixes,
which are general correctness improvements independent of CL.
Third asm variant — built with CL_FULL=1 GC_NAIVE=1 via new Makefile
target. Adds the macro machinery needed for cl-compat.lsp on the asm
tier, keeping every addition behind .ifdef CL_FULL so the default
(~22 KB) and -gc binaries keep their current footprint.
Landed in this drop:
* Reader: backtrack on digit-prefixed symbols. After reading digit
characters, if the next char is not a delimiter, input_pos
rewinds and control falls through to .sr_symbol. Makes 1+, 1-,
add1, abc123, and any CL-style identifier with a numeric prefix
parse as symbols instead of truncating to a bare integer.
* Reader: `` ` `` / `,` / `,@` produce (quasiquote X) / (unquote X)
/ (unquote-splicing X) forms. Same build shape as the existing
`'` quote branch.
* Evaluator: .ev_quasiquote + quasiquote_expand walk the template.
unquote evaluates its argument in the current env; unquote-
splicing evaluates then splices via a new list_append_ab helper;
other pairs recurse (cons expand-car expand-cdr). Atoms pass
through. No nested quasiquote depth (deliberate; ticket 0005
scope).
* Evaluator: .ev_define_macro + macro_env_head linked list. Each
(define-macro (name p...) body) prepends a 24-byte
(sym, closure, next) node. Dispatch in eval checks macro_lookup
after all special-form compares; on hit, the closure is applied
to the *unevaluated* argument list and the expansion re-enters
.eval_top under TCO.
* Binding: rest-arg support extended to .apr_bind inside
apply_proc_raw. Previously only .ac_bind (direct .app_closure
path) handled `(lambda (a . b) ...)` correctly; macros call
closures through apply_proc_raw, so this was required to make
variadic defun/setf macros bind correctly.
* Builtin: (gensym) — writes "g%d" for an in-BSS counter, length-
prefixes the buffer, calls intern_static. Available in every
variant (not CL_FULL-gated — useful outside macros too).
* Builtin: (cadr x), (sort lst) and the let* special form from
earlier commit stay in default asm. These are Scheme staples.
* Prelude: evaluated at _start after init_builtins / rng_seed,
before the REPL. Embedded string, input state saved + restored
around the load. Defines caar, cdar, caddr, cadddr, cddr,
cdddr, cddddr, 1+, 1-, add1, sub1, square, eq? (= eqv? for
interned symbols), memq, list-ref, assq, and `case` as a macro.
cl-compat.lsp: two small changes to work under asm's single-list
`map`:
* Added cl-zip helper. Replaced two `(map (lambda (v n) (list v n))
xs ys)` sites with `(cl-zip xs ys)` — asm's builtin map accepts
only one list, and cl-loop-emit needs a parallel walk over
state-vars and new-names.
* Added explanatory comment for cddddr at the top of the shim
(already shipped).
Tests:
* make asm-test (lumbda) — 158/158 pass.
* make asm-test-gc — 158/158 pass.
* make asm-test-full — 158/158 pass on synchronous run.
* Zoë's `examples/ursa.lisp.txt` LOADS on asm/lumbda-full.
`(expt-mod 3 7 100)` = 87.
Most simple cl-loop forms work (while + do + finally, range-to,
then-accumulator).
Known open issues documented in docs/tickets/0005-asm-cl-full.md:
* cl-loop-emit produces wrong output for inputs with `simple` iters
(`(simple a 5)` → state binding dropped). Python/C return the
correct form; asm version is missing the binding. Bug surfaces
in the emit's 30+ binding let*; could not pin down in this
session. Downstream effect: `(miller-rabin n)` and similar
defuns that depend on `cl-loop repeat k for a = ... unless ...
return nil` don't produce usable expansions, so Zoë's acceptance
suite does not run end-to-end on asm/lumbda-full yet.
* examples/ursa-scheme.lsp — `factor` crashes on asm under some
random seeds (bump-allocator exhaustion on long rhoff retry
chains). Out of CL_FULL scope; tracked in same ticket.
Next steps live in ticket 0005. This commit ships the infrastructure
so the remaining work is a debugging exercise against a reproducible
minimal case, not a feature build.
Phase 1 of the asm/lumbda-full roadmap (ticket 0005, in-flight). Adds
the minimum-cost set of additions that lets examples/ursa-scheme.lsp —
the idiomatic Scheme port of ursa.lisp.txt — load and produce correct
results on the asm tier. No CL shim yet: that requires quasiquote,
define-macro, and case, all of which are Phase 2 / 0005.
Added:
* Rest-args in lambda — (define (f x . rest) ...). .ac_bind now
detects when the remaining param list is a raw symbol (TAG_SYM)
and binds it to the remaining arg list. Enables variadic defuns.
* cadr builtin — (car (cdr x)) fast path. Used by Zoë's
repunit-value and any CL-adjacent code.
* sort builtin — ascending insertion sort on a tagged-int list.
Non-destructive. Matches Python/C sort contract (default numeric
ordering). Implementation ~50 lines, recursive sort + insert
helpers.
* let* special form — sequential binding where each init sees the
preceding bindings' values. Fresh sf_let_star + sym_let_star_val
+ .ev_let_star branch that's a one-line variant of .ev_let (eval
init in the extended env rather than the original). TCO preserved.
Tests: 9 new asm assertions in asm/test.sh covering cadr, sort (empty
/ singleton / unsorted / already-sorted), let* (basic + sequential),
rest-args (tail-only + rest-only). Total asm suite now 158 passing.
Known limitation: the Scheme port's factor / rho depends on random
rhoff iteration. For some seeds on asm (e.g. seed=2, factor 91) the
process runs out of virtual memory before rho finds a factor. The
underlying math is correct — this is an asm heap-bump-allocator
behavior under long random-retry chains and will be addressed along
with the CL_FULL work in ticket 0005. Python and C paths unaffected.
make test-all stays green across every tier.
Ticket 0002 — reads 8 bytes from /dev/urandom (little-endian u64) and
seeds xoshiro256**. Opt-in kernel entropy for stochastic runs; the
default stays deterministic (k=0 at startup), so ticket 0001's
portal-reproducibility contract is unchanged.
Real-world flow now one call away:
Machine A: (random-seed-from-os!) + run simulation + portal-save
Machine B: portal-resume — same stream, bit-for-bit
All three impls fail loud on /dev/urandom trouble (LispErr in Python
and C, stderr + exit(1) in asm) — no silent fallback to a weak seed.
Tests:
- tests/functional.lsp: 2 new shared asserts (entropic + replay)
- asm/test.sh: 2 new asm-local checks (149 total, was 147)
- make test-all green across Python (205), C (205), asm (149)
Whitepaper §7.5 gains one sentence noting the OS-seed path.
unmoad: zero new findings in added code.
Completes ticket 0001 started in 27f468c. All three impls now carry
bit-identical xoshiro256**; portal state round-trips across process
boundaries in every producer x consumer cell (Python <-> C <-> asm).
asm impl:
- 4 new builtins: random-seed!, random-int, random-state, random-state!
- g_rng_state in BSS (4 x u64); rng_splitmix64_step, rng_seed, rng_next
- Binary portal header bumped LUMBDAB1/48 -> LUMBDAB2/80; carries
32 bytes of rng state at offsets 40..64, reserved moved to 72
- No float support in asm, so (random) intentionally omitted there
- _start seeds with 0 so the stream is deterministic from startup
Python + C (supplements 27f468c):
- rng_seed(0) auto-invoked at module load / register_portal_builtins
so (random) without explicit (random-seed!) returns a real value
instead of the all-zero xoshiro fixed point
Tests:
- tests/functional.lsp: 7 new shared assertions (Python + C)
- asm/test.sh: 5 new asm-local assertions (142 -> 147)
- tests/portal-rng-save.lsp / portal-rng-load.lsp: portable S-expression
portal that captures both state AND next-5 baseline so loader self-
verifies without a separate harness
- tests/portal-cross-test.sh: 9 new producer x consumer RNG cells; all
18 cells pass end-to-end
Verified: seed=42, (random-int 1000000) draws 1..10 =
558742 543102 559009 124193 317476 750584 200754 814407 344958 929085
identical in Python, C, and asm.
unmoad scan: zero new findings in added code.
asm-gc gains (tcp-sendfile socket path) → builtin (90 lines) that issues
SYS_SENDFILE(40) in a loop, streaming a file from fd → socket with no bounce
through the Lumbda heap. Zero-copy kernel path for large responses.
examples/http-static-server-sendfile.lsp (hybrid): small assets
(≤ 16 KB) stay inline-cached as full HTTP responses; large assets cache
only headers and stream the body via tcp-sendfile. 4-way race on
i5-8350U, 100 PDF requests (2.56 MiB), concurrency 8:
uncached 159 req/s 406 MiB/s 15.5 MB RSS
cached 238 req/s 603 MiB/s 7.2 MB RSS
sendfile 480 req/s 1226 MiB/s 4.2 MB RSS
caddy 485 req/s 1238 MiB/s 37.1 MB RSS
sendfile lands within 2% of caddy on throughput with 9x less peak RSS in
a 27 KB binary vs caddy's 38 MB (1400x smaller).
examples/http-static-server-adaptive.lsp (learning preload): per-URL hit
counter persisted to www.hits every N requests. At boot, ranks and
preloads top *cache-max* URLs from the prior run's data (cold-start
falls back to a seed list). Cold requests beyond the seed promote on
first hit. Drops heap-restore arena pattern since the server mutates
persistent state every request; relies on GC build's mark-sweep.
tests/bench-www-race.sh: adds sendfile variant on port 8083, auto-sizes
PDF byte count from the on-disk whitepaper so a whitepaper rebuild
doesn't desync the MiB/s calc.
Whitepaper §11.7 "Static File Serving: Cache, Sendfile, and Adaptive
Preload" documents the four variants, benchmark table, and the
arena-vs-mutation tradeoff. §13 Future Work adds DAG-of-hot-paths
predictive preload as the direction for > 1000-resource deployments
where frequency-only ranking is too narrow.
Ships examples/http-static-server.lsp — ~65 lines of portable Scheme
that reads files from a docroot (default ./www) and serves them over
HTTP/1.0 with MIME dispatch, path-traversal rejection, heap-snapshot
per request. Runs in any tier; target deployment is asm-gc for the
27 KB stripped binary + bounded memory backstop.
Required one asm fix first: heap_grow was mmap'ing fixed HEAP_SIZE
chunks, so any single allocation larger than a chunk (notably the
2.67 MB whitepaper PDF read via file->string) loop-looped through
.ha_overflow forever. Now heap_grow rounds required bytes up to
HEAP_SIZE multiples on oversize alloc, so a big request carves its
own big chunk in one go. Small allocs still land in standard-sized
chunks.
Two new benches:
tests/bench-lumbda-www.sh — drive N small + M large requests against
asm-gc, verify PDF round-trip, sample peak RSS. At 1000/100: 331 req/s
small, 120 req/s large (304 MiB/s), peak 15.5 MB.
tests/bench-www-race.sh — adjacent A/B vs caddy v2.5.1 on the same
docroot. Numbers on this laptop, concurrency 8, 2000 small + 200 large:
small req/s PDF req/s PDF MiB/s peak RSS binary
lumbda-www (asm-gc) 375 137 349 7–16 MB 27 KB
caddy file-server 358 231 588 38 MB 38 MB
Reading: lumbda edges caddy on small files (less per-request overhead),
caddy wins 1.7x on large files (sendfile zero-copy; we allocate the
whole file into a string and write it with one syscall). Both byte-
identical on the PDF. Memory: lumbda 2.5-5x less at steady state.
Binary size: 1400x smaller (27 KB vs 38 MB).
Feature gap: caddy has HTTPS, HTTP/2, range, middleware, etc. lumbda
has none of that yet — but for the specific job of serving lumbda.com's
six-file docroot it is viable right now.
Makefile adds `bench-lumbda-www` and `bench-www-race` targets.
137 asm no-GC + 137 asm GC tests still pass.
Historical internal name "uncommonlisp" retired in favor of the
public name "lumbda" ahead of lumbda.com going live. Scope of
this commit:
Source files renamed:
uncommonlisp.py -> lumbda.py
asm/uncommonlisp.s -> asm/lumbda.s
c/uncommonlisp.h -> c/lumbda.h
whitepaper/uncommonlisp-whitepaper -> whitepaper/lumbda-whitepaper (.rst + .pdf)
Binaries renamed (tracked ones; c/ was always gitignored):
asm/uncommonlisp, asm/uncommonlisp-gc, asm/uncommonlisp.o,
asm/uncommonlisp-gc.o -> asm/lumbda(-gc)(.o)
c/.gitignore -> ignores lumbda
Internal string updates (sed pass ordered longest-first):
asm/uncommonlisp -> asm/lumbda
c/uncommonlisp -> c/lumbda
uncommonlisp.py -> lumbda.py
UNCOMMONLISP_BIN -> LUMBDA_BIN (asm/test.sh env var)
"uncommonlisp> " -> "lumbda> " (asm REPL prompt baked into binary)
UNCOMMONLISP -> LUMBDA (macros, comments)
uncommonlisp -> lumbda (prose)
Binary portal magic updated:
"ULPORTAL" -> "LUMBDAB1" # "Lumbda Binary v1"
Old portal files are not backward-compatible — this is a deliberate
break since it's the rename moment. S-expression portals already
carry their own ";; lumbda-portal v1" header and remain cleanly
versioned.
WHITEPAPER.pdf / WHITEPAPER.rst symlinks repointed to the renamed
files. Makefile's whitepaper target targets lumbda-whitepaper.pdf.
Not changed (intentional, separate phases):
- Filesystem directory /home/fox/git/uncommonlisp itself
(fox renames locally and the gitlab repo URL in a follow-up)
- tests.py hardcoded cwd=/home/fox/git/uncommonlisp
(matches the current on-disk location; will flip when the
directory rename ships)
- Git history (immutable; old commits still say uncommonlisp,
which is correct — that's what they were)
Verified:
137 asm no-GC + 137 asm GC + 571 Python + 83 C + 189 shared
functional tests all pass under the new names.
bench-gc-http (2000 req): all 4 cells behave as expected
(cells 1/2 flat, 3 leaks, 4 bounded at 1 chunk).
Python REPL, C REPL, asm REPL all start cleanly.
GC-build portal files now start with ";; lumbda-portal v1\n". The
line is a Scheme comment the reader already skips, so loading a
v1 file via bi_load works unchanged. What's new is that
portal-resume actively validates the header before delegating to
bi_load:
file starts with ";; lumbda-portal v1\n" -> load normally
file starts with ";;" but different text -> return #f (rejected)
file does not start with ";;" at all -> load as legacy (back-compat)
The check reads the first 32 bytes of the file, compares the
first two bytes against ";;", and on match compares the full
20-byte v1 prefix. Closes the versioning-friction concern a SEW
reviewer raised after reading §7.4.1: we can now add a v2 format
with new syntax (complex numbers, records, whatever) without
older consumers silently parsing new files into garbage — they
will cleanly return #f.
Verified:
v1 portal -> resume loads all bindings, returns #<void>
v2 portal -> resume returns #f without evaluating any forms
legacy portal (no ;; header) -> resume loads normally
missing file -> resume returns #f
The deeper framing worth writing down: this is a migration format
for handoff across process / tier / machine, not an archive format.
If archival becomes a real use case it earns its own format with
proper schema evolution and a builtin-rename table. The v1 tag is
the minimum hook that lets v2 happen cleanly when someone needs it.
137 asm no-GC + 137 asm GC still pass. §6.6.4 HTTP cells still
green at 10K: GC + no-snapshot at 543 req/s, peak 1.1 MB, 972 KB
growth (one chunk, steady state).
Root-cause fix for the residual crashes I had documented as known
issues in §6.6.4. Every heap_alloc call site was setting its type
byte with `orq $(HT_X << 8), -8(%rax)` — but OR merges with the
stale type byte from a free-list-reused block. A pair previously
used as a vector (type 5 = 0b101) re-allocated as pair (type 1 =
0b001) ends up with merged type 0b101 = still vector. Walker then
treats the pair as a vector, reads the pair's car as a "length",
and walks off the block end — hence the hash-set bench's "unbound
variable: t", memory bench's "unbound variable: lst", arena bench's
"unbound variable: k".
Fix: overwrite the byte instead of OR-ing. 18 sites converted from
`orq $(HT_X << 8), -8(%rax)` to `movb $HT_X, -7(%rax)`. Every
previously-residual crash gone on first rerun.
Refreshed benchmark numbers throughout §6.6:
§6.6 Memory table: 122× less memory at 26% slowdown (was 124×,
30%). Range shifted because the fix also accelerated the common
paths; ratio stable.
§6.6.4 HTTP soak at 50,000 requests × 16 concurrent × 4 cells:
no-GC + snapshot 630 req/s peak 100 KB growth 4 KB
GC + snapshot 633 req/s peak 120 KB growth 4 KB
no-GC + no snapshot 625 req/s peak 458 MB OOM at cap
GC + no snapshot 610 req/s peak 1,092 KB growth 852 KB
Cell 4 now sustains 50K requests with steady-state 1-chunk memory.
Previous residual edge at 50K (cell 4 failing to start) was a
manifestation of the same type-byte bug, now gone.
§6.6.3 Adaptive numbers collapsed to within ~1% across all three
workloads (was 6% / 7% / 17% deltas). Paper updated to honestly
report adaptive as a null experiment on these shapes — neutral
cost, same stats surface, default on.
§6.6 diagram: bench-gc.png refreshed to match new numbers.
137 asm no-GC + 137 asm GC + 189 shared functional all pass.
Hash-set / memory / arena / adaptive / HTTP benches all clean.
Binary heap dump can't work under GC because the heap is a linked
chunk list with typed block headers and a free list. Raw-byte
serialization would lose structure. Rather than invent portal v2
with chunk tables and pointer relocation, the GC build uses the
S-expression format that already works across all other tiers:
# bi_portal_save in GC build:
walk %r14 (env chain); for each non-builtin, non-closure binding,
emit `(define <sym> (quote <val>))` to the opened file via
scheme_print with output_fd redirected to that fd.
# bi_portal_resume in GC build:
jmp bi_load — read every form from the file, eval each in %r14.
The quote wrapper makes data values round-trip cleanly: lists,
vectors, strings, symbols, numbers, pairs all re-read as literals.
Closures and builtins are explicitly skipped — closures can't
faithfully re-read from their printed form; builtins reconstruct
from the target's prelude. Same treatment the JSON portal gives.
The no-GC build keeps the binary portal format unchanged (wrapped
in .ifndef GC_NAIVE). Users get the fast format on the fast build,
the portable format on the safe build. Same API, different wire
format by build.
Cross-tier verified: GC-asm producer -> Python consumer passes
with `x=42`, `nums=(1 2 3 4 5)`. The §7.2 cross-impl matrix
expands from 9 to 16 cells, all green.
Whitepaper §7.4 now notes it's the no-GC format; new §7.4.1
documents the GC build's S-expression portal with the trade-off
(slower than binary dump, stricter about what round-trips, but no
architecture constraint and no "same binary" requirement).
137 asm no-GC + 137 asm GC + 189 shared functional tests pass.
All four HTTP cells from §6.6.4 still bounded under sustained
load (GC + no-snapshot at ~630 req/s peak, 1.1 MB steady state).
Replaces header format from [size:63 | mark:1] with
[size:48 | type:8 | flags:8 (mark in bit 0)]. Every heap_alloc
call site in the GC build now sets its type byte via one extra
`orq $(HT_X << 8), -8(%rax)` after return. Ten types defined:
HT_PAIR, HT_CLOSURE, HT_STRING, HT_SYMBOL, HT_VECTOR,
HT_HASHTABLE, HT_HASHSET, HT_ENVNODE, HT_CHAINNODE, HT_PADDING.
The mark / sweep / arena-escape walkers now dispatch on the
type byte instead of heuristically guessing from block size.
Deletes the special-case "negative sentinel at offset 0" branch
in gc_mark_drain (hash-table vs hash-set vs vector discrimination
was encoded there), the "size == 24 and TAG_SYM at offset 0"
check in gc_mark_env, and the "length fits block" sanity check
in the vector walker. All that logic collapses into a single
compare on the type byte.
Also routed the remaining direct-%r15-bump allocators
(bi_strref, bi_vector, bi_makevec, bi_listtovec, bi_substr)
through heap_alloc so they get proper headers + type bytes.
These had been silently broken under the GC build because they
bypassed the header-emitting path entirely; any direct-bump'd
data appeared to the sweep walker as garbage headers.
§6.6.4 cell 4 (asm GC + no snapshot) was crashing at first GC
before this change. After: serves 5,000 HTTP requests at ~410
req/s, peak RSS 1,088 KB (one chunk), growth 972 KB — the
collector hit its natural steady state. First time we've
validated "naive GC as replacement for snapshot discipline"
under real traffic.
New §6.6.5 "Precise Block Typing" in the whitepaper documents
the old heuristic bugs, the new header format, and the cost
(one orq per alloc, 16 header bits) vs benefit (class of bugs
eliminated). Updated §6.6.4 to reflect cell 4 passing.
Remaining known issue: the hash-set bench on the GC build under
very heavy sustained allocation still surfaces an occasional
unbound-variable error. The precise-type fix addressed the
observed HTTP crash; a deeper root-scan edge case remains.
Tracked for Fix 2 work.
137 asm no-GC + 137 asm GC + 189 shared functional tests all
pass.
Moves the meta-GC from greedy (always verify) to adaptive: track a
scaled EMA of recent escape rate; when rate exceeds 50% (128/256),
SKIP the verifier and let the heap grow until natural GC; every 16
skipped arenas, force a verify as a probe to re-sample the rate.
Two correctness fixes uncovered while testing adaptive:
1. gc_mark_env was picking up 24-byte strings and closures as if
they were env nodes (size check alone is ambiguous). Now also
requires offset 0 to be tagged TAG_SYM, which env nodes always
are and strings/closures never are.
2. gc_mark_drain's vector/hash-table dispatch walked `length`
elements without sanity-checking that `8 + length*8` fits in
the block. A 25-char string (40-byte payload) misinterpreted as
a 25-element vector walked 200 bytes off the end, reading
adjacent blocks' bytes as tagged roots and setting mark bits on
wrong things. Both paths now validate the header's payload-size
against the claimed length / nbuckets before walking.
New builtin:
(arena-set-mode 0|1) — 0 = greedy baseline, 1 = adaptive (default)
arena-stats extended to six fields:
(calls resets escapes skipped bytes-reclaimed ema-rate)
Bench (tests/bench-gc-adaptive.sh, one process per phase to isolate
a separate latent cross-phase bug we haven't cracked, N=1000 per
phase, i5-8350U):
workload mode time_ms resets escapes skipped
friendly greedy 732 1000 0 0
friendly adapt 691 1000 0 0
hostile greedy 568 0 1000 0
hostile adapt 607 0 1000 11
mixed greedy 1981 17 1983 0
mixed adapt 1694 14 1986 2
Adaptive wins on friendly (-6%) and mixed (-17%). On fully hostile
workloads both modes are dominated by implicit full-GC firings
(982/1000 arenas trigger heap overflow that clears arena_active
before reaching the policy), so adaptive barely activates and
greedy happens to edge out by ~7%. The mixed result is the clear
adaptive win — and the one that matches the pattern the policy was
designed for: probe-and-adapt as the workload shifts.
137 asm (no-GC) + 137 asm (GC) + 189 shared functional tests all
still pass.
Adds (with-arena thunk) as the O(1) bulk-reclaim fast path on top
of the existing naive mark-sweep. The meta-GC:
1. Snapshots %r15 at arena entry.
2. Sets arena_active=1 so heap_alloc bypasses the free list
during the arena body (keeps the chain pristine for restore).
3. Invokes the thunk via apply_proc_raw.
4. Zeros volatile registers after apply_proc_raw returns, so the
conservative stack scan in verify doesn't see stale tagged
pointers that apply_proc_raw left behind (they'd otherwise
look like live roots pointing into the arena — false escape).
5. If an implicit GC fired during the thunk (heap overflow
cleared arena_active), skips the reset — snapshot is stale.
6. Otherwise runs the existing mark phase plus the thunk's
return value as an extra root, then walks [snap_r15, %r15)
by block headers checking for any marked block. None marked
-> bulk-reset %r15 to snapshot (O(1) reclaim of the whole
arena range). Any marked -> escape, fall through to naive
sweep on the full range.
Two new GC-build builtins:
(with-arena thunk) -> thunk's return value
(arena-stats) -> (calls resets escapes bytes-reclaimed)
Meta-GC benchmark (tests/bench-gc-arena.sh, i5-8350U, 2000 iters
of build-sum-discard over 200-element lists):
Phase A (naive sweep only):
time=932ms gc-collections=200 arena=unused
Phase B (arena-wrapped, same workload):
time=945ms gc-collections=1 arena=(2000 2000 0 205_392_000)
Arena reset rate on this truly-transient workload: 2000/2000 =
100%. Bytes reclaimed via O(1) bulk: 205 MB across the run with
only 1 full mark-sweep firing (for the initial global env). Time
is within ~1% of naive-only — the arena verify's mark cost is
comparable to the sweeps it replaces on this workload, but with
bounded per-iteration latency (no jitter from pressure-driven
sweeps) and the stats machinery to prove it.
Escape detection tested: when the thunk returns a pair that the
caller captures (set! escaped (with-arena ...)), every arena
correctly reports escape and keeps the data live via the
fall-through sweep. 137 asm (no-GC) + 137 asm (GC) + 189 shared
functional tests still pass.
Adds a second asm build (asm/uncommonlisp-gc) behind the GC_NAIVE
assembler flag, providing the benchmark baseline we previously had
no data for. Same binary, same surface, different allocator:
- 8-byte header per heap block (size << 1 | mark), placed at -8
from the tagged pointer so existing untag + offset accesses
stay unchanged.
- Chunk list tracked in a side array, letting sweep walk every
mmap'd region by header-chained blocks instead of guessing.
- Free list rebuilt each sweep, first-fit alloc with split on
large-leftover (>= 24 bytes).
- Mark phase enumerates five root classes: %r14 (global env,
untagged chain), sym_else_val, sym_table entries, every
sym_hash_bucket chain, and a conservative scan from current
%rsp to the initial stack_top captured at _start. The stack
scan runs twice per word — once as a tagged value, once as a
potential untagged env-node pointer (size-guarded to 24 bytes
so it can't walk off a wrong-size block).
- Transitive marking via an explicit 16K-entry mark stack;
gc_mark_env walks untagged env chains from %r14 and from every
closure's env field.
- heap_alloc preserves the non-GC ABI (only %rax clobbered) so
existing callers like bi_append, which holds state in %rcx
across make_pair, keep working.
- Overflow path uses check-then-write bumps and pads the old
chunk's tail with a single dead block before growing, so sweep
never walks into uninitialized mmap'd memory.
- HEAP_SIZE shrinks to 1 MB under GC_NAIVE so the collector
actually runs on ordinary workloads.
- Two diagnostic builtins in the GC build: (gc-collect) to force
a collection, (gc-stats) -> (collections . live-bytes).
Control-group bench (examples/bench-gc-memory.lsp, 2000 iterations
of build-sum-discard over 200-element lists, i5-8350U):
tier time_ms peak_rss final_rss
asm no-GC 1097 133.9 MB 133.9 MB (grows, never shrinks)
asm naive GC 1431 1.1 MB 1.1 MB (steady state)
124x less memory at a ~30% throughput cost. That is the number we
were guessing at before. Reproduce: make bench-gc.
Tests: 137 asm (no-GC) + 137 asm (GC) + 189 shared functional pass.
The two asm builds are tested independently via UNCOMMONLISP_BIN in
asm/test.sh; asm/Makefile now builds both and exposes a test-gc
target.
Adds 6 hash-set builtins (make-hash-set, hash-set?, hash-set-add!,
hash-set-contains?, hash-set-size, hash-set->list). Same sentinel
scheme as hash-table but tag word = -2 (hash-table is -1, vector
is >= 0). One cons cell per entry (vs two for hash-table) since
a set stores keys only — that's where the speedup over the Scheme-
level vector-based ht-* lib comes from.
Benchmark (tests/bench-hashset.sh, via make bench-hashset),
N=5000, i5-8350U asm tier:
portable native speedup
insert ~130 ms ~7 ms ~20x
hit-lookup ~125 ms ~8 ms ~15x
miss-lookup ~240 ms ~12 ms ~20x
Portable is the ht-* lib from proof-netspace-server-lib.lsp
(vectors + cons chains + modulo, pure Scheme). Native replaces
the Scheme-level bucket walk with an asm loop that dereferences
pairs directly — no env lookups, no frame building per iteration.
All 137 asm + 189 functional (Python + C) tests still green.
Extends proof-netspace RPC with two verbs that let peers exchange the
full solution space in one round-trip:
(envelope) → reply (envelope (h1 h2 ...))
(merge (h1 h2 ...)) → fold hashes into local DB, reply (merged N)
Any node can now bootstrap from a peer's cache instead of re-verifying
every theorem locally. Two nodes that swap envelopes both become
supersets of what either knew — the primitive for mesh-wide spiral.
*proof-db* swapped from linear alist to a hash-set. O(N·M) merge drops
to O(M). The hash-table is a ~20-line pure-Lumbda library over
make-vector / vector-ref / vector-set! — runs unmodified in all three
tiers. No asm hash-table primitive needed.
Also fixes a pre-existing asm defect: bi_makevec clobbered %rax via
the GETARG macro's internal scratch use, causing SIGSEGV on every
(make-vector N fill) call. The bug shipped because asm/test.sh only
covered the variadic (vector ...) constructor; tests/functional.lsp
had one make-vector assert but was never wired into asm's harness.
Added five make-vector assertions to asm/test.sh (132 → 137).
Portal snapshot rewritten to emit (set! *proof-db* ...) so the
top-level binding is actually mutated on restart — previous
(define ...) form bound locally on some code paths, leaving the
in-memory DB empty after load.
Verified: make test-all green (137 asm + 189 functional + Python/C
tests), 3-tier matrix cold+warm+restart all clean.
Fuses portal (Scheme-source-as-interchange) with sockets (bytes over
the network). Wire protocol: one S-expression per connection. Same
server + client .lsp runs byte-identically in Python, C, and asm.
New primitives in all three impls:
- read-from-string — parse one sexp from a string
Asm gets two more:
- symbol->string — standard R7RS, was missing
- eval — evaluate a Scheme value in the global env (Python + C had
it as a special form; asm exposes it as a builtin)
examples/rpc-server.lsp (port 9080):
- Whitelisted dispatch: ping / add / mul / fib / echo
- Never calls eval on client input; safe by construction
- Uses heap-snapshot/restore for O(1) memory on asm
- ~90 lines, portable
examples/rpc-client.lsp:
- Sends one request, reads one response, displays both
- 45 lines, portable
examples/repl-server.lsp (port 9081):
- DANGER: full remote eval. Any Scheme form accepted and evaluated
in the server's global env. Persistent across connections.
- Deliberately does NOT use heap-snapshot — remote (define x ...)
lives in the global env above any snapshot point; rewinding would
invalidate the new binding. The ulimit -v 512 MB safety net
(documented in CLAUDE.md) ensures an escaped process can't crash
the machine.
- ~70 lines, portable. Demonstrates what "the language IS the
interchange format" gets you at the limit: a single socket and
a single primitive (eval) carry a full-powered REPL.
Verified 3×3 server×client matrix: all 9 combinations green.
All 132 asm + 571 py + 189 shared + 83 c tests still pass.
One quirk discovered and worked around: in asm, a closure captures
its env chain by pointer at define time. Forward-referenced names
in mutually-recursive toplevel defines can fail under specific
heap-restore patterns — see the leaf-first ordering note in
rpc-server.lsp.
Three wins in one commit.
1) heap-snapshot / heap-restore (asm arena primitive)
asm has no GC. Long-running servers leaked ~64 MB per heap growth.
Two new builtins let a programmer capture r15 and later rewind to
it, recycling intermediate allocations in O(1) memory.
Python + C get no-op versions so portable .lsp code can call them
unconditionally.
examples/http-server.lsp now takes a snapshot at top level and
rewinds after every request. Measured asm RSS: 88 KB initial,
100 KB after 100 requests, 100 KB after 1100 requests — flat.
Prior behavior was +64 MB per few thousand requests.
2) examples/http-client-bench.lsp — native HTTP load generator
Uses only the six tcp-* primitives + current-time-ms. Runs
identically in all three impls. Eliminates curl's ~2 ms/req
fork+exec overhead, so real server throughput shows up:
Python server ← Python client 2403 rps
C server ← C client 2439 rps
asm server ← asm client 2994 rps
asm server ← C client 2500 rps
The earlier curl-based bench was clamped near 400 rps by the
client; the actual servers handle 6–7× that.
3) MOAD-0001 cleanup
- c/builtins.c bi_string_replace: strncmp-at-every-position
(hand-rolled, sedimentary) → strstr (libc-tuned, typically
Boyer-Moore-Horspool). O(N*k) → O(N + matches*k).
- uncommonlisp.py _tokenize_lines: per-token src.count('\n', 0, pos)
→ precompute line_starts once, bisect_right per token.
O(N*M) → O(M + N log M).
Also adds current-time-ms to all three impls so benchmarks can
time themselves without relying on the Python/C float `current-time`
(asm has no floats). Seconds-since-epoch tagged as a 61-bit int.
Test counts unchanged: 571 py + 132 asm + 189 shared + 83 c = 975.
All green via make test-all.
Added tcp-listen/accept/connect/recv/send/close to Python, C, and asm.
One examples/http-server.lsp runs identically in all three impls and
serves HTTP/1.0 with routing, content-type, and content-length headers.
asm additions:
- SYS_SOCKET/BIND/LISTEN/ACCEPT/CONNECT/SETSOCKOPT syscalls
- 6 tcp-* builtins using the existing port encoding (SPECIAL ≥ 1000)
- bi_tcp_connect: dotted-quad IPv4 parser, no DNS dependency
Defects fixed along the way (surfaced by the HTTP server):
- string-append: was 2-arg only; now variadic (walks arg list twice)
- number->string: was stubbed to VAL_VOID; now correctly writes digits
into a heap-allocated string (incl. negative handling)
- String-literal reader: \r and \0 escape sequences now handled (was
silently dropping backslash, treating them as literal 'r' / '0')
- tcp_accept: sockaddr buffer was 8 bytes, now 16 (was corrupting
caller's stack when accept wrote full struct sockaddr_in)
Pinocchio benchmark (tests/web-benchmark.sh):
At concurrency=20, 1000 requests, serving a 1KB body:
uncommonlisp Python 373 req/s
uncommonlisp C 370 req/s
uncommonlisp asm 370 req/s
python3 http.server 381 req/s (stdlib reference)
busybox httpd 382 req/s (production reference)
All five converge within 3% — the client (curl fork/exec) is the
bottleneck, not the server. Our single-threaded blocking servers
are indistinguishable from battle-tested ones at this load.
Binary sizes:
uncommonlisp asm 45 KB (HTTP + everything else)
busybox httpd 2.1 MB (multi-call binary)
python3 8 MB (interpreter)
The asm HTTP server is 46× smaller than busybox and 176× smaller
than Python, serves from 7 Linux syscalls, and the entire protocol
handler is 70 lines of portable Scheme.
Test counts: 132 asm (up 1), rest unchanged. All green.
Benchmark exercises full save×load matrix across Python/C/asm plus the
mismatch cases (wrong format, truncated input, missing file, corrupt
header). Cases that used to segfault or report wrong paths now degrade
cleanly.
asm (uncommonlisp.s):
- (define var) with no value now binds to VOID instead of segfault
- portal-resume checks sys_read returned full 48-byte header; sanity-
checks heap_size and heap_base before committing r14/r15 restore.
Corrupt/truncated portals now return #f cleanly.
py (uncommonlisp.py):
- file-not-found error inside a nested (load) now reports the actual
missing path (via FileNotFoundError.filename) rather than the outer
script path.
- _load wraps UnicodeDecodeError (binary file loaded as text) into a
LispErr with the path; no more raw Python traceback.
tests/portal-benchmark.sh: 50-iter benchmark, 4 parts
(save / load / cross-process / mismatch-classification).
Representative numbers (this laptop, 2026-04-16):
setup+save: Python 126ms, C 3ms, asm 0.9ms
cross-proc: Py→Py 260ms, C→C 6ms, asm→asm 1.5ms
All three test suites still pass: 571 py unit, 131 asm, 189 shared.
portal-save: writes 48-byte header (magic, heap_size, heap_base, r14,
r15) + raw heap bytes via sys_write. 9.8KB for a state with fib(20).
portal-resume: reads header, remaps heap at saved base address via
MAP_FIXED so all pointers remain valid, restores r14/r15.
Binary format — no JSON, no parsing. Just bytes in, bytes out.
Carry on USB to air-gapped machine, resume from exact state.
Known limitation: builtins need re-init after resume (symbol table
lives in BSS, not heap). User-defined data survives intact.
108 existing tests pass.
No C. No libc. Just Linux syscalls and machine instructions.
2592 lines of GNU assembler. 13KB stripped binary. 1.8MB resident.
Features: quote, if, define, set!, lambda, begin, let, named-let,
cond, and, or. 34 builtins. Tag-in-low-bits values. Bump allocator
on mmap'd pages. TCO via jmp. Symbol interning.
Runs: (fact 10)=3628800, (fib 35)=9227465, (ack 3 4)=125.
24 tests pass. Zero dependencies.
"If you vibe code in assembly, you don't even need a compiler."
