Static memory segment idea

[dcodeIO]

So we have StaticArray now, which is great on its own but still a managed object, and it would be even greater if there'd also be a way to get some raw static memory. Proposing the following:

Extend the memory namespace to be also a function, that one can use like

const myMem = memory(64);

yielding a static pointer to 64 bytes of reserved static memory. When using this in a function

function foo(): i32 {
  const ptr = memory(4);
  var value = load<i32>(ptr);
  store<i32>(ptr, value + 1);
  return value;
}

the segment will always be exactly the same, so calling the function above multiple times would yield 0, 1, 2, 3, ... quite similar to what static in C does. This can then be used for various things, like as an alternative to (temporary) stack allocation as long as one makes sure that it is not being accessed in parallel. The argument must be a compile-time constant.

Thoughts?

[MaxGraey]

How about const mem = memory.init(64)?

[jtenner]

Yes! This would help reduce globals and enable creating threaded memory allocators. My vote is on memory.init().

[dcodeIO]

How about const mem = memory.init(64)?

memory.init is a legitimate instruction specified by bulk-memory that copies "a region from a data segment". Just memory is relatively safe in that it cannot conflict with an instruction by design.

[MaxGraey]

alright, May be memory.reserve, memory.segment or memory.alloc? Because memory(64) looks slightly inconsistent

[dcodeIO]

An alternative might be memory.data which is a section, but not an instruction?

[MaxGraey]

memory.data also lgtm

[dcodeIO]

For the record, I liked memory since it semantically says "give me n bytes within memory" and reuses something that would otherwise be just a namespace, making it fast to type :)

[jedisct1]

This is a very useful addition!