backend=auto (now the default if backend is omitted) means to let the compiler
pick whatever backend it wants as the default. This is important for platforms
where we don't yet have a self-hosted backend, such as loongarch64.
Also purge a bunch of redundant target=native.
This commit removes the `field_call_bind` and `field_call_bind_named` ZIR
instructions, replacing them with a `field_call` instruction which does the bind
and call in one.
`field_call_bind` is an unfortunate instruction. It's tied into one very
specific usage pattern - its result can only be used as a callee. This means
that it creates a value of a "pseudo-type" of sorts, `bound_fn` - this type used
to exist in Zig, but now we just hide it from the user and have AstGen ensure
it's only used in one way. This is quite silly - `Type` and `Value` should, as
much as possible, reflect real Zig types and values.
It makes sense to instead encode the `a.b()` syntax as its own ZIR instruction,
so that's what we do here. This commit introduces a new instruction,
`field_call`. It's like `call`, but rather than a callee ref, it contains a ref
to the object pointer (`&a` in `a.b()`) and the string field name (`b`). This
eliminates `bound_fn` from the language, and slightly decreases the size of
generated ZIR - stats below.
This commit does remove a few usages which used to be allowed:
- `@field(a, "b")()`
- `@call(.auto, a.b, .{})`
- `@call(.auto, @field(a, "b"), .{})`
These forms used to work just like `a.b()`, but are no longer allowed. I believe
this is the correct choice for a few reasons:
- `a.b()` is a purely *syntactic* form; for instance, `(a.b)()` is not valid.
This means it is *not* inconsistent to not allow it in these cases; the
special case here isn't "a field access as a callee", but rather this exact
syntactic form.
- The second argument to `@call` looks much more visually distinct from the
callee in standard call syntax. To me, this makes it seem strange for that
argument to not work like a normal expression in this context.
- A more practical argument: it's confusing! `@field` and `@call` are used in
very different contexts to standard function calls: the former normally hints
at some comptime machinery, and the latter that you want more precise control
over parts of a function call. In these contexts, you don't want implicit
arguments adding extra confusion: you want to be very explicit about what
you're doing.
Lastly, some stats. I mentioned before that this change slightly reduces the
size of ZIR - this is due to two instructions (`field_call_bind` then `call`)
being replaced with one (`field_call`). Here are some numbers:
+--------------+----------+----------+--------+
| File | Before | After | Change |
+--------------+----------+----------+--------+
| Sema.zig | 4.72M | 4.53M | -4% |
| AstGen.zig | 1.52M | 1.48M | -3% |
| hash_map.zig | 283.9K | 276.2K | -3% |
| math.zig | 312.6K | 305.3K | -2% |
+--------------+----------+----------+--------+
Alex Rønne Petersen