Most types are in rodata/ROM, and mp_obj_base_t.type is a constant pointer,
so enforce this const-ness throughout the code base. If a type ever needs
to be modified (eg a user type) then a simple cast can be used.
This commit implements automatic module weak links for all built-in
modules, by searching for "ufoo" in the built-in module list if "foo"
cannot be found. This means that all modules named "ufoo" are always
available as "foo". Also, a port can no longer add any other weak links,
which makes strict the definition of a weak link.
It saves some code size (about 100-200 bytes) on ports that previously had
lots of weak links.
Some changes from the previous behaviour:
- It doesn't intern the non-u module names (eg "foo" is not interned),
which saves code size, but will mean that "import foo" creates a new qstr
(namely "foo") in RAM (unless the importing module is frozen).
- help('modules') no longer lists non-u module names, only the u-variants;
this reduces duplication in the help listing.
Weak links are effectively the same as having a set of symbolic links on
the filesystem that is searched last. So an "import foo" will search
built-in modules first, then all paths in sys.path, then weak links last,
importing "ufoo" if it exists. Thus a file called "foo.py" somewhere in
sys.path will still have precedence over the weak link of "foo" to "ufoo".
See issues: #1740, #4449, #5229, #5241.
mp_obj_module_get_globals() returns a mp_obj_dict_t*, and type->locals_dict
is a mp_obj_dict_t*, so access the map entry of the dict directly instead
of needing to cast this mp_obj_dict_t* up to an object and then calling the
mp_obj_dict_get_map() helper function.
This patch simplifies the str creation API to favour the common case of
creating a str object that is not forced to be interned. To force
interning of a new str the new mp_obj_new_str_via_qstr function is added,
and should only be used if warranted.
Apart from simplifying the mp_obj_new_str function (and making it have the
same signature as mp_obj_new_bytes), this patch also reduces code size by a
bit (-16 bytes for bare-arm and roughly -40 bytes on the bare-metal archs).
This is how CPython does it, and it's very useful to help users discover
the available modules for a given port, especially built-in and frozen
modules. The function does not list modules that are in the filesystem
because this would require a fair bit of work to do correctly, and is very
port specific (depending on the filesystem).
Several ports use identical code for the 1-argument form of the builtin
help function. Move this code to a library function to allow easier
re-use by ports.
Damien George
Yonatan Goldschmidt
Erik Moqvist
Colin Hogben