RuntimeGeneratedFunctions.jl

RuntimeGeneratedFunctions are functions generated at runtime without world-age issues and with the full performance of a standard Julia anonymous function. This builds functions in a way that avoids eval.

Note that RuntimeGeneratedFunction does not handle closures. Please use the GeneralizedGenerated.jl package for more fixable staged programming. While GeneralizedGenerated.jl is more powerful, RuntimeGeneratedFunctions.jl handles large expressions better.

Simple Example

Here's an example showing how to construct and immediately call a runtime generated function:

using RuntimeGeneratedFunctions
RuntimeGeneratedFunctions.init(@__MODULE__)

function no_worldage()
    ex = :(function f(_du,_u,_p,_t)
        @inbounds _du[1] = _u[1]
        @inbounds _du[2] = _u[2]
        nothing
    end)
    f1 = @RuntimeGeneratedFunction(ex)
    du = rand(2)
    u = rand(2)
    p = nothing
    t = nothing
    f1(du,u,p,t)
end
no_worldage()

Changing how global symbols are looked up

If you want to use helper functions or global variables from a different module within your function expression you'll need to pass a context_module to the @RuntimeGeneratedFunction constructor. For example

RuntimeGeneratedFunctions.init(@__MODULE__)

module A
    using RuntimeGeneratedFunctions
    RuntimeGeneratedFunctions.init(A)
    helper_function(x) = x + 1
end

function g()
    expression = :(f(x) = helper_function(x))
    # context module is `A` so that `helper_function` can be found.
    f = @RuntimeGeneratedFunction(A, expression)
    @show f(1)
end

Precompilation and setting the function expression cache

For technical reasons RuntimeGeneratedFunctions needs to cache the function expression in a global variable within some module. This is normally transparent to the user, but if the RuntimeGeneratedFunction is evaluated during module precompilation, the cache module must be explicitly set to the module currently being precompiled. This is relevant for helper functions in some module which construct a RuntimeGeneratedFunction on behalf of the user. For example, in the following code, any third party user of HelperModule.construct_rgf() user needs to pass their own module as the cache_module if they want the returned function to work after precompilation:

RuntimeGeneratedFunctions.init(@__MODULE__)

# Imagine HelperModule is in a separate package and will be precompiled
# separately.
module HelperModule
    using RuntimeGeneratedFunctions
    RuntimeGeneratedFunctions.init(HelperModule)

    function construct_rgf(cache_module, context_module, ex)
        ex = :((x)->$ex^2 + x)
        RuntimeGeneratedFunction(cache_module, context_module, ex)
    end
end

function g()
    ex = :(x + 1)
    # Here cache_module is set to the module currently being compiled so that
    # the returned RGF works with Julia's module precompilation system.
    HelperModule.construct_rgf(@__MODULE__, @__MODULE__, ex)
end

f = g()
@show f(1)