[swift-evolution] [Proposal] Introduces endianness specific type

[Jens Persson]

I should perhaps add that in my image processing code, I use code like this:

func withVImageBuffer<Data, R>(for table: Table<Data>, body:
(vImage_Buffer) -> R) -> R
    where
    Data.Coordinate.Index == VectorIndex2
{
    let vib = vImage_Buffer(
        data: table.baseAddress,
        height: vImagePixelCount(table.size.e1),
        width: vImagePixelCount(table.size.e0),
        rowBytes: table.stride.e1
    )
    return withExtendedLifetime(table) { body(vib) }
}

Here, Table<Data> is the raster image. Data.Coordinate == VectorIndex2
makes it a 2D table, and a Table's Data also has a type parameter
Data.Value which can be eg one of the "pixel"-struct I showed before.
This works without any problems (I've tested and used the some variant of
this type of code for years) but it would surely break if the memory layout
of simple structs changed.

I can't see how this usage is much different from the one in the Metal
tutorial. It too uses pointers to point into a data created using the
(Swift) struct "Vertex", and the GPU hardware has its expectations on the
memory layout of that data, so the code would break if the memory layout of
the Vertex struct changed.

/Jens


On Sun, Jul 9, 2017 at 6:35 PM, Jens Persson <jens at bitcycle.com> wrote:

> I don't think I'm misunderstanding you, but I might be, so I'll add more
> detail:
>
> If you look at the Metal article, you'll see that the (Swift) struct
> "Vertex" is used to specify the data that is sent to Metal for creating a
> buffer (using MTLDevice.makeBuffer). The result that the GPU will produce
> surely depends on the fields of the Vertex struct (x, y, z, r, g, b, a)
> being in the specified order (ie swapping the red channel with the x
> coordinate would produce an unexpected result).
>
> And regarding the second example, pixel structs used for manipulating
> raster image data. Manipulating raster image data presumably includes stuff
> like displaying to screen, loading and saving raster images.
> I currently use this way of doing this right now without any problems, but
> if the order of the fields (eg a, r, g, b) should change in the future,
> then my code would break (the colors of the images would at least not come
> out as expected).
>
> /Jens
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 9, 2017 at 5:53 PM, Chris Lattner <clattner at nondot.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Jul 9, 2017, at 12:23 AM, Jens Persson <jens at bitcycle.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jul 8, 2017 at 6:28 PM, Chris Lattner via swift-evolution <
>> swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Susan,
>>>
>>> Swift does not currently specify a layout for Swift structs.  You
>>> shouldn’t be using them for memory mapped i/o or writing to a file, because
>>> their layout can change.  When ABI stability for fragile structs lands, you
>>> will be able to count on it, but until then something like this is probably
>>> a bad idea.
>>>
>>> -Chris
>>>
>>
>> Does this imply that you should never use Swift structs to eg interact
>> with Metal?
>>
>>
>> No.
>>
>> This seems to be a very common practice. Here is a typical example (from
>> a Metal tutorial at raywenderlich.com):
>>
>> struct Vertex {
>>   var x,y,z: Float     // position data
>>   var r,g,b,a: Float   // color data
>>
>>   func floatBuffer() -> [Float] {
>>     return [x,y,z,r,g,b,a]
>>   }
>> }
>>
>>
>> This doesn’t appear to expose the layout of the struct.
>>
>> Also, does it imply that we cannot use structs (of only primitive types)
>> like:
>>
>> struct RgbaFloatsLinearGamma {
>>     var r, g, b, a: Float
>>     …
>> }
>> struct BgraBytesSrgbGamma {
>>     var b, g, r, a: UInt8
>> }
>>
>> for manipulating raster image data?
>>
>>
>> I don’t see why that would be a problem.
>>
>> I vaguely remember a swift evo discussion where it was concluded that
>> such usage was considered OK provided the stored properties of the structs
>> was only primitive types, but I can't find it now.
>>
>> Perhaps it could be considered OK at least when the intended platforms
>> are known to be only iOS devices?
>>
>>
>> I think you’re misunderstanding what I’m saying.  It isn’t correct to
>> take (e.g.) an unsafepointer to the beginning of a struct, and serialize
>> that out to disk, and expect that the fields are emitted in some order with
>> some specific padding between them.  None of the uses above try to do this.
>>
>> -Chris
>>
>>
>>
>
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