Useless is an optimization pass for the SSA IntermediateLanguage, invoked from SSASimplify.

Description

This pass:

• removes components of tuples that are constants (use unification)

• removes function arguments that are constants

• builds some kind of dependence graph where

- a value of ground type is useful if it is an arg to a primitive - a tuple is useful if it contains a useful component - a constructor is useful if it contains a useful component or is used in a Case transfer

If a useful tuple is coerced to another useful tuple, then all of their components must agree (exactly). It is trivial to convert a useful value to a useless one.

Implementation

useless.sig useless.fun

Details and Notes

It is also trivial to convert a useful tuple to one of its useful components -- but this seems hard.

Suppose that you have a ref/array/vector that is useful, but the components aren't -- then the components are converted to type unit, and any primitive args must be as well.

Unify all handler arguments so that raise/handle has a consistent calling convention.