COMP

compile some ACL2 functions
Major Section:  EVENTS

NOTE: Comp is a no-op if explicit compilation is suppressed; see compilation. The documentation here assumes that this is not the case.

Examples:
:comp t          ; compile all uncompiled ACL2 functions
(comp t)         ; same as above, but can be put into a book
(comp :exec)     ; compile all uncompiled logic (``*1*'') definitions
:comp foo        ; compile the defined function foo
:comp (:raw foo) ; compile the raw Lisp version of the defined function foo
                   but not the corresponding logic definition
:comp (foo bar)  ; compile the defined functions foo and bar
:comp (foo (:raw bar))  ; compile the defined functions foo and bar, but for
                        ; bar do not compile the corresponding logic definition

General Form:
:comp specifier
where specifier is one of the following:

  t                     compile all user-defined ACL2 functions that are
                          currently uncompiled (redefined built-in functions
                          are not recompiled)
  :exec                 same as t, except that only logic versions are
                          compiled (see below), not raw Lisp definitions
  :raw                  same as t, except that only raw Lisp definitions are
                          compiled, not logic version (see below)
  (name-1 ... name-k)   a non-empty list of names of functions defined by
                          DEFUN in ACL2, except that each name-i can be of
                          the form (:raw sym) or (:exec sym), where sym is
                        the name of such a function
  name                  same as (name)

When you define a function in ACL2, you are really causing two definitions to be made ``under the hood'' in Common Lisp: the definition is submitted explicitly to raw Lisp, but so is a corresponding ``logic definition''. If guards have not been verified, then only the logic definition will be evaluated; see guards-and-evaluation, in particular the section titled ``Guards and evaluation V: efficiency issues''.

Thus, if you are not verifying guards and you want the benefit of Lisp compilation for speed and space efficiency, then you may want to place the form (comp :exec) in your books.

Generally it is not necessary to place the form (comp t), or the form (comp :raw), in a book, because certify-book compiles the raw Lisp definitions anyhow, by default. But you may wish to put (comp t) or (comp fn1 fn2 ... fnk) in a book when such a form precedes expensive calls of functions, for example for proofs involving calls of functions on large constants, or to support computationally expensive macroexpansion.

As suggested by the examples above, if a function specifier is of the form (:raw fn), then fn will be compiled in raw Common Lisp but its corresponding logic definition will not be compiled; and for (:exec fn), it's the other way around.

The use of :comp may create various files whose names start with ``TMP*'', but it then deletes them. If you want to save these files, evaluate (assign keep-tmp-files t).

Some Related Topics

Also see set-compile-fns for a way to compile each function as it is defined. But note that set-compile-fns is ignored during include-book.

Note that if functions are traced (see trace$), then comp will first untrace the functions that are to be compiled, then will do the compile(s), and finally will re-trace the functions that it untraced (using their original trace specs). In particular, if you have traced a function and then you compile it using :comp, the resulting traced function will be compiled as well unless you specified :compile nil in your trace spec; and after you untrace the function it will definitely run compiled.

We conclude with a technical remark only for those who use trust tags to write raw Lisp code. :Comp generally creates files to compile unless it is given a single function to compile. Those files contain the ACL2 definitions of all functions to compile, omitting those in the lists obtained by evaluating the forms (@ logic-fns-with-raw-code) and (@ program-fns-with-raw-code). If you define function symbols with raw Lisp code, say by using trust tags (see defttag) and readtime conditionals #-acl2-loop-only, then you are advised to add all such symbols to one of the lists stored in the two state globals above: to logic-fns-with-raw-code if the function symbol is in :logic mode, else to program-fns-with-raw-code. Then, instead of the corresponding ACL2 definition (without raw Lisp code) being written to a file, the function symbol will be passed directly to the Lisp compile function. Note that the above two state globals are both untouchable, so you may need to deal with that before modifying them, for example as follows (also see remove-untouchable).

(defttag t)
(state-global-let*
 ((temp-touchable-vars t set-temp-touchable-vars))
 (progn! (f-put-global 'logic-fns-with-raw-code
                       (cons 'my-fn (@ logic-fns-with-raw-code)) 
                       state)))