Why would code actively try to prevent tail-call optimization?

Question

The title of the question might be a bit strange, but the thing is that, as far as I know, there is nothing that speaks against tail call optimization at all. However, while browsing open source projects, I already came across a few functions that actively try to stop the compiler from doing a tail call optimization, for example the implementation of CFRunLoopRef which is full of such hacks. For example:

static void __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_AN_OBSERVER_CALLBACK_FUNCTION__() __attribute__((noinline));
static void __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_AN_OBSERVER_CALLBACK_FUNCTION__(CFRunLoopObserverCallBack func, CFRunLoopObserverRef observer, CFRunLoopActivity activity, void *info) {
    if (func) {
        func(observer, activity, info);
    }
    getpid(); // thwart tail-call optimization
}

I would love to know why this is seemingly so important, and are there any cases were I as a normal developer should keep this is mind too? Eg. are there common pitfalls with tail call optimization?

Answer 1

My guess here is that it's to ensure that __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_AN_OBSERVER_CALLBACK_FUNCTION__ is in the stack trace for debugging purposes. It has __attribute__((no inline)) which backs up this idea.

If you notice, that function just goes and bounces to another function anyway, so it's a form of trampoline which I can only think is there with such a verbose name to aid debugging. This would be especially helpful given that the function is calling a function pointer that has been registered from elsewhere and therefore that function may not have debugging symbols accessible.

Notice also the other similarly named functions which do similar things - it really looks like it's there to aid in seeing what has happened from a backtrace. Keep in mind that this is core Mac OS X code and will show up in crash reports and process sample reports too.

Answer 2

This is only a guess, but maybe to avoid an infinite loop vs bombing out with a stack overflow error.

Since the method in question doesn't put anything on the stack it would seem possible for the tail-call recursion optimization to produce code that would enter an infinite loop as opposed to the non-optimized code which would put the return address on the stack which would eventually overflow in the event of misuse.

The only other thought I have is related to preserving the calls on the stack for debugging and stacktrace printing.

Answer 3

One potential reason is to make debugging and profiling easier (with TCO, the parent stack frame disappears, which makes stack traces harder to make sense of.)