Erlang -- Invariants on the Structure and Format of BEAM SSA

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### Chapters

- Invariants on the Structure and Format of BEAM SSA
  - Top of chapter
  - Function Calls
  - Variable Naming

# 1 Invariants on the Structure and Format of BEAM SSA

### 1.1 Function Calls

All function calls not in a tail call position must be followed by a succeeded:body-instruction unless one of the following exceptions apply:

- The function call can statically be proven to always fail.

- The function call is to the erlang-module and can statically be proven to always succeed or fail.

### 1.2 Variable Naming

A variable name in BEAM SSA is either an atom, a non-negative integer or a tuple: atom() | non_neg_integer() | {atom() | non_neg_integer(), non_neg_integer()}. In order to generate fresh unused variable names, all compiler transforms maintain a counter, the cnt-field in the opt_st-record, which is incremented each time a new variable or label is created. In the following description the value of the cnt-field is called Cnt.

Due to peculiarities in the BEAM SSA code generator, a compiler transformation unfortunately cannot just use the cnt-value directly as a fresh name. There are three basic strategies for creating fresh variable names which can by used by a compiler pass:

1) A name can be derived from an existing name of the form V :: atom() | non_neg_integer() by selecting an atom, which is unique to the compiler pass, to form a new name {A, V}. The same A cannot be used by strategy 3) below.

2) A name can be derived from an existing name of the form V :: non_neg_integer() by combining it with the cnt-field into {V, Cnt}.

3) A fresh name can be created by selecting an atom A, which is unique to the compiler pass, to form the new name {A, Cnt}. The same A cannot be used by strategy 1) above.