Comparing Continuations in C# and F# Part 2
In my last post I went over the differences between using a continuation in F# and C#. As it turns out I was right about the limits and symptoms but wrong about the reason.
The F# code does indeed generate tail calls for part of the continuation. However this is only a very small portion of the actual code and is in fact only generated for the call in the empty case. I misread this function to be the call for the overall continuation. Instead it is the function for the entire “inner” lambda.
So why does F# perform differently than C# in this scenario?
Andrew Kennedy pointed out that F# will actually transform the “inner” function into a loop. In affect the code generated looks like the following.
TypeFunc func = this._self3;
while (true)
{
if (!this.e.MoveNext())
{
break;
}
A cur = this.e.Current;
cont = new Program.clo@9<U V, A ,>(this.combine, cont, cur);
}
return cont.Invoke(this.acc);
The actual transformation into a loop is what is preventing F# from overflowing the stack here. Iteration incurs no stack overhead in this case.
Even more interesting is that the tail opcode is quite simply ignored when dealing with un-trusted code. It therefore cannot be relied on to generate performant code in all scenarios.