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bugc: copy a struct read from storage into memory - #361

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@gnidan gnidan commented Oct 7, 2026

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let p = players[who];, with players: mapping<address, Player>, compiled to a read of the struct's first storage slot, typed as a memory reference. So p.score read memory at an address equal to that slot's word, and p.score = 0 failed code generation (irgen emitted a compute_offset with no offsetKind, which evmgen does not handle). The same held for a storage struct variable, let p = stored;.

The examples' README says what this should mean: "when you read a complex type (struct, array, or mapping) from storage into a local variable, you get a copy of the data, not a reference", and a write to the copy does not update storage. This implements that for structs:

  • When a storage access chain, or a storage variable, gives a struct, irgen allocates one word per field and copies each field into it, reading packed fields at their offset and length as a field access does. A struct field gets its own copy, and its word is that copy's address, which is how member access on a memory struct already reads a nested struct.
  • A struct with an array, mapping, string or dynamic bytes field is an error that names the field. Copying those from storage needs more than one word per field, and nothing in bugc builds them in memory from storage yet.
  • An assignment to a field of a memory struct now emits a field compute_offset.

Copying a struct with more than a few fields exposed a bug in evmgen's memory planning: when it simulated the stack to find values that need a memory home, it did not count the operands of read, write and compute_offset as uses. So a value whose later uses were all of those kinds (here, the copy's address) got no home, and code generation failed with "Cannot load value". Those operands now count.

The open question is whether BUG should also have storage references (Solidity's Player storage p). Copy semantics is what the README describes, so that is what this does; arrays read from storage into a local are not changed here.

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github-actions Bot commented Oct 7, 2026 •

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PR Preview Action v1.8.1
Preview removed because the pull request was closed.
2026-10-07 03:12 UTC

gnidan added a commit that referenced this pull request Oct 7, 2026
* bugc: compile `!` as a logical not

* bugc: link the changelog entry to #353

* bugc: end each source range at its last token

* bugc: link the changelog entry to #362

* bugc: add block.prevrandao

* bugc: link the changelog entries to #363

* bugc: hash several value-type words with keccak256

* bugc: link the changelog entries to #365

* bugc: slice a fixed-size bytes value by its bytes

* bugc: link the changelog entry to #357

* bugc: hash the data of dynamic bytes and strings

* bugc: link the changelog entry to #360

* bugc: give a caller's call JUMP the invoke's arguments

* bugc: list variables before a function's first statement

* bugc: store a memory string's bytes when assigning it to storage

A storage write took its value as a word, so a memory string or bytes
reference wrote its memory address into the slot. Code generation now
encodes the referenced bytes as Solidity does: inline with length * 2
up to 31 bytes, else length * 2 + 1 in the slot and the data from
keccak256(slot), with the last word's trailing bytes cleared. A slice
now carries the bytes type, so its value is recognized too.

* bugc: link the changelog entry to #355

* bugc: say why the bytes test slices without naming the copy width

* bugc: copy all of a slice's bytes

irgen built a slice's data as a read and a write, and a read or write
moves at most one word, so only the first 32 bytes were copied. Add a
copy IR instruction (CALLDATACOPY from calldata, MCOPY from memory) and
emit it for the slice's data.

* bugc: link the changelog entries to #359

* bugc: copy a struct read from storage into memory

* bugc: link the changelog entries to #361

* bugc: lay storage arrays out as Solidity does

* bugc: add push to dynamic arrays in storage
@gnidan

gnidan commented Oct 7, 2026

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Included in #368.

@gnidan gnidan closed this Oct 7, 2026
@gnidan
gnidan deleted the bugc-storage-struct-local branch October 7, 2026 03:08
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