Constant-fold f-strings with constant fields in the CFG optimizer
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Description
Feature or enhancement
Proposal:
The flowgraph optimizer folds constant expressions in most positions (binary/unary ops, tuples of constants, in against literal collections), but f-strings whose fields are all constants are left unfolded:
>>> import dis
>>> dis.dis(lambda: f'{1}{2}')
RESUME 0
LOAD_SMALL_INT 1
FORMAT_SIMPLE
LOAD_SMALL_INT 2
FORMAT_SIMPLE
BUILD_STRING 2
RETURN_VALUE
This could compile to a single LOAD_CONST '12', the same way '1' + '2' already does.
The transformation is safe under a narrow guard:
FORMAT_SIMPLEon an operand that is an exactstr,int,floatorboolconstant is pure and calls no user code (subclasses can override__format__/__str__, so exact-type checks are required).FORMAT_WITH_SPECwith a constant spec on those exact types is pure for the same reason, though it could be left to a follow-up.BUILD_STRINGover constant strings is pure.
Conversion functions (!r, !s, !a) lower to intrinsics before FORMAT_SIMPLE, so f'{1!r}' is out of scope unless the intrinsic is also handled; the initial change can simply not match those sequences.
Constant fields do appear in real code — mixed f-strings like f'{HEADER}{x}' gain partially (the constant fields fold, shrinking BUILD_STRING's operand count), and fully-constant f-strings show up in generated code and in string-building via comprehensions.
The natural place is a fold_format_simple alongside fold_tuple_of_constants in Python/flowgraph.c, using the existing get_const_loading_instrs / instr_make_load_const helpers.
gh-77273 covered the opcode-level inefficiency of f-string formatting and was resolved by the FORMAT_SIMPLE/FORMAT_WITH_SPEC redesign; this proposal is about folding the constant cases of those opcodes, which is not currently done anywhere in the compiler.
With a prototype of the fold, a fully-constant f-string costs the same as the equivalent string literal (~34 ns/call instead of ~1770 ns/call on a debug free-threaded build — I'll post release-build pyperf numbers on the PR). I have a patch ready and will follow up with it.
Has this already been discussed elsewhere?
This is a minor feature, which does not need previous discussion elsewhere
Links to previous discussion of this feature:
No response
Linked PRs
- gh-154911
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start in Python/flowgraph.c beside fold_tuple_of_constants, and review get_const_loading_instrs and instr_make_load_const. Verify the optimizer handles eligible constant FORMAT_SIMPLE and BUILD_STRING sequences while leaving conversions and non-exact types alone, then compare the generated bytecode and performance with the linked PR gh-154911.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- compilers
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Clearly specified
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100