DOI: 10.1145/3828684 ISSN: 2475-1421

Tail Modulo Async-Await

Emma Nardino, Ludovic Henrio, Gabriel Radanne, Yannick Zakowski

This article extends tail-call optimisation by applying it to asynchronous calls. We first introduce TMA, a novel code transformation for asynchronous tail recursive functions that prevents the creation of unnecessary tasks. We then show how to combine TMA with the existing TMC optimisation; we obtain an optimisation able to turn a recursive function with multiple tail calls under constructors into a parallel version of the function, also optimised in space.

We formalise both optimisations over representative calculi, and prove them correct through backward simulations. Finally, we provide a proof-of-concept implementation as an OCaml syntax extension and evaluate it experimentally, showing our approach optimises both memory and execution time

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