Getting Allen Bauer's TMulticastEvent working

Question

I\'ve been mucking around with Allen Bauer\'s code for a generic multicast event dispatcher (see his blog posts about it here).

He gives just enough code to make me

Answer 1

The answer, after I have done a lot of running around on the web, is that the assembler assumes that a stack frame is present when calling in to InternalSetDispatcher.

It seems that a stack frame was not being generated for the call to InternalSetDispatcher.

So, the fix is as easy as turning on stack frames with the {$stackframes on} compiler directive and rebuilding.

Thanks Mason for your help in getting me to this answer. :)

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Edit 2012-08-08: If you're keen on using this, you might want to check out the implementation in the Delphi Sping Framework. I haven't tested it, but it looks like it handles different calling conventions better than this code.

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Edit: As requested, my interpretation of Alan's code is below. On top of needing stack frames turned on, I also needed to have optimization turned on at the project level for this to work:

unit MulticastEvent;

interface

uses
  Classes, SysUtils, Generics.Collections, ObjAuto, TypInfo;

type

  // you MUST also have optimization turned on in your project options for this
  // to work! Not sure why.
  {$stackframes on}
  {$ifopt O-}
    {$message Fatal 'optimisation _must_ be turned on for this unit to work!'}
  {$endif}
  TMulticastEvent = class
  strict protected
    type TEvent = procedure of object;
  strict private
    FHandlers: TList;
    FInternalDispatcher: TMethod;

    procedure InternalInvoke(Params: PParameters; StackSize: Integer);
    procedure SetDispatcher(var AMethod: TMethod; ATypeData: PTypeData);
    procedure Add(const AMethod: TEvent); overload;
    procedure Remove(const AMethod: TEvent); overload;
    function IndexOf(const AMethod: TEvent): Integer; overload;
  protected
    procedure InternalAdd;
    procedure InternalRemove;
    procedure InternalIndexOf;
    procedure InternalSetDispatcher;

  public
    constructor Create;
    destructor Destroy; override;

  end;

  TMulticastEvent = class(TMulticastEvent)
  strict private
    FInvoke: T;
    procedure SetEventDispatcher(var ADispatcher: T; ATypeData: PTypeData);
  public
    constructor Create;
    procedure Add(const AMethod: T); overload;
    procedure Remove(const AMethod: T); overload;
    function IndexOf(const AMethod: T): Integer; overload;

    property Invoke: T read FInvoke;
  end;

implementation

{ TMulticastEvent }

procedure TMulticastEvent.Add(const AMethod: TEvent);
begin
  FHandlers.Add(TMethod(AMethod))
end;

constructor TMulticastEvent.Create;
begin
  inherited;
  FHandlers := TList.Create;
end;

destructor TMulticastEvent.Destroy;
begin
  ReleaseMethodPointer(FInternalDispatcher);
  FreeAndNil(FHandlers);
  inherited;
end;

function TMulticastEvent.IndexOf(const AMethod: TEvent): Integer;
begin
  result := FHandlers.IndexOf(TMethod(AMethod));
end;

procedure TMulticastEvent.InternalAdd;
asm
  XCHG  EAX,[ESP]
  POP   EAX
  POP   EBP
  JMP   Add
end;

procedure TMulticastEvent.InternalIndexOf;
asm
  XCHG  EAX,[ESP]
  POP   EAX
  POP   EBP
  JMP   IndexOf
end;

procedure TMulticastEvent.InternalInvoke(Params: PParameters; StackSize: Integer);
var
  LMethod: TMethod;
begin
  for LMethod in FHandlers do
  begin
    // Check to see if there is anything on the stack.
    if StackSize > 0 then
      asm
        // if there are items on the stack, allocate the space there and
        // move that data over.
        MOV ECX,StackSize
        SUB ESP,ECX
        MOV EDX,ESP
        MOV EAX,Params
        LEA EAX,[EAX].TParameters.Stack[8]
        CALL System.Move
      end;
    asm
      // Now we need to load up the registers. EDX and ECX may have some data
      // so load them on up.
      MOV EAX,Params
      MOV EDX,[EAX].TParameters.Registers.DWORD[0]
      MOV ECX,[EAX].TParameters.Registers.DWORD[4]
      // EAX is always "Self" and it changes on a per method pointer instance, so
      // grab it out of the method data.
      MOV EAX,LMethod.Data
      // Now we call the method. This depends on the fact that the called method
      // will clean up the stack if we did any manipulations above.
      CALL LMethod.Code
    end;
  end;
end;

procedure TMulticastEvent.InternalRemove;
asm
  XCHG  EAX,[ESP]
  POP   EAX
  POP   EBP
  JMP   Remove
end;

procedure TMulticastEvent.InternalSetDispatcher;
asm
  XCHG  EAX,[ESP]
  POP   EAX
  POP   EBP
  JMP   SetDispatcher;
end;

procedure TMulticastEvent.Remove(const AMethod: TEvent);
begin
  FHandlers.Remove(TMethod(AMethod));
end;

procedure TMulticastEvent.SetDispatcher(var AMethod: TMethod;
  ATypeData: PTypeData);
begin
  if Assigned(FInternalDispatcher.Code) and Assigned(FInternalDispatcher.Data) then
    ReleaseMethodPointer(FInternalDispatcher);
  FInternalDispatcher := CreateMethodPointer(InternalInvoke, ATypeData);
  AMethod := FInternalDispatcher;
end;

{ TMulticastEvent }

procedure TMulticastEvent.Add(const AMethod: T);
begin
  InternalAdd;
end;

constructor TMulticastEvent.Create;
var
  MethInfo: PTypeInfo;
  TypeData: PTypeData;
begin
  MethInfo := TypeInfo(T);
  TypeData := GetTypeData(MethInfo);
  inherited Create;
  Assert(MethInfo.Kind = tkMethod, 'T must be a method pointer type');
  SetEventDispatcher(FInvoke, TypeData);
end;

function TMulticastEvent.IndexOf(const AMethod: T): Integer;
begin
  InternalIndexOf;
end;

procedure TMulticastEvent.Remove(const AMethod: T);
begin
  InternalRemove;
end;

procedure TMulticastEvent.SetEventDispatcher(var ADispatcher: T;
  ATypeData: PTypeData);
begin
  InternalSetDispatcher;
end;

end.