Does Swift implement tail call optimization? and in mutual recursion case?

Question

In particular if I have the following code:

func sum(n: Int, acc: Int) -> Int {
  if n == 0 { return acc }
  else { return sum(n - 1, acc + n) }
}
         


        

Answer 1

The best way to check is to examine the assembly language code generated by the compiler. I took the code above and compiled it with:

swift -O3 -S tco.swift >tco.asm

The relevant part of the output

.globl    __TF3tco3sumFTSiSi_Si
    .align    4, 0x90
__TF3tco3sumFTSiSi_Si:
    pushq    %rbp
    movq    %rsp, %rbp
    testq    %rdi, %rdi
    je    LBB0_4
    .align    4, 0x90
LBB0_1:
    movq    %rdi, %rax
    decq    %rax
    jo    LBB0_5
    addq    %rdi, %rsi
    jo    LBB0_5
    testq    %rax, %rax
    movq    %rax, %rdi
    jne    LBB0_1
LBB0_4:
    movq    %rsi, %rax
    popq    %rbp
    retq
LBB0_5:
    ud2

    .globl    __TF3tco5isOddFSiSb
    .align    4, 0x90
__TF3tco5isOddFSiSb:
    pushq    %rbp
    movq    %rsp, %rbp
    testq    %rdi, %rdi
    je    LBB1_1
    decq    %rdi
    jo    LBB1_9
    movb    $1, %al
LBB1_5:
    testq    %rdi, %rdi
    je    LBB1_2
    decq    %rdi
    jo    LBB1_9
    testq    %rdi, %rdi
    je    LBB1_1
    decq    %rdi
    jno    LBB1_5
LBB1_9:
    ud2
LBB1_1:
    xorl    %eax, %eax
LBB1_2:
    popq    %rbp
    retq

    .globl    __TF3tco6isEvenFSiSb
    .align    4, 0x90
__TF3tco6isEvenFSiSb:
    pushq    %rbp
    movq    %rsp, %rbp
    movb    $1, %al
LBB2_1:
    testq    %rdi, %rdi
    je    LBB2_5
    decq    %rdi
    jo    LBB2_7
    testq    %rdi, %rdi
    je    LBB2_4
    decq    %rdi
    jno    LBB2_1
LBB2_7:
    ud2
LBB2_4:
    xorl    %eax, %eax
LBB2_5:
    popq    %rbp
    retq

There are no call instructions in the generated code, only conditional jumps (je / jne / jo / jno). This clearly suggests that Swift does do tail call optimizations in both cases.

In addition, the isOdd/isEven functions are interesting in that the compiler not only seems to perform TCO but also inlines the other function in each case.

Answer 2

Yes, the swift compiler performs tail call optimisation in some cases:

func sum(n: Int, acc: Int) -> Int {
    if n == 0 { return acc }
    else { return sum(n - 1, acc: acc + 1) }
}

As a global function, this will use constant stack space on the "Fastest" optimisation level (-O).

If it is inside a struct it will still use constant stack space. Within a class however, the compiler does not perform tco because the method might be overridden at runtime.

Clang also supports tco for Objective-C but often ARC calls release after the recursive call, thus preventing this optimisation, see this article by Jonathon Mah for more details.

ARC also seems to prevent TCO in Swift:

func sum(n: Int, acc: Int, s: String?) -> Int {
    if n == 0 { return acc }
    else { return sum(n - 1, acc + 1, s) }
}

No TCO was performed in my tests.