We need to be careful to not grab an extra reference when mutating data
structures because that means we make extra copies. Doing that every
time in `_modify` is really painful, as that function implements `|=`
and all modify-assign operators.
`jv_setpath()` also grabs additional references, so this is not the only
fix needed for the modify-assign operators to not be accidentally
quadratic.
We have to use `LOADVN` in order to make this fix possible, so we should
really byte-code `_modify` rather than jq-code it. However, as a
stop-gap to make this fix easier, I'm adding syntax for referring to a
`$binding` such that you get `LOADVN` instead of `LOADV`.
This syntax is not meant to be used outside jq's internals! Therefore
it is not documented. I promise to break it later, so don't use it!
TBD, but later:
- Optimize `_modify` for the case where `update` outputs more than one
value.
This is trivial: add a `setpath($p; null)` in the middle of `_modify`
before calling `update`. But unfortunately the VM retains a
reference to `value_at_path` for path expression checking, and fixing
that will require more work.
Nicolas Williams
a9f97e9e61