The Variant class is now meant to be used on the stack instead of allocated on the heap. As a result (and because of related changes), performance of Channels has roughly doubled when pushing and popping most types.

src/modules/thread/LuaThread.cpp

@@ -33,18 +33,12 @@ namespace thread
 LuaThread::LuaThread(const std::string &name, love::Data *code)
 	: code(code)
 	, name(name)
-	, args(nullptr)
-	, nargs(0)
 {
 	threadName = name;
 }
 
 LuaThread::~LuaThread()
 {
-	// No args should still exist at this point,
-	// but you never know.
-	for (int i = 0; i < nargs; ++i)
-		args[i]->release();
 }
 
 void LuaThread::threadFunction()
@@ -74,16 +68,12 @@ void LuaThread::threadFunction()
 		error = luax_tostring(L, -1);
 	else
 	{
-		int pushedargs = nargs;
-		for (int i = 0; i < nargs; ++i)
-		{
-			args[i]->toLua(L);
-			args[i]->release();
-		}
-		// Set both args and nargs to nil, prevents the deconstructor from
-		// accessing it again.
-		nargs = 0;
-		args = nullptr;
+		int pushedargs = (int) args.size();
+
+		for (int i = 0; i < pushedargs; i++)
+			args[i].toLua(L);
+
+		args.clear();
 
 		if (lua_pcall(L, pushedargs, 0, 0) != 0)
 			error = luax_tostring(L, -1);
@@ -97,14 +87,9 @@ void LuaThread::threadFunction()
 	this->release();
 }
 
-bool LuaThread::start(Variant **args, int nargs)
+bool LuaThread::start(const std::vector<Variant> &args)
 {
-	for (int i = 0; i < this->nargs; ++i)
-		this->args[i]->release();
-
 	this->args = args;
-	this->nargs = nargs;
-
 	return Threadable::start();
 }
 
@@ -126,16 +111,12 @@ void LuaThread::onError()
 	p.type = THREAD_THREAD_ID;
 	p.object = this;
 
-	std::vector<StrongRef<Variant>> vargs = {
-		new Variant(THREAD_THREAD_ID, &p),
-		new Variant(error.c_str(), error.length())
+	std::vector<Variant> vargs = {
+		Variant(p.type, &p),
+		Variant(error.c_str(), error.length())
 	};
 
 	event::Message *msg = new event::Message("threaderror", vargs);
-
-	for (const StrongRef<Variant> &v : vargs)
-		v->release();
-
 	eventmodule->push(msg);
 	msg->release();
 }