Inverted marking of vector tuple type

[ArchRobison]

This is PR is intended to generate a discussion about a solution to a problem that @eschnett and I were discussing. See here for start of discussion chain. The problem is how to get access to LLVM vector types from Julia. The intent of the PR is to get feedback on whether the inverted approach (5 below) is something we should take forward.

Some approaches to the general problem are:

1. Map homogeneous tuples to LLVM vector types automatically. This introduces layout problems, which though I've been able to surmount though type punning, but can cause performance problems since sometimes the vector type causes worse performance, as when operations on a tuple do not map to vector operations and require excessive extract/insert code.
2. Modify LLVM SLP to work on arrays as if they were vectors. This approach works up to a point, but requires type punning on loads/stores that starts to break down for vectors that are members of structs, such as in the GradientNumber example. If we could talk the LLVM community into adding cast operations or intrinsics to case between arrays and vectors, this approach would be my preference since it keeps use of SIMD instructions hidden. Though some users want explicit SIMD.
3. Introduce a special Julia type that maps to an LLVM vector. This requires teaching the Julia type system and users about the type (yuck!)
4. Use an immutable Julia type with a single tuple field. Mark the type in some way to indicate that the tuple should map to an LLVM vector. Experience so far indicates that this is awkward. In retrospect, the approach is troublesome because the interpretation of a tuple type depends on surrounding context.
5. Use a homogeneous Julia tuple where the elements have a marked type. Marking the element types eliminates the context-sensitivity problems of approach 4.

Approach 5, which sounds upside-down, seems to be the simplest solution. This PR implements it. [Updated 2016-3-1 to reflect update in PR. Original PR called the marked type Banana and used "pre-peeled" metaphor. Now marked type is VecElement. Updated example uses typealias to retain discussion context.] Example:

#from Base
#immutable VecElement{T}  # Marked type
#    value :: T
#end
#export VecElt

typealias Banana VecElement
typealias V NTuple{4,Banana{Float32}}

The PR causes two special mappings for the example:

• A Banana{T} maps to the LLVM type for a T, not an LLVM struct containing the LLVM representation of T. In other words, bananas are pre-peeled in LLVM.
• A homogeneous tuple of Banana{T} maps to an LLVM vector of T. I.e., an LLVM vector is used instead of an array.

The pre-peeling rule ensures that a Banana{T} is mapped consistently regardless of surrounding context.

Below is an example that uses the definitions above:

add(u,v) = (Banana(u[1].value+v[1].value),
            Banana(u[2].value+v[2].value),
            Banana(u[3].value+v[3].value),
            Banana(u[4].value+v[4].value))

code_llvm(add,(V,V))

At -O3, the code is:

define void @julia_add_22173(<4 x float>* sret, <4 x float>, <4 x float>) #0 {
top:
  %3 = fadd <4 x float> %1, %2
  store <4 x float> %3, <4 x float>* %0, align 16
  ret void
}

A library such as SIMD.jl could presumably obtain similar effect without -O via llvmcall.

[StefanKarpinski]

The type could be called 🍌.

[eschnett]

But. This change has only about 20 lines of code!

Amazing. Thanks a lot! 👍

[vtjnash]

this would be analogous to the way we treat Float64, Float32, Complex versions of the same, and Signed specially in codegen, so i think there's reasonable precedence for going this route

[ArchRobison]

Per @StefanKarpinski's suggestion, I tried using "\xF0\x9F\x8D\x8C" instead of "Banana" and then the following code works fine.

import Base.+

immutable 🍌{T}
    x :: T
end

typealias V NTuple{4,🍌{Float32}}

(+)(u,v) = (🍌(u[1].x+v[1].x),
            🍌(u[2].x+v[2].x),
            🍌(u[3].x+v[3].x),
            🍌(u[4].x+v[4].x))

code_llvm(+,(V,V))

It certainly has the advantage of being unlikely to conflict with user identifiers. I only wish the font wasn't monochrome.

[StefanKarpinski]

I see it in spectacular yellow 😁

[JeffBezanson]

I see it in spectacular yellow

Apple really knows how to sell computers.

[ArchRobison]

Wow. I'm home and now see the full color on my MacBook.

I'm open to replacement names less high up in Unicode. Perhaps VecElement?

[eschnett]

I'd call it VecElt, VecElem (both abbreviated), or VectorElement. Alternatively, use SIMD instead of Vec.

[timholy]

The main problem I see with this is that people are likely to encounter mysterious disappearances of data if they use the 🐵.jl package.

[pkofod]

Just load 🐯.jl first, that removes most of the problems introduced in 🐵.jl, although it does introduce some new ones as well.

[timholy]

This conversation certainly gives new meaning to the phrase "the Julia ecosystem."

[timholy]

To the substance of this PR: it's certainly not the first approach I would have thought of, but often good ideas aren't. This is probably in the domain of "fiendishly clever."

Would we need some kind of promotion to permit operations like ::Int * ::Banana{T} to automatically fall back to ::Int * ::T or perhaps Banana{::Int * ::T}? I guess I'm wondering about getting data into and out of Bananas.

The name SIMD{T} might be best. I like VecElement, but I agree that @eschnett has a good point about abbreviating consistently.

[ArchRobison]

I tried to clean up the use of name comparison but did something wrong. With the second commit, I get an infinite recursion when compiling infererence.jl. Here is a sample of the call chain:

jl_apply_generic at /localdisk/adrobiso/julia-invert/julia/src/gf.c:1909
unknown function (ip: 0x2af6d793d7f1)
jl_apply_generic at /localdisk/adrobiso/julia-invert/julia/src/gf.c:1909
unknown function (ip: 0x2af6d76ca413)
jl_apply_generic at /localdisk/adrobiso/julia-invert/julia/src/gf.c:1909
unknown function (ip: 0x2af6d76b13df)

@yuyichao 's suggestion looks like what I want to do anyway. (Thanks!)

[ArchRobison]

With respect to getting values in/out of Banana, I was expecting that to be hidden inside a library like SIMD.jl. I like VecElt for the final name, but am keeping Banana for work in progress because it's easy to grep.

[ArchRobison]

I'm not understanding some point of the boot process. With the latest three commits, I'm getting a failure during the build process. Here's an excerpt:

make[1]: Entering directory `/localdisk/adrobiso/julia-invert/julia'
 cd /localdisk/adrobiso/julia-invert/julia/base && /localdisk/adrobiso/julia-invert/julia/usr/bin/julia -C native --output-ji /localdisk/adrobiso/julia-invert/julia/usr/lib/julia/inference0.ji -f coreimg.jl
A method error occurred before the base module was defined. Aborting...
#<null>.TypeVar
(:T, #<null>.Any, true)
while loading boot.jl, in expression starting on line 280

See here for what I defined in boot.jl, based on "monkey see, monkey do" knowledge.

[yuyichao]

Move it below the constructor of TypeVar's (and posibly others) are defined?

[ArchRobison]

Thanks! That solved the problem.

[mschauer]

Marking the elements would make SIMD optimization seamlessly compatible with Julia packages which are based on wrapped homogeneous tuple types like FixedSizeArrays .

[KristofferC]

FWIW I don't get any packed instructions using this branch, julia -O and the proof of concept code in the first post.

Here is LLVM and generated code: https://gist.github.com/KristofferC/4be0fea644ef22a4b773

[ArchRobison]

@KristofferC : It's my fault for updating the pull request and not commenting on a functional change. The update cleaned up the hacky test for is_banana_type. It now requires that Base.Banana be used instead of any type called Banana. I've updated the example in the first comment to reflect the change.

Next update will change the name to VecElt and remove WIP (Wackiness in Progress?) from the title.

[KristofferC]

Thanks, it is working now. Experimenting with something like this:

import Base.Banana

typealias Vec{N, T} NTuple{N,Base.Banana{T}}

@generated function add{N}(u::Vec{N}, v::Vec{N})
    Expr(:tuple, [:(Banana(u[$i].value + v[$i].value)) for i in 1:N]...)
end

code_llvm(add,(Vec{4,Float32},Vec{4,Float32}))

it seems a bit brittle. For example

code_llvm(add,(Vec{8,Float32},Vec{8,Float32}))

does not produce two fadd <4x float> but instead does some strange juggling between the registers, generated code: https://gist.github.com/KristofferC/3fbf15ed40015e49cb8a.

It would be nice if it "just worked" without having to match the exact register size but maybe it is out of scope for this PR.

[KristofferC]

Actually creating a Vec{8, Float32} segfaults so it doesn't really matter what code is being generated :P :

@generated function Base.rand{N, T}(::Type{Vec{N,T}})
    Expr(:tuple, [:(Banana(rand(T))) for i in 1:N]...)
end

a = rand(Vec{8,Float32})


signal (11): Segmentation fault
while loading no file, in expression starting on line 0
indexed_next at ./tuple.jl:33
unknown function (ip: 0x7eff2c7b4188)
[inline] at /home/kristoffer/julia/src/julia_internal.h:69
jl_call_method_internal at /home/kristoffer/julia/src/gf.c:1906
send_to_backend at ./REPL.jl:613
unknown function (ip: 0x7f013f4a8655)
.
.
.
Allocations: 4703615 (Pool: 4700646; Big: 2969); GC: 10
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

[ArchRobison]

PR updated to use VecElt instead of Banana.

I can replicate the optimization and crash fragility that @KristofferC observes. On the optimization front, I think we'll have to rely on llvmcall within SIMD.jl. I'm guessing that the SLP vectorizer has a cutoff parameter for how wide a vector to consider, and compile time may be quadratic in that parameter? To rely on llvmcall, we'll probably want an introspection function to tell whether a tuple is represented as an LLVM vector or not.

I'll look into the crash problem. The following example works past the show, but crashes at the second println.

typealias Vec{N, T} NTuple{N,Base.VecElt{T}}

@generated function Base.rand{N, T}(::Type{Vec{N,T}})
    Expr(:tuple, [:(VecElt(rand(T))) for i in 1:N]...)
end

a = rand(Vec{8,Float32})

show(a)
println()
println(a) # Crashes here

[tkelman]

Do we (edit: use) Elt as shorthand for element anywhere else?

[KristofferC]

I personally like VecElem or VecElement more.

[ArchRobison]

I was wondering if there was prior art for the Elt abbreviation. I couldn't find any for Elt or Elem. I see no problem with a long name such as VecElement since it's a low-level interface that SIMD.jl can hide.

Anyone else have a preference?

[tkelman]

CI failure was #15294, restarted

From worker 2:       * numbers              Error During Test
    From worker 2:    Test threw an exception of type UndefVarError
    From worker 2:    Expression: round(T,true // false) === convert(T,Inf)
    From worker 2:    UndefVarError: no_op_err not defined
    From worker 2:     in gcd(::Bool, ::Bool) at ./intfuncs.jl:11
    From worker 2:     in Rational{Bool}(::Bool, ::Bool) at ./rational.jl:9
    From worker 2:     [inlined code] from /tmp/julia/share/julia/test/numbers.jl:2849
    From worker 2:     in anonymous at ./no file:-1
    From worker 2:     [inlined code] from ./essentials.jl:78
    From worker 2:     in include_string(::UTF8String, ::ASCIIString) at ./loading.jl:371
    From worker 2:     in include_from_node1(::ASCIIString) at ./loading.jl:420
    From worker 2:     [inlined code] from ./util.jl:179
    From worker 2:     in runtests(::ASCIIString) at /tmp/julia/share/julia/test/testdefs.jl:7
    From worker 2:     in (::Base.Serializer.__deserialized_types__.##9183)(::ASCIIString) at /tmp/julia/share/julia/test/runtests.jl:36
    From worker 2:     in run_work_thunk(::Base.##254#256{Base.CallMsg{:call_fetch}}, ::Bool) at ./multi.jl:714
    From worker 2:     [inlined code] from ./multi.jl:1010
    From worker 2:     in (::Base.##253#255{Base.CallMsg{:call_fetch},TCPSocket})() at ./task.jl:59

[KristofferC]

Small update, this crashes:

julia> ((VecElement(1.0), VecElement(2.0), VecElement(2.0), VecElement(2.0)))

signal (11): Segmentation fault
while loading no file, in expression starting on line 0
[inline] at ./array.jl:391
put! at ./channels.jl:41
unknown function (ip: 0x7fdb3570f2d7)
[inline] at /home/kristoffer/juliacxx/src/julia_internal.h:69

[ArchRobison]

Today's commits (up to "Allow more sizes...") fix all the crashes that I'm aware of. So feel free to increase my awareness.

I have not tackled fixing LLVM for all vector sixes like @eschnett's PR does, though my PR does allow the non-power-of-two sizes that seem to work.

[StefanKarpinski]

Given that there are no known crashes, this seems like it may be at a good point to merge and allow additional issues to be fixed in future PRs. If the participants don't object to that, I suggest merging.

[yuyichao]

This uses some c++11 features (nullptr) so it needs to either use only c++03 features or manually turn on c++11 when we are compiling with LLVM 3.3.

[ArchRobison]

I'll try to knock it back to C++03. I didn't realize LLVM 3.3 was still in
play.

On Thu, Apr 7, 2016 at 1:44 PM, Yichao Yu notifications@github.com wrote:

This uses some c++11 features (nullptr) so it needs to either use only
c++03 features or manually turn on c++11 when we are compiling with LLVM
3.3.

—
You are receiving this because you were mentioned.
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#15244 (comment)

[yuyichao]

This will probably break AOT compilation.

[ArchRobison]

Could you explain why? (I'm clueless on what ahead of time compilation involves for Julia.)

[yuyichao]

IIUC it allows you to build julia without llvm at runtime.

[ArchRobison]

I skimmed through @vtjnash's article. Maybe he can comment on the AOT issue here. The change in question causes jl_compute_field_offsets to need LLVM. In the AOT model, is jl_compute_field_offsets part of the run-time?

[JeffBezanson]

Yes, it is part of the run time.

[ArchRobison]

Thanks for the info. Basically I need to add an oracle to the run-time that determines whether LLVM uses a vector, using only Julia type information and not it's mapping to LLVM types. If I call this oracle from the Julia-to-LLVM mapping logic where it decides whether to use an LLVM vector, then there will always be agreement on the answer.

[yuyichao]

How complicated/platform-dependent is the LLVM logic used here?

[ArchRobison]

The tricky part is that currently the tuple type is used if all the elements have the same LLVM type and the LLVM type is a scalar type. I'll have to cut that back to using a tuple only if all the elements have the same Julia type, or all are pointers. And make an estimate on whether the Julia element type maps to an LLVM scalar type (seems straightforward).

I suspect the pointer case isn't interesting, though AVX-512 and a creative mind will prove me wrong.

[yuyichao]

I'll have to cut that back to using a tuple only if all the elements have the same Julia type, or all are pointers. And make an estimate on whether the Julia element type maps to an LLVM scalar type (seems straightforward).

I think it is better to do that anyway since it will be easier to describe what our ABI is. If it matters, we can treat non floating point bitstype with the same size as the same scalar integer type when deciding whether it is a homogeneous vectorizable tuple.

[ArchRobison]

Latest revision fixes the AOT issue per discussion. test/vecelement.jl tests all the types of interest, and there's an assertion in cgutils.cpp to catch disagreements between Julia and LLVM about the alignment of a struct.

[ArchRobison]

I tried compiling with:

LLVM_VER = 3.3

and got lots of errors in jitlayer.cpp unrelated to my changes. Has anyone successfully built Julia with LLVM 3.3 lately?

[tkelman]

I did a few days ago but it required manually adding -std=c++11 to CXXFLAGS. That file could maybe be fixed with llvm version ifdefs, not sure.

[ArchRobison]

Since @tkelman's remarks indicate that we've bought into using C++11 even when compiling with LLVM 3.3, there seems to be no point in changing nullptr to NULL, so I'll leave it as is in the PR.

[yuyichao]

I'll leave it as is in the PR.

Should be fine.... Supplying CXXFLAGS shouldn't be too bad for someone that want to test LLVM 3.3... As a side note, #15556 breaks linking of sysimg on linux with LLVM 3.3 although there's dirty workaround to make it work (by throw away the first character in the function name)...

[vtjnash]

it still works on clang / osx, so i hadn't noticed any llvm3.3 breakage. i haven't had a reason to test on linux recently. but iirc, using nullptr has been accepted by clang in the past without complaint (and without demanding a c++11 flag – unlike gcc)

[ArchRobison]

Something went astray with my last pull/merge. Please ignore latest update until I straighten it out.

[ArchRobison]

Commits squashed. If the checks pass, I suggest giving the changes a final review and merging if it looks good.

[tkelman]

strictest?

[ArchRobison]

Thanks. Now fixed.

[vtjnash]

lgtm. Can I ask that you also write a NEWS entry and some documentation on VecElement to the stdlib, mention it in the Julia-to-C mapping table (http://docs.julialang.org/en/latest/manual/calling-c-and-fortran-code/#bits-types), and perhaps put some usage examples somewhere in the manual (maybe in http://docs.julialang.org/en/latest/manual/performance-tips/?). I don't think that needs to hold up merging this though. Thanks for your persistence in making this happen.

[ArchRobison]

Yes, I'll next work on the items that @vtnash suggested.