[cfe-dev] RFC: Clang-Misexpect Proposal

[Paul Kirth via cfe-dev]

On Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 6:31 AM Michael Kruse <cfe-dev at meinersbur.de> wrote:

> Sounds like a useful tool.
>
>
Thanks! I certainly hope it will be.


> Could it be enough for clang to emit warnings in PGO mode when it
> detects a mismatch between collected profile data and
> __builtin_expect() ?
>
>
You are right: it might be sufficient to simply gate these warnings behind
a flag in the PGO pipeline. I think there is a good argument for doing it
this way. In fact, it's how my prototype works right now, so we have
certainly considered this option.

However, I think it will still be desirable to have a standalone tool that
doesn't require the full compilation pipeline. My understanding was that
clang-tools are often aimed at this exact use-case: i.e. a custom driver
and partial compilation pipeline.

Another important point is that compiler warnings are, by and large,
accurate. Our approach to identifying these mismatches is subject to some
imprecision due to a deficiency in the collected profile. When we issue a
warning in clang-misexpect, it means one of two things: (i) your annotation
is incorrect, or (ii) your profile data is insufficient. While it at least
signals to the developer that investigation is warranted, it is a somewhat
unsatisfactory feedback. I think our best effort warnings are a better fit
for a clang-tool because of that. To me, warnings in the main compiler have
a feeling of more significance and a higher burden of correctness. For
something less precise or not generally applicable, a clang-tool appears to
be the right place to implement this. This seems to be consistent with
existing tools, like clang-tidy, that enable more warnings/diagnostics than
are available in the main compiler.

That being said, we're happy to take feedback from the community. So if the
general consensus is that this should be part of the PGO pipeline, then we
can rescope our proposal to only add a new flag to clang.

Or maybe the right thing to do is to have both? I'm not exactly sure, which
is one of the reasons we made this RFC.


> Michael
>
>
> Am Di., 23. Juli 2019 um 22:06 Uhr schrieb Paul Kirth via cfe-dev
> <cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org>:
> >
> > We would like to propose adding a new clang based tool,
> clang-mispredict, for identifying potentially incorrect uses of
> __builtin_expect().
> >
> > --- TLDR ---
> > What are we proposing?
> > * Adding a new tool, clang-mispredict, to the LLVM project.
> >
> > What is its purpose?
> > * Identifying potentially problematic uses of __builtin_expect().
> >
> > Why is this important?
> > * __builtin_expect() has a high performance cost when it is used
> incorrectly.
> >
> > Where will the code live?
> > * clang-mispredict will live in clang-tools-extra, and there will be
> some additions to clang.
> >
> > Open questions
> > * What is the correct heuristic for determining a mismatch?
> >
> > Potential shortcomings
> > * The approach is sensitive to both profiling input and configuration.
> >
> >
> > --- Details ---
> >
> > We plant to build a new tool, clang-mispredict, on top of Clang’s PGO
> infrastructure. This tool will issue warnings about the use of
> _builtin_expect() when collected PGO profile data shows a mismatch with the
> use of __builtin_expect(). Existing solutions for validating these
> annotations generally follow this approach: leverage dynamic profiling to
> validate existing annotations. This is the approach used in the Linux
> kernel, for example. Unfortunately, existing solutions seem to be custom
> efforts specific to a particular code base. Supporting this in the LLVM
> ecosystem gives developers a general way to check the use of
> _builtin_expect() without creating custom instrumentation.
> >
> > Additionally, if _builtin_expect() is used incorrectly, then developers
> may notice a performance regression when switching to the new PM. This
> happens because the New PM follows performance annotations more closely
> than the legacy PM, and is therefore more likely to try and aggressively
> optimize these cases. Our proposed tool can help developers narrow their
> focus to potentially problematic areas during the transition.
> >
> > Finally, it may also be beneficial to suggest annotations when profiling
> suggests it would be beneficial. We consider this a desirable property not
> only from a performance standpoint, but also for identifying potential bugs
> (both in the profiling corpus and within the codebase).
> >
> > We think having clang-mispredict behave similar to clang-tidy is good
> approach. We can use a compile commands database in conjunction with
> profiling data to drive our validation tool. More concretely, we plan to
> use Clang’s existing PGO infrastructure to emit warnings where branch
> weights are assigned, but stop compilation before the IR is passed to the
> backend. This largely amounts to checking if the profile counters are
> outside of certain thresholds for 'hot' and 'cold' code. Similar to clang
> tidy, we plan to support suppressing warnings within the codebase through
> use of comment strings.
> >
> > The most obvious question about this approach is how to quantify what is
> ‘hot’ or ‘cold’. Initially, we plan to use the thresholds already present
> in LLVM; however, we are happy to use any suitable heuristic or empirically
> derived threshold. Input from the community about the correct heuristic are
> most welcome.
> >
> > Our strategy does have some shortcomings. The usefulness of the warnings
> are directly related to how representative the profiling input actually was
> when compared to its normal use. If the profile collected is not
> representative of typical use, then the warnings may not reflect the ground
> truth. Program and build configuration can also dramatically change which
> paths will be executed, thus affecting the quality of the profile data and
> the generated warnings.
> >
> > Ultimately, we are proposing adding a new standalone tool that takes a
> compile commands database and an instrumentation profile to emit warnings
> in a clang-tidy fashion.
> >
> > Please let us know if you have comments or concerns about this proposal.
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > --
> > Paul Kirth
> > _______________________________________________
> > cfe-dev mailing list
> > cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org
> > https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cfe-dev
>


-- 
Paul Kirth
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