[cfe-dev] Constexpr evaluation speed

[Balázs Benics via cfe-dev]

I don't think you can easily substitute constexpr evaluation with simply
calling a compiled counterpart. Unfortunately, they differ in semantics.
During constexpr evaluation AFAIK we should diagnose undefined behavior.
Simply substituting the constexpr evaluation with calling the binary
version would not diagnose that - assuming that we don't want to pessimize
the runtime version of the function with eg. sanitizers. The issue is the
same for optimizations. The only way you could safely do this if you could
prove that for the given input this function will not exhibit undefined
behavior. For a given value, interpretation is a way of checking this, but
for **all** possible values, it seems really tough.

How does constexpr evaluation differ from javascript evaluation in browsers?
They are doing just-in-time compilation. Maybe that is the future of
constexpr evaluation. Hal Finkel experimented with similar stuff in C++ if
I'm correct.
He might have some thoughts about this.
Could someone CC him?

David Rector via cfe-dev <cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org> ezt írta (időpont: 2021.
márc. 4., Cs, 17:15):

> One more vein of thought re constexpr evaluation speed, the new constexpr
> interpreter, and in particular how the C++ standard could be tweaked to
> allow us to use existing LLVM optimizations to really turbocharge code with
> heavy constexpr usage.
>
> Caveat: my knowledge is mostly about the AST; I know very little about the
> ABI/calling conventions/LLVM etc, which are implicated here.
>
> Motivation: it seems to me that constexpr evaluations will get very
> complex in the future, and we should plan for it.  In particular, I have
> been fighting a bit of a battle on the SG7 list to ensure the reflection +
> injection facilities will be sufficiently general to allow most design
> patterns to be rendered obsolete via metafunctions, and I think we came to
> a rough agreement that this is indeed a worthy and viable goal.
>
> But this will involve some very complex metaprogramming.  Indeed,
> constexpr programming may well become more complex than non-constexpr
> programming once reflection + injection get involved, and in fact *that
> would be the ideal*.  Let the user automate the tasks which make C++
> programming complex, but via customizable libraries from which they can
> pick and choose and modify, rather than endless fixed appendages to the
> language.
>
> But as users constexpr all the things, so must compilers consider how best
> to constexpr all their optimizations.  Why rewrite optimizations specific
> to constexpr functions which have already been written into LLVM?
>
> The RFC for the new constexpr intepreter has some good discussion, and
> seems to present an opportunity.  In particular I’m looking at the comments
> here:
> https://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/cfe-dev/2019-July/062807.html, and in
> particular this response to Richard from Nandor:
>
> > >*  * The current APValue representation is extremely bloated. Each
> instance is 72 bytes, and every subobject of an object is stored as a
> distinct APValue, so for instance a single char[128] variable will often
> occupy 9288 bytes of storage and incurs 128 distinct memory allocations.*
> >  Arrays and structures will be stored in a compact, contiguous form in
> memory, so we can save a lot of space here.
>
> Suppose we go a short step further and store that data in compliance with
> the ABI just like it were run-time data (with the proper alignment, offsets
> etc of subobjects).
>
> Then, suppose this were permissible code:
>
> ```
> // foo.h
> struct A { constexpr A() {} … };
> constexpr int foo(A a);
>
> // foo.cpp
> constexpr int foo(A a) {
>   // Complicated functions, lots of loops etc. which
>   // can be well-optimized by LLVM…
> }
>
> // main.cpp (must be compiled AFTER foo.cpp, or error)
> #include "foo.h"
> template<int N> class Dummy {};
> int main() {
>   constexpr A a{};
>   Dummy<foo(a)> d;
> }
> ```
>
> Upon being called to evaluate `foo(a)`, the interpreter would determine
> that this function has already been fully compiled into binary, *and* was
> marked constexpr (so we know there is no funny business in the definition),
> and therefore it can simply call that function directly, in whatever manner
> LLVM would call such a function, i.e. passing the raw data in accordance
> with the ABI.
>
> This would seemingly allow us to benefit from optimizations written only
> for lowered versions of that code, for particularly-complicated constexpr
> code that warrant it — the user need only a) put the definitions in
> separate cpps/libraries, and b) ensure they are built before any
> translation units which depend on them.  For trivial constexpr evaluation,
> nothing need change.
>
> Thoughts?  Is this remotely viable/sensible?
>
> Dave
>
> On Mar 2, 2021, at 11:28 PM, David Rector <davrecthreads at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Mar 2, 2021, at 10:03 PM, Richard Smith <richard at metafoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> On Tue, 2 Mar 2021 at 16:46, David Rector via cfe-dev <
> cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>
>> I was reading
>> http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2019/p1240r1.pdf,
>> which describes proposed reflection features currently under advanced
>> consideration.
>>
>> On page 5, the authors give their rationale for defining `reflexpr(x)`
>> to return an object of an opaque builtin type called `meta::info`, which
>> is useful only when passed to other builtin functions able to access its
>> various properties for different reflected entities.  This design is
>> favored over the alternative of defining it to return an AST-class-like
>> object specific to each reflected entity (ReflectedDeclaration,
>> ReflectedStatement etc.).
>>
>> In other words given this design the user must write e.g. `
>> meta::parameters_of(reflexpr(somefunc))` instead of e.g. `
>> reflexpr(somefunc)->parameters()`.
>>
>> One rationale the authors give for this choice is that they found that
>> accessing subobjects of a constexpr class object is significantly slower
>> than accessing values which are not subobjects, all else being equal.  The
>> authors present an example on pp 5-6.
>>
>> I tried to reproduce this example and their results in CompilerExplorer,
>> and was mostly just shocked at the apparent orders-of-magnitude-differences
>> between GCC (by far the fastest), Clang, and MSVC (by far the slowest) at
>> both constant-evaluation tasks.
>>
>> Example A (NB `f()` deals only with complete objects):
>> https://godbolt.org/z/TM5Wb6
>>
>> Example B (same as A, except `f()` now defined to dig through subobjects
>> to get the data it needs):
>> https://godbolt.org/z/5dPq3W
>>
>> Results of 5 trials:
>>                     __Compilation_times__
>> A
>> GCC  (1793B):   337,   408,   325,   435,   242 ms
>> Clang (218B):  9361,  5173,  4066,  5698,  4263 ms
>> MSVC  (306B): 21850, 24616, 24957, 24925, 32323 ms
>>
>> B
>> GCC  (2295B):   471,   319,   403,   309,   323 ms
>> Clang (218B): 17073, 15540, 17281, 13385, 18540 ms
>> MSVC   (n/a): always >60k ms
>>
>> Takeaways:
>> 1. Clang performs constant evaluation 10-50 times slower than GCC.
>> 2. While Clang performs B ~3 times slower than it performs A, it is not
>> clear that GCC is likewise affected by having to dig through subobjects (if
>> it is, the effect is slight).
>>
>> Questions:
>> 1. What am I missing?  Are there flags which might improve clang’s
>> performance?  Is GCC somehow gaining an unfair advantage?  (Potential clue:
>> note that the executable is the same small size, 218 bytes, for each of
>> clang’s results, but it is larger and differs for GCC’s
>> results…meaningful?)
>>
>
> Yes, GCC is "cheating" (you're not testing what you think you are). GCC
> memoizes constant evaluations (at least when it's correct to do so). Here's
> a slightly modified version of your A that doesn't permit memoization:
> https://godbolt.org/z/3q3TYr
>
> 5 trials with that and GCC (1793B):  12340, 11106, 10204, 9983, 10771ms
>
> (Times for Clang and MSVC seem similar to your measurements.) I don't know
> if compiler explorer uses the same machines for all compiles, or if all
> compilers are built in fully-optimized mode, but if so, that suggests that
> Clang is about 2x faster than GCC for this particular testcase.
>
> 2. Given the "constexpr all the things" zeitgeist, and the constant
>> evaluation speeds GCC has apparently realized, should the design of
>> ExprConstant.cpp/APValue/etc. be reconsidered?
>>
>
> Ignoring the part about GCC, yes. We have a
> -fexperimental-new-constant-interpreter flag that enables a new
> interpreter, which was built to be substantially faster. Unfortunately it's
> not complete yet (the version in trunk doesn't support any looping
> constructs yet) but the early indications are very promising.
>
> 3. If ExprConstant.cpp etc were overhauled for optimal speed, will it
>> still ultimately be true that programs which dig through subobjects of
>> compile time objects are necessarily slower than equivalent programs which
>> deal only with complete compile-time objects?
>>
>
> I don't think that would necessarily be the case. I've also mentioned that
> in committee, but "one compiler can do X" doesn't necessarily translate
> into "everyone will do X", and folks representing other compilers have
> indicated they expect the more "bare-bones" approach will remain faster for
> their implementations.
>
>>
>>
> Thanks Richard, very thorough answer; that adjustment does indeed turn the
> tables on GCC.  Clang takes the gold, and that’s before even the fancy new
> interpreter is deployed.  Looking forward to it.
>
> Assuming like machines are running the various compilers on
> CompilerExplorer, I think we can all hazard a pretty good guess at this
> point which particular compiler really benefits from keeping things as bare
> bones as possible ;)
>
> Dave
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> cfe-dev mailing list
> cfe-dev at lists.llvm.org
> https://lists.llvm.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cfe-dev
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/cfe-dev/attachments/20210304/425a83c4/attachment-0001.html>