[llvm-dev] how to simplify FP ops with an undef operand?

Friedman, Eli via llvm-dev llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
Wed Feb 28 15:53:13 PST 2018


Yes, exactly; the difference is that every use has to use the same 
value, like freeze from the freeze/poison proposal.

-Eli

On 2/28/2018 3:29 PM, Kaylor, Andrew wrote:
>
> For the first part of Sanjay’s question, I think the answer is, “Yes, 
> we can fold all of these to NaN in the general case.” For the second 
> part, which the nnan FMF is present, I’m not sure. The particulars of 
> the semantics of nnan are unclear to me.
>
> But let me explore what Eli is saying. It sounds reasonable, but I 
> have a question about it.
>
> Suppose we have the nnan FMF set, and we encounter this:
>
> %y = fdiv float %x, undef
>
> If I’ve understood Eli’s interpretation correctly, any of the 
> following transformations would be legal and safe:
>
> %y = 0.0
>
> %y = -1.0
>
> %y = inf
>
> %y = NaN
>
> And so on, covering all possible concrete values, right? Now suppose I 
> don’t change it at all. Now I might have IR that looks like this.
>
> %y = fdiv float %x, undef
>
> %z = fmul float %q, %y
>
> At this point, while working on %z, I could reconsider and say “If I 
> had transformed the fdiv into ‘%y = 0.0’ I could optimize this fmul 
> away too.” So at that point I can choose to do that, right? And in 
> general I can “retroactively” choose any concrete value that would be 
> convenient for the next transformation. You see where I’m going with this?
>
> How is that different from just folding the fdiv into undef to begin 
> with? Is it because I can’t choose different values on different code 
> paths?
>
> -Andy
>
> *From:*Friedman, Eli [mailto:efriedma at codeaurora.org]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, February 28, 2018 3:07 PM
> *To:* Sanjay Patel <spatel at rotateright.com>; Kaylor, Andrew 
> <andrew.kaylor at intel.com>
> *Cc:* llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>; Nuno Lopes 
> <nunoplopes at sapo.pt>; Stephen Canon <scanon at apple.com>; David Majnemer 
> <david.majnemer at gmail.com>; John Regehr <regehr at cs.utah.edu>; Sanjoy 
> Das <sanjoy at playingwithpointers.com>; Matt Arsenault 
> <arsenm2 at gmail.com>; Kreitzer, David L <david.l.kreitzer at intel.com>
> *Subject:* Re: how to simplify FP ops with an undef operand?
>
> I'm pretty sure that isn't what nnan is supposed to mean. If the 
> result of nnan math were undefined in the sense of "undef", programs 
> using nnan could have undefined behavior if the result is used in 
> certain ways which would not be undefined for any actual float value 
> (e.g. converting the result to a string), which seems like a 
> surprising result.  And I don't think we gain any useful optimization 
> power from saying we can fold to undef instead of something else.
>
> So I think it's supposed to say "the result is not specified" or 
> something (so an nnan operation which would produce a nan can instead 
> produce any value that isn't undef/poison).
>
> -Eli
>
> On 2/28/2018 2:45 PM, Sanjay Patel wrote:
>
>     Ah, thanks for explaining. So given that any of these ops will
>     return NaN with a NaN operand, let's choose the undef operand
>     value to be NaN. That means we can fold all of these to a NaN
>     constant in the general case.
>
>     But if we have 'nnan' FMF, then we can fold harder to undef?
>     nnan - Allow optimizations to assume the arguments and result are
>     not NaN. Such optimizations are required to retain defined
>     behavior over NaNs, but the value of the result is undefined.
>
>     On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 3:25 PM, Kaylor, Andrew
>     <andrew.kaylor at intel.com <mailto:andrew.kaylor at intel.com>> wrote:
>
>         What I’m saying is that if we have one operand that is not an
>         undef value then that operand might be NaN and if it is then
>         the result must be NaN. So while it may be true that we don’t
>         have a NaN, it is not true that we definitely do not have a
>         NaN in the example. This is analogous to the example in the
>         language reference where it says “%A = or %X, undef” -> “%A =
>         undef” is unsafe because any bits that are set in %A must be
>         set in the result. If any floating point operand is NaN
>         dynamically, then the result must be NaN.
>
>         I don’t believe it’s accurate to say that NaN is “morally
>         equivalent” to undef. There are some similarities, but the
>         important difference is that NaN always has well defined
>         behavior with a specific correct result. There is, perhaps, a
>         sense in which it is analogous to a poison value, but for the
>         purposes of reasoning about the correctness of floating point
>         operations I think it’s best to be pedantic about treating it
>         as the specific value that it is.
>
>         Finally, I was pretty sure you knew that fdiv by zero wasn’t
>         undefined. I just wanted to clarify that the “?” in your
>         comment was indicating that the assertion in the language
>         reference was questionable as opposed to this point being in
>         any way actually uncertain.
>
>         *From:*Sanjay Patel [mailto:spatel at rotateright.com
>         <mailto:spatel at rotateright.com>]
>         *Sent:* Wednesday, February 28, 2018 1:05 PM
>         *To:* Kaylor, Andrew <andrew.kaylor at intel.com
>         <mailto:andrew.kaylor at intel.com>>
>         *Cc:* llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
>         <mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>>; Nuno Lopes
>         <nunoplopes at sapo.pt <mailto:nunoplopes at sapo.pt>>; Stephen
>         Canon <scanon at apple.com <mailto:scanon at apple.com>>; David
>         Majnemer <david.majnemer at gmail.com
>         <mailto:david.majnemer at gmail.com>>; John Regehr
>         <regehr at cs.utah.edu <mailto:regehr at cs.utah.edu>>; Sanjoy Das
>         <sanjoy at playingwithpointers.com
>         <mailto:sanjoy at playingwithpointers.com>>; Friedman, Eli
>         <efriedma at codeaurora.org <mailto:efriedma at codeaurora.org>>;
>         Matt Arsenault <arsenm2 at gmail.com <mailto:arsenm2 at gmail.com>>;
>         Kreitzer, David L <david.l.kreitzer at intel.com
>         <mailto:david.l.kreitzer at intel.com>>
>
>
>         *Subject:* Re: how to simplify FP ops with an undef operand?
>
>         Correct - NaN is not undef in IR. But we don't have a NaN in
>         this example. We have its moral equivalent in LLVM - an
>         uninitialized value, undef.
>
>         So we're not introducing any extra uncertainty by propagating
>         the undef. The backend can choose whatever encoding of undef
>         makes sense when lowering?
>
>         And yes, I don't know why FP-div-by-zero would ever be UB. I
>         think that text in the LangRef should be removed regardless of
>         any other outcome here.
>
>         On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 1:18 PM, Kaylor, Andrew
>         <andrew.kaylor at intel.com <mailto:andrew.kaylor at intel.com>> wrote:
>
>             Why is NaN “just ‘undef’ in IR”? NaN is a specific value
>             with well-defined behavior. I would think that unless the
>             no-NaNs flag is used we need to preserve the behavior of NaNs.
>
>             *From:*Sanjay Patel [mailto:spatel at rotateright.com
>             <mailto:spatel at rotateright.com>]
>             *Sent:* Wednesday, February 28, 2018 12:08 PM
>             *To:* Kaylor, Andrew <andrew.kaylor at intel.com
>             <mailto:andrew.kaylor at intel.com>>
>             *Cc:* llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
>             <mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>>; Nuno Lopes
>             <nunoplopes at sapo.pt <mailto:nunoplopes at sapo.pt>>; Stephen
>             Canon <scanon at apple.com <mailto:scanon at apple.com>>; David
>             Majnemer <david.majnemer at gmail.com
>             <mailto:david.majnemer at gmail.com>>; John Regehr
>             <regehr at cs.utah.edu <mailto:regehr at cs.utah.edu>>; Sanjoy
>             Das <sanjoy at playingwithpointers.com
>             <mailto:sanjoy at playingwithpointers.com>>; Friedman, Eli
>             <efriedma at codeaurora.org
>             <mailto:efriedma at codeaurora.org>>; Matt Arsenault
>             <arsenm2 at gmail.com <mailto:arsenm2 at gmail.com>>
>             *Subject:* Re: how to simplify FP ops with an undef operand?
>
>             Yes, if %x is a NaN, we should expect that NaN is propagated.
>
>             I'm still not sure what to do here. We can take comfort in
>             knowing that whatever we do is likely an improvement over
>             the current situation though. :)
>
>             That's because the code in InstSimplify is inconsistent
>             with the LangRef:
>             http://llvm.org/docs/LangRef.html#undefined-values (UB for
>             fdiv by 0?)
>
>             ...and both of those are inconsistent with undef handling
>             in SDAG.
>
>             Let me propose an alternate interpretation:
>
>             1. The meaning of snan as written in IEEE754-2008 is:
>             "Signaling NaNs afford representations for uninitialized
>             variables..."
>             2. That matches our intent with 'undef' here in IR as
>             written in the LangRef: "unspecified bit-pattern".
>             3. The current fdiv transform is actually correct (any
>             SNaN UB/trapping commentary is irrelevant because we
>             assume exceptions are off by default).
>
>             The undef operand represents an uninitialized variable,
>             and the result of any FP op with that uninitialized
>             variable is well-defined: it's another NaN which is just
>             'undef' in IR.
>
>             On Wed, Feb 28, 2018 at 11:43 AM, Kaylor, Andrew
>             <andrew.kaylor at intel.com <mailto:andrew.kaylor at intel.com>>
>             wrote:
>
>                 I’m not sure the transformation happening with fdiv is
>                 correct. If we have “%y = fdiv float %x, undef” and %x
>                 is a NaN then the result will be NaN for any value of
>                 the undef, right? So if I understand the undef rules
>                 correctly (never a certainty) then we can’t safely
>                 replace the expression with undef. We could, I think,
>                 replace it with “%y = %x” though. I think the same is
>                 true for fadd, fsub, fmul, and frem.
>
>                 -Andy
>
>                 %y = fadd float %x, undef
>
>                 Can we simplify this?
>
>                 Currently in IR, we do nothing for fadd/fsub/fmul. For
>                 fdiv/frem, we propagate undef. The code comment for
>                 fdiv/frem says:
>                 "the undef could be a snan"
>
>                 If that's correct, then shouldn't it be the same for
>                 fadd/fsub/fmul? But this can't be correct because we
>                 support targets that don't raise exceptions...and even
>                 targets that raise exceptions do not trap by default
>                 on snan?
>
> -- 
> Employee of Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc.
> Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc. is a member of Code Aurora Forum, a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project


-- 
Employee of Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc.
Qualcomm Innovation Center, Inc. is a member of Code Aurora Forum, a Linux Foundation Collaborative Project

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