[llvm-dev] RFC: [DebugInfo] Improving Debug Information in LLVM to Recover Optimized-out Function Parameters

Fri Feb 8 07:57:45 PST 2019

Hi,

>> I'll refrain from bike-shedding the actual implementation; let's save
this
for phabricator, but conceptually, this makes sense to me. If I understand
correctly, you are identifying at the call site parameters that are n
locations that can be restored by unwinding the function call, such as
constants, stack slots, and callee/r-saved registers.
>>    Can you explain why you need to identify them at the IR level? Could
>> you do it just in MIR, too, or is there some information missing in MIR?

>>    What happens to your DICallSiteParam when a function call gets
>> inlined?

> Your understanding about call site parameter is right!
> When a function call gets inlined,   call site information is eliminated.
> We kept to the LLVM guidelines of introducing DI metadata in the front end
and carrying it through IR and >MIR. I don’t think there is missing
information in MIR, though.

In addition to this, we are aware that almost all of these information could
be extracted from MIR.  DICallSiteParam provides backup location once
primary location that is loaded into parameter forwarding register is lost,
but with providing DICallSiteParam we also provide ability to look two or
more frames behind in order to search for called function entry values. At
MIR level we are looking for location loaded into parameter forwarding
register, but with DICallSiteParam we are looking for variable’s location
which can be described in terms of DW_OP_entry_value.

>>   Have you considered to instead insert a very late MIR pass that does
>> some backwards analysis on the machine code to yield potential call site
>> parameters instead of threading it all the way through the compiler? If
>> yes, why did you choose this implementation?

> If I have not convinced you on this, we are open for suggestion. I
will ask
my colleagues on this project to respond too.

We considered such approach briefly but we were discouraged by the fact that
we would need to generalize and interpret constant loading instructions,
memory loading, stack object loading and much more instructions for various
architectures.

Thanks,
Nikola & Djordje

On 08.02.2019. 16:14, via llvm-dev wrote:
> It's fantastic to see this happening! It'll be really nice to start
> seeing some DWARF 5 feature work (as opposed to the infrastructure
> stuff, which has its own benefits but doesn't help the end-user's
> debugging experience).  A couple of questions below.
> --paulr
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: llvm-dev [mailto:llvm-dev-bounces at lists.llvm.org] On Behalf Of
>> Ananthakrishna Sowda (asowda) via llvm-dev
>> Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2019 9:32 PM
>> To: Adrian Prantl
>> Cc: llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org
>> Subject: Re: [llvm-dev] RFC: [DebugInfo] Improving Debug Information in
>> LLVM to Recover Optimized-out Function Parameters
>>
>> Thank you for your interest and comments! Please see my responses inline.
>>
>> On 2/7/19, 3:17 PM, "aprantl at apple.com on behalf of Adrian Prantl"
>> <aprantl at apple.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>     > On Feb 7, 2019, at 1:49 PM, Ananthakrishna Sowda (asowda) via llvm-
>> dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
>>     >
>>     > Hi,
>>     > Following is a proposal to improve location coverage for Function
>> parameters in LLVM. The patches for review will be posted soon.
>>     >
>>     > RFC: [DebugInfo] Improving Debug Information in LLVM to Recover
>> Optimized-out Function Parameters
>>     >
>>     > Ananthakrishna Sowda(Cisco), asowda at cisco.com
>>     > Nikola Prica (RT-RK/Cisco), nprica at rtrk.com
>>     > Djordje Todorovic(RT-RK/Cisco), djtodorovic at rtrk.com
>>     > Ivan Baev (Cisco), ibaev at cisco.com
>>     >
>>     >
>>     > Overview of the problem
>>     > Software release products are compiled with optimization level –O2
>> and higher. Such products might produce a core-file in case of a failure.
>> Support engineers usually begin debug analysis by looking at the backtrace
>> from a core-file. Unfortunately, many parameters in backtraces are
>> reported as optimized out due to variety of reasons. This makes triaging
>> the issue and assigning ownership harder due to missing information. It is
>> harder for the product team to understand the cause of the failure. In
>> summary, we are describing a well-known serviceability problem for
>> optimized production code.
>>     >
>>     > Proposal for solution
>>     > Function parameters have a natural fall-back location which is
>> parent frame. Debuggers can easily go up a frame in call-chain and
>> evaluate any expression. Expert developers can find what values parameters
>> had at function entry point by examining disassembly of caller frame at
>> that particular function call. With additional call-site information
>> produced by compiler, debugger can fully automate this technique. DWARF 5
>> specification has new tags and attributes to describe call-site parameter
>> information [1][2]. it is already implemented in GCC and GDB since
>> 2011[3]. We propose implementing this feature in LLVM to enhance the
>> debugging of optimized code experience of LLVM users.
>>     >
>>     > Prior mention
>>     > An initial version of our work was presented as a poster during LLVM
>> Developer Meeting, in San Jose, 2018. The feature is now fully implemented
>> in internal Clang/LLVM 4.0 version.
>>     > We presented a talk on our work at FOSDEM 2019[4].
>>     >
>>
>>     Thank you for posting this. This looks very interesting! Since your
>> proposal has a lot of different components, Sema support,
>> DW_AT_call_site_parameter support, DW_OP_entry_value support, it will
>> probably be best to split them out into separate reviews, but it's also
>> good to discuss the proposal in its entirety first. I have a bunch of
>> questions to make sure I fully understand what you are doing.
>>
>> Sure, we will post several patches, each as a logical unit.
>>
>>     > Implementation notes in Clang and LLVM
>>     > On the callee side the only information that we need is whether a
>> parameter is never modified in the function. If true then we can use
>> parameter’s entry value when we lose track of parameter’s location. As a
>> natural way of handling this problem we used Clang’s Sema and its
>> constness check to embed this information in variable’s declaration which
>> is later used for DILocalVariable construction.
> 
> Do you think we could build on this to offer entry_value location list
> entries, if the value is lost (e.g., register is reused) before the parameter 
> is modified within the callee?
> 
>>
>>     By looking at whether an argument is modified in the function, you can
>> identify variables that can be described with an entry value location and
>> that entry value would be valid throughout the function. Are you using
>> this information in the function body to identify whether to emit an entry
>> value location, or are you using this information at the call site to
>> identify call sites for which call site parameters would be beneficial (or
>> both)?
>>
>>     Is emitting an entry value location in the function body an either-or
>> thing or do you also emit plain old locations if you have them available
>> in the location list together with the entry values?
>>
>>     In the function, I assume you don't know whether all call sites will
>> have call site parameters. How do you decide whether to emit entry value
>> locations?
>>
>> Entry value location is added to same conventional location list. We emit
>> them when we see holes in the coverage, looking at the whole function
>> scope. It is used by the debugger when there is no conventional location
>> for a program range.  It is reported by the debugger as   “<optimized-
>> out>, @entry  = <value at call site>”.
>> Unmodified argument is a sub-set for which debugger can report  @entry
>> value is same as actual value. So, it will not be reported as optimized-
>> out.
>> We generate entry value location whenever  conventional does not cover one
>> hundred percent. We generate call-site information when the call-site
>> parameter values can be evaluated by unwinding to the parent frame. Only
>> debugger can tell if look-up of an entry value finds matching call site
>> and call site parameter.
> 
> Is the idea to use DW_OP_entry_value in a default-location list entry?
> I think we do not emit those currently, but it seems like an ideal match
> for an unmodified formal parameter.
> 
>>
>>
>>     > For call-site information, new DINode metadata DICallSite and
>> DICallSiteParam are defined and these are emitted by the Clang frontend.
>> The metadata is associated to the call or invoke IR instruction. Here is
>> an example:
>>     >
>>     > %call5 = call i32 @fed_em_strncmp(i8* %arraydecay, i8* %arraydecay1,
>> i64 5), !dbg !114, !call_site !101
>>     > …
>>     > !99 = !DICallSiteParam(argno: 1, variable: !91, expr:
>> !DIExpression())
>>     > !100 = !DICallSiteParam(argno: 2, variable: !95, expr:
>> !DIExpression())
>>     > !101 = !DICallSite(scope: !87, file: !3, parameters: !102, line: 40,
>> calledSubprogram: !13)
>>     > !102 = !{!99, !100, !103}
>>     > !103 = !DICallSiteParam(argno: 3, expr: !DIExpression(DW_OP_lit5)
>>     > For tracking call sites and call site parameters in backend two new
>> pseudo instructions, DBG_CALLSITE and DBG_CALLSITEPARAM, are introduced.
>> See the MIR code bellow:
>>     >
>>     > DBG_CALLSITE 0, %noreg, <!19>; dbg:strncmp.c:40:47
>>     >          * DBG_CALLSITEPARAM %RDX,  <0x727fee0> =
>> !DIExpression(DW_OP_lit5), 5, %noreg ; dbg:strncmp.c:40:47
>>     >          * DBG_CALLSITEPARAM %RSI, "str2" <0x71a6dd0> =
>> !DIExpression(), %RBX, %noreg ; dbg:strncmp.c:40:47
>>     >          * DBG_CALLSITEPARAM %RDI, "str1" <0x71a6dd0> =
>> !DIExpression(), %, %RSP, 4 ; dbg:strncmp.c:40:47
>>
>>     I'll refrain from bike-shedding the actual implementation; let's save
>> this for phabricator, but conceptually, this makes sense to me. If I
>> understand correctly, you are identifying at the call site parameters that
>> are in locations that can be restored by unwinding the function call, such
>> as constants, stack slots, and callee/r-saved registers.
>>     Can you explain why you need to identify them at the IR level? Could
>> you do it just in MIR, too, or is there some information missing in MIR?
>>
>>     What happens to your DICallSiteParam when a function call gets
>> inlined?
>>
>> Your understanding about call site parameter is right!
>> When a function call gets inlined,   call site information is eliminated.
>> We kept to the LLVM guidelines of introducing DI metadata in the front end
>> and carrying it through IR and MIR. I don’t think there is missing
>> information in MIR, though.
>>
>>>
>>     > There is a challenge in ISel phase to produce them. Algorithm that
>> collects information about call site parameters iterates over call
>> sequence chained nodes returned from target specific call lowering
>> interface. Goal of the algorithm is to recognize SDNodes that represent
>> instructions which will load function arguments into registers that
>> transfer them into another function call frame. There is a question
>> whether this is effectively implemented as a general matching algorithm or
>> it should be lowered to target specific level. DBG_CALLSITE pseudo
>> instruction will need to be revisited since information whether a call is
>> tail call or not could be extracted differently but for sake of simplicity
>> we chose this.
>>     > Most of passes handle DBG_CALLSITE and DBG_CALLSITEPARAM through
>> target instruction info interface method isDebugInstr(). This method is
>> used to skip processing of pseudo debug instructions. Since these new
>> pseudo debug instructions relay on virtual registers and frame objects we
>> need to follow up their substitution through the compilation phases. There
>> were several backend passes that needed special attention: Register
>> Coalesce, Inline Spiller, Prologue Epilog Inserter, Split Kit and Virtual
>> Register Rewriter. Virtual Register Rewriter required implementation of
>> target specific salvaging interface for “call site parameter identities” –
>> situation following identity copy instructions that leads to overlapping
>> of parameter transferring register location and location that is loaded
>> into that register.
>>     > The last challenge is to extend LiveDebugValues pass to generate
>> additional DBG_VALUE instructions with new kind of debug expression (with
>> ‘DW_OP_entry_value’) for parameters that meet the requirements described
>> in [1].
>>     > Finally, emitting call-site debug information can be controlled by
>> ‘-debugger-tune’ and ‘-dwarf-version’ LLVM code-generation flags, since
>> not all debuggers used in the community consume this DWARF information.
>>
>>     Have you considered to instead insert a very late MIR pass that does
>> some backwards analysis on the machine code to yield potential call site
>> parameters instead of threading it all the way through the compiler? If
>> yes, why did you choose this implementation?
>>
>> If I have not convinced you on this, we are open for suggestion. I will
>> ask my colleagues on this project to respond too.
>>
>>
>>     >
>>     > Location coverage improvement
>>     > The important criteria in debugging-optimized-code is whether the
>> compiler has location information for variables and parameters. We use
>> ‘locstats’ utility from elfutils [5] package to guide us in improving
>> overall location coverage in final executable. For each non-artificial
>> variable or formal parameter - or Debugging Information Entry in DWARF -
>> ‘locstats’ computes what percentage from the code section bytes where the
>> variable is in scope, the variable has a non-empty location description.
>> 100% coverage is not expected for non-global variables and function
>> parameters, since value may not be ‘live’ through the entire scope. On the
>> other end, 0% coverage for variables which are used in the code is
>> indicative of compiler losing track of values.
>>     > The second column in Table 1 shows ‘locstats’ report for gdb-7.11
>> compiled for x86-64 with “-g –O2” by Clang 4.0. For example, there are
>> 29476 parameters whose coverage is in 91..100% range. The third column
>> shows locstats’ report with “-g –O2” and the parameter-entry-value
>> feature. There are now 37671 parameters whose coverage is in 91..100%
>> range – for a 28% improvement.
>>     > Because our implementation computes an additional location list
>> entry to parameters whenever possible, and DW_OP_entry_value is valid
>> through the entire scope of the parameter, the numbers at 91..100 row are
>> relevant indication of improvement with parameter-entry-value.
>>     >
>>     > Coverage	Parameters	Parameters with emit-param-entry-values
>>     > (% range)	(number/%))	(number/%)
>>     > 0..10		22682/30%	21342/28%
>>     > 11..20		3498/4%	2337/3%
>>     > 21..30		3083/4%	1986/2%
>>     > 31..40		3050/4%	1862/2%
>>     > 41..50		2534/3%	1574/2%
>>     > 51..60		2349/3%	1571/2%
>>     > 61..70		2184/2%	1649/2%
>>     > 71..80		2620/3%	2069/2%
>>     > 81..90		3432/4%	2847/3%
>>     > 91..100		29476/39%	37671/50%
>>     > Table 1 Location coverage statistics for function parasmeters
>>     >
>>     > Improved backtrace for optimized code in debugger
>>     > Figure 1 below shows improved backtrace for optimized code when
>> compiled with parameter entry value tracking feature. Please note the new
>> @entry values reported for parameters in backtrace. These parameters will
>> otherwise be reported as <optimized-out>.
>>     >
>>     > gdb) bt
>>     > #0 get_next_move_from_list (list=list at entry=0x7fffffffbf88,
>>     > color=color at entry=1, moves=moves at entry=0x7fffffffbfb0,
>>     > cutoff=cutoff at entry=100) at engine/owl.c:3032
>>     > #1 0x000000000042a957 in do_owl_attack (str=<optimized out>,
>>     > move=<optimized out>, move at entry=0x7fffffffc334, wormid=<optimized
>> out>, wormid at entry=0x7fffffffc33c, owl=<optimized out>, owl at entry=0x0,
>>     > komaster=komaster at entry=0, kom_pos=kom_pos at entry=0,escape=<optimized
>> out>)
>>     > at engine/owl.c:1306
>>     > #2 0x000000000042a0d0 in owl_attack (target=target at entry=148,
>>     > attack_point=attack_point at entry=0x7fffffffc580, certain=<optimized
>> out>, certain at entry=0xb63048 <dragon+11288>,
>> kworm=kworm at entry=0x7fffffffc3c4) at engine/owl.c:1144
>>     > #3 0x0000000000412c71 in make_dragons (color=<optimized out>,
>> color at entry=1, stop_before_owl=<optimized out>, stop_before_owl at entry=0,
>> save_verbose=<optimized out>, save_verbose at entry=0) at engine/dragon.c:346
>>     > #4 0x0000000000417fdc in examine_position (color=color at entry=1,
>> how_much=how_much at entry=99) at engine/genmove.c:152
>>     > #5 0x00000000004183c6 in do_genmove (move=move at entry=0x7fffffffd344,
>> color=1, color at entry=3, pure_threat_value=<optimized out>,
>>     > allowed_moves=<optimized out>, allowed_moves at entry=0x0)
>>     > at engine/genmove.c:334
>>     > #6 0x000000000041926d in genmove_conservative
>> (i=i at entry=0x7fffffffd36c, j=j at entry=0x7fffffffd368, color=3) at
>> engine/genmove.c:255
>>     > #7 0x00000000004618ae in gtp_gg_genmove (s=<optimized out>) at
>> interface/play_gtp.c:2163
>>     > #8 0x000000000045b0f8 in gtp_main_loop (commands=<optimized out>,
>> gtp_input=0xb8b100) at interface/gtp.c:126
>>     > Figure 1: Backtrace with @entry value parameters
>>
>>     Very nice!
>>
>>     >
>>     > Cost in disk image size increase and compile-time
>>     > The parameter-entry-value feature is enabled with -g compilation.
>> Due to new DebugInfo metadata generation which adds entries to DWARF
>> sections such as .debug_info and .debug_loc, there is expected size
>> increase of disk image of the executable built with “-g –O”. For SPEC CPU
>> 2006 benchmark, the average size increase is 15%. However, there is no
>> change in sections loaded at runtime such as .text. .data, .bss.  Hence,
>> there is no runtime size increase.
>>     > Compile-time cost increase is 1-3% percent for SPEC CPU 2006.
>>
>>     At this early stage I'm not yet worried by the size increase. We'll
>> probably find some opportunities to fine-tune the heuristics that decide
>> whether a call site parameter / entry value is profitable. We can also
>> always provide a tuning option to turn the feature off.
>>
>>
>>     > Community up-streaming
>>     > Since we have implemented this for LLVM-4.0 we are currently in
>> process of porting this implementation on LLVM trunk. We are planning to
>> share this set of patches with LLVM community and seek feedback in
>> improving certain parts of our implementation.
>>
>>     Sounds great!
>>     thanks for sharing this,
>>     adrian
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Ananth
>>
>>     >
>>     >
>>     > References
>>     > [1]Jakub Jelínek and Roland McGrath. DWARF DW_OP_entry_value
>> extension proposal. http://dwarfstd.org/ShowIssue.php? issue=100909.1.
>>     > [2 Jakub Jelínek, Roland McGrath, Jan Kratochvíl, and Alexandre
>> Oliva. DWARF DW_TAG_call_site extension proposal. http://dwarfstd.org/
>> ShowIssue.php?issue=100909.2
>>     > [3] J. Jelinek “Improving debug info for optimized away parameters”
>> https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/summit2010?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=jelin
>> ek.pdf
>>     > [4] FOSDEM talk
>> http://bofh.nikhef.nl/events/FOSDEM/2019/K.4.201/llvm_debug.webm
>>     > [5] Elfutils https://sourceware.org/elfutils/
>>     >
>>     >
>>     >
>>     >
>>     >
>>     >
>>     >
>>     > _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>>
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