[llvm-dev] Multi-Threading Compilers

Tue Mar 3 04:03:16 PST 2020

> I can't say anything about the GCC side, but this isn't a particularly 
> novel aspect of the MLIR pass manager. In many ways, the pass manager 
> is the easiest/simplest part of the multi-threading problem. The 
> bigger problem is making sure that the rest of the compiler 
> infrastructure is structured in a way that is thread-safe, or can be 
> made thread-safe. This is why most of the discussion is based around 
> how to model things like constants, global values, etc. When I made 
> MLIR multi-threaded a year ago, a large majority of my time was spent 
> outside of the pass manager. For a real example, I spent much more 
> time just on multi-threaded pass timing 
> <https://mlir.llvm.org/docs/WritingAPass/#multi-threaded-pass-timing> 
> than making the pass manager itself multi-threaded.
Picking on this point, perhaps a bit off-topic for the whole discussion.
I have recently realized that for the purpose of multi-threaded pass 
timing currently existing LLVM timers


On 3/1/20 3:23 AM, River Riddle via llvm-dev wrote:
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 29, 2020 at 4:00 PM Nicholas Krause <xerofoify at gmail.com 
> <mailto:xerofoify at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
>     On 2/29/20 6:17 PM, River Riddle via llvm-dev wrote:
>>
>>
>>     On Sat, Feb 29, 2020 at 2:25 PM David Blaikie via llvm-dev
>>     <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org <mailto:llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>         On Sat, Feb 29, 2020 at 2:19 PM Chris Lattner
>>         <clattner at nondot.org <mailto:clattner at nondot.org>> wrote:
>>
>>             On Feb 29, 2020, at 2:08 PM, David Blaikie
>>             <dblaikie at gmail.com <mailto:dblaikie at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>                 I've
>>>                 curious as
>>>                 to how MLIR deals with IPO as that's the problem I
>>>                 was running into.
>>>
>>>
>>>             FWIW I believe LLVM's new pass manager (NPM) was
>>>             designed with parallelism and the ability to support
>>>             this situation (that MLIR doesn't? Or doesn't to the
>>>             degree/way in which the NPM does). I'll leave it to
>>>             folks (Chandler probably has the most context here) to
>>>             provide some more detail there if they can/have time.
>>
>>             Historically speaking, all of the LLVM pass managers have
>>             been designed to support multithreaded compilation (check
>>             out the ancient history of the WritingAnLLVMPass
>>             <http://llvm.org/docs/WritingAnLLVMPass.html> doc if
>>             curious).
>>
>>
>>         I think the specific thing that might'v been a bit different
>>         in the NPM was to do with analysis invalidation in a way
>>         that's more parallelism friendly than the previous one - but
>>         I may be misrepresenting/misundrstanding some of it.
>>
>>             The problem is that LLVM has global use-def chains on
>>             constants, functions and globals, etc, so it is
>>             impractical to do this.  Every “inst->setOperand” would
>>             have to be able to take locks or use something like
>>             software transactional memory techniques in their
>>             implementation.  This would be very complicated and very
>>             slow.
>>
>>
>>         Oh, yeah - I recall that particular limitation being
>>         discussed/not addressed as yet.
>>
>>             MLIR defines this away from the beginning.  This is a
>>             result of the core IR design, not the pass manager design
>>             itself.
>>
>>
>>         What does MLIR do differently here/how does it define that
>>         issue away? (doesn't have use-lists built-in?)
>>
>>
>>     The major thing is that constants and global-like objects don't
>>     produce SSA values and thus don't have use-lists.
>>     https://mlir.llvm.org/docs/Rationale/#multithreading-the-compiler discusses
>>     this a bit.
>>
>>     For constants, the data is stored as an Attribute(context uniqued
>>     metadata, have no use-list, not SSA). This attribute can either
>>     placed in the attribute list(if the operand is always constant,
>>     like for the value of a switch case), otherwise it must be
>>     explicitly materialized via some operation. For example, the
>>     `std.constant
>>     <https://mlir.llvm.org/docs/Dialects/Standard/#constant-operation>`
>>     operation will materialize an SSA value from some attribute data.
>>
>>     For references to functions and other global-like objects, we
>>     have a non-SSA mechanism built around `symbols`. This is
>>     essentially using a special attribute to reference the function
>>     by-name, instead of by ssa value. You can find more information
>>     on MLIR symbols here
>>     <https://mlir.llvm.org/docs/SymbolsAndSymbolTables/>.
>>
>>     Along with the above, there is a trait that can be attached to
>>     operations called `IsolatedFromAbove
>>     <https://mlir.llvm.org/docs/Traits/#isolatedfromabove>`. This
>>     essentially means that no SSA values defined above a region can
>>     be referenced from within that region. The pass manager only
>>     allows schedule passes on operations that have this property,
>>     meaning that all pipelines are implicitly multi-threaded.
>>
>>     The pass manager in MLIR was heavily inspired by the work on the
>>     new pass manager in LLVM, but with specific
>>     constraints/requirements that are unique to the design of MLIR.
>>     That being said, there are some usability features added that
>>     would also make great additions to LLVM: instance specific pass
>>     options and statistics, pipeline crash reproducer generation, etc.
>>
>>     Not sure if any of the above helps clarify, but happy to chat
>>     more if you are interested.
>>
>>     -- River
>>
>>         - Dave
>>
>     River,
>     The big thing from my reading of the Pass Manager in MLIR is that
>     it allows us to iterate through
>     a pass per function or module as a group allowing it to run in
>     async. I've proposed this
>     on the GCC side:
>     https://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2020-02/msg00247.html
>
>     Its to walk through the IPA passes which are similar to analyze
>     passes on the LLVM side.
>
>
> Hi Nicholas,
>
> I can't say anything about the GCC side, but this isn't a particularly 
> novel aspect of the MLIR pass manager. In many ways, the pass manager 
> is the easiest/simplest part of the multi-threading problem. The 
> bigger problem is making sure that the rest of the compiler 
> infrastructure is structured in a way that is thread-safe, or can be 
> made thread-safe. This is why most of the discussion is based around 
> how to model things like constants, global values, etc. When I made 
> MLIR multi-threaded a year ago, a large majority of my time was spent 
> outside of the pass manager. For a real example, I spent much more 
> time just on multi-threaded pass timing 
> <https://mlir.llvm.org/docs/WritingAPass/#multi-threaded-pass-timing> 
> than making the pass manager itself multi-threaded.
>
> -- River
>
>
>     Nick
>
>>
>>             -Chris
>>
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