[llvm-dev] Proposal: writing calls that can nevertheless be removed

[Johannes Doerfert via llvm-dev]

I assume you cannot make `Singleton` a "non-exposed" symbol, correct?
At the end of the day it is that global visibility/linkage that is 
problematic not necessarily the function.

~ Johannes


On 11/1/21 07:27, Max Kazantsev via llvm-dev wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I have a proposal to introduce a function attribute to solve a dead code elimination problem for singleton-get-like functions. Imagine the following code:
>
> MyObj *Singleton = nullptr;
>
> MyObj *getUnique() {
>    if (Singleton)
>      return Singleton;
>    Singleton = <idempotent initialization>
> }
>
> Here getUnique is the only accessor of Singleton variable, which cannot be otherwise read or written.
>
> This function is formally writing memory, but it has 2 important properties:
> - This function is idempotent, meaning that its result only depends on parameters (which is empty in this case);
> - If the result of the call is not used, it can safely be deleted without causing any problems.
>
> In other words, if we have code like
>
> for (int I = 0; I < 1000; I++) {
>    getUnique();
> }
>
> We can consider this loop dead and just delete it. Note that currently, because getUnique may write external memory, we cannot do so (even if we inline it and cleanse the remaining code, we'll still have a store to Singleton).
>
> In Java world, motivation for this is Object identity hash code. It requires to return the same value for the same object every time, it may write memory (usually it computes hash on 1st invocation<https://srvaroa.github.io/jvm/java/openjdk/biased-locking/2017/01/30/hashCode.html> basing on current address and stores it to the object). But if the hash code result is not used, it's completely fine to skip this invocation.
>
> In current function attributes, I could not find anything that could express "this is a mem-writing idempotent function which is OK to delete if trivially dead". Optimization prospects for this are great: we can simply DCE them.
>
> Do you think it's work having such attribute?
>
> Best regards,
> Max
>
>
>
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