Tue, 08 Jan 2013 14:14:17 +0100
8005801: Refactor findSetMethod
Summary: findSetMethod() was a very large single method, very unreadable and unmaintainable. It was broken into easy-to-understand pieces. The refactoring required introduction of a comand-object like entity, SetMethodCreator, to contain the nontrivial transient state of the algorithm that made the original big method so resistant to refactoring in the first place.
Reviewed-by: lagergren, sundar
1 This document describes system properties that are used for internal
2 debugging and instrumentation purposes, along with the system loggers,
3 which are used for the same thing.
5 This document is intended as a developer resource, and it is not
6 needed as Nashorn documentation for normal usage. Flags and system
7 properties described herein are subject to change without notice.
9 =====================================
10 1. System properties used internally
11 =====================================
13 This documentation of the system property flags assume that the
14 default value of the flag is false, unless otherwise specified.
16 SYSTEM PROPERTY: -Dnashorn.unstable.relink.threshold=x
18 This property controls how many call site misses are allowed before a
19 callsite is relinked with "apply" semantics to never change again.
20 In the case of megamorphic callsites, this is necessary, or the
21 program would spend all its time swapping out callsite targets. Dynalink
22 has a default value (currently 8 relinks) for this property if it
23 is not explicitly set.
26 SYSTEM PROPERTY: -Dnashorn.callsiteaccess.debug
28 See the description of the access logger below. This flag is
29 equivalent to enabling the access logger with "info" level.
32 SYSTEM PROPERTY: -Dnashorn.compiler.ints.disable
34 This flag prevents ints and longs (non double values) from being used
35 for any primitive representation in the lowered IR. This is default
36 false, i.e Lower will attempt to use integer variables as long as it
37 can. For example, var x = 17 would try to use x as an integer, unless
38 other operations occur later that require coercion to wider type, for
39 example x *= 17.1;
42 SYSTEM PROPERTY: -Dnashorn.compiler.intarithmetic
44 Arithmetic operations in Nashorn (except bitwise ones) typically
45 coerce the operands to doubles (as per the JavaScript spec). To switch
46 this off and remain in integer mode, for example for "var x = a&b; var
47 y = c&d; var z = x*y;", use this flag. This will force the
48 multiplication of variables that are ints to be done with the IMUL
49 bytecode and the result "z" to become an int.
51 WARNING: Note that is is experimental only to ensure that type support
52 exists for all primitive types. The generated code is unsound. This
53 will be the case until we do optimizations based on it. There is a CR
54 in Nashorn to do better range analysis, and ensure that this is only
55 done where the operation can't overflow into a wider type. Currently
56 no overflow checking is done, so at the moment, until range analysis
57 has been completed, this option is turned off.
59 We've experimented by using int arithmetic for everything and putting
60 overflow checks afterwards, which would recompute the operation with
61 the correct precision, but have yet to find a configuration where this
62 is faster than just using doubles directly, even if the int operation
63 does not overflow. Getting access to a JVM intrinsic that does branch
64 on overflow would probably alleviate this.
66 There is also a problem with this optimistic approach if the symbol
67 happens to reside in a local variable slot in the bytecode, as those
68 are strongly typed. Then we would need to split large sections of
69 control flow, so this is probably not the right way to go, while range
70 analysis is. There is a large difference between integer bytecode
71 without overflow checks and double bytecode. The former is
72 significantly faster.
75 SYSTEM PROPERTY: -Dnashorn.codegen.debug, -Dnashorn.codegen.debug.trace=<x>
77 See the description of the codegen logger below.
80 SYSTEM_PROPERTY: -Dnashorn.fields.debug
82 See the description on the fields logger below.
85 SYSTEM PROPERTY: -Dnashorn.fields.dual
87 When this property is true, Nashorn will attempt to use primitive
88 fields for AccessorProperties (currently just AccessorProperties, not
89 spill properties). Memory footprint for script objects will increase,
90 as we need to maintain both a primitive field (a long) as well as an
91 Object field for the property value. Ints are represented as the 32
92 low bits of the long fields. Doubles are represented as the
93 doubleToLongBits of their value. This way a single field can be used
94 for all primitive types. Packing and unpacking doubles to their bit
95 representation is intrinsified by the JVM and extremely fast.
97 While dual fields in theory runs significantly faster than Object
98 fields due to reduction of boxing and memory allocation overhead,
99 there is still work to be done to make this a general purpose
100 solution. Research is ongoing.
102 In the future, this might complement or be replaced by experimental
103 feature sun.misc.TaggedArray, which has been discussed on the mlvm
104 mailing list. TaggedArrays are basically a way to share data space
105 between primitives and references, and have the GC understand this.
107 As long as only primitive values are written to the fields and enough
108 type information exists to make sure that any reads don't have to be
109 uselessly boxed and unboxed, this is significantly faster than the
110 standard "Objects only" approach that currently is the default. See
111 test/examples/dual-fields-micro.js for an example that runs twice as
112 fast with dual fields as without them. Here, the compiler, can
113 determine that we are dealing with numbers only throughout the entire
114 property life span of the properties involved.
116 If a "real" object (not a boxed primitive) is written to a field that
117 has a primitive representation, its callsite is relinked and an Object
118 field is used forevermore for that particular field in that
119 PropertyMap and its children, even if primitives are later assigned to
120 it.
122 As the amount of compile time type information is very small in a
123 dynamic language like JavaScript, it is frequently the case that
124 something has to be treated as an object, because we don't know any
125 better. In reality though, it is often a boxed primitive is stored to
126 an AccessorProperty. The fastest way to handle this soundly is to use
127 a callsite typecheck and avoid blowing the field up to an Object. We
128 never revert object fields to primitives. Ping-pong:ing back and forth
129 between primitive representation and Object representation would cause
130 fatal performance overhead, so this is not an option.
132 For a general application the dual fields approach is still slower
133 than objects only fields in some places, about the same in most cases,
134 and significantly faster in very few. This is due the program using
135 primitives, but we still can't prove it. For example "local_var a =
136 call(); field = a;" may very well write a double to the field, but the
137 compiler dare not guess a double type if field is a local variable,
138 due to bytecode variables being strongly typed and later non
139 interchangeable. To get around this, the entire method would have to
140 be replaced and a continuation retained to restart from. We believe
141 that the next steps we should go through are instead:
143 1) Implement method specialization based on callsite, as it's quite
144 frequently the case that numbers are passed around, but currently our
145 function nodes just have object types visible to the compiler. For
146 example "var b = 17; func(a,b,17)" is an example where two parameters
147 can be specialized, but the main version of func might also be called
148 from another callsite with func(x,y,"string").
150 2) This requires lazy jitting as the functions have to be specialized
151 per callsite.
153 Even though "function square(x) { return x*x }" might look like a
154 trivial function that can always only take doubles, this is not
155 true. Someone might have overridden the valueOf for x so that the
156 toNumber coercion has side effects. To fulfil JavaScript semantics,
157 the coercion has to run twice for both terms of the multiplication
158 even if they are the same object. This means that call site
159 specialization is necessary, not parameter specialization on the form
160 "function square(x) { var xd = (double)x; return xd*xd; }", as one
161 might first think.
163 Generating a method specialization for any variant of a function that
164 we can determine by types at compile time is a combinatorial explosion
165 of byte code (try it e.g. on all the variants of am3 in the Octane
166 benchmark crypto.js). Thus, this needs to be lazy
168 3) Possibly optimistic callsite writes, something on the form
170 x = y; //x is a field known to be a primitive. y is only an object as
171 far as we can tell
173 turns into
175 try {
176 x = (int)y;
177 } catch (X is not an integer field right now | ClassCastException e) {
178 x = y;
179 }
181 Mini POC shows that this is the key to a lot of dual field performance
182 in seemingly trivial micros where one unknown object, in reality
183 actually a primitive, foils it for us. Very common pattern. Once we
184 are "all primitives", dual fields runs a lot faster than Object fields
185 only.
187 We still have to deal with objects vs primitives for local bytecode
188 slots, possibly through code copying and versioning.
191 SYSTEM PROPERTY: -Dnashorn.compiler.symbol.trace=<x>
193 When this property is set, creation and manipulation of any symbol
194 named "x" will show information about when the compiler changes its
195 type assumption, bytecode local variable slot assignment and other
196 data. This is useful if, for example, a symbol shows up as an Object,
197 when you believe it should be a primitive. Usually there is an
198 explanation for this, for example that it exists in the global scope
199 and type analysis has to be more conservative. In that case, the stack
200 trace upon type change to object will usually tell us why.
203 SYSTEM PROPERTY: nashorn.lexer.xmlliterals
205 If this property it set, it means that the Lexer should attempt to
206 parse XML literals, which would otherwise generate syntax
207 errors. Warning: there are currently no unit tests for this
208 functionality.
210 XML literals, when this is enabled, end up as standard LiteralNodes in
211 the IR.
214 SYSTEM_PROPERTY: nashorn.debug
216 If this property is set to true, Nashorn runs in Debug mode. Debug
217 mode is slightly slower, as for example statistics counters are enabled
218 during the run. Debug mode makes available a NativeDebug instance
219 called "Debug" in the global space that can be used to print property
220 maps and layout for script objects, as well as a "dumpCounters" method
221 that will print the current values of the previously mentioned stats
222 counters.
224 These functions currently exists for Debug:
226 "map" - print(Debug.map(x)) will dump the PropertyMap for object x to
227 stdout (currently there also exist functions called "embedX", where X
228 is a value from 0 to 3, that will dump the contents of the embed pool
229 for the first spill properties in any script object and "spill", that
230 will dump the contents of the growing spill pool of spill properties
231 in any script object. This is of course subject to change without
232 notice, should we change the script object layout.
234 "methodHandle" - this method returns the method handle that is used
235 for invoking a particular script function.
237 "identical" - this method compares two script objects for reference
238 equality. It is a == Java comparison
240 "dumpCounters" - will dump the debug counters' current values to
241 stdout.
243 Currently we count number of ScriptObjects in the system, number of
244 Scope objects in the system, number of ScriptObject listeners added,
245 removed and dead (without references).
247 We also count number of ScriptFunctions, ScriptFunction invocations
248 and ScriptFunction allocations.
250 Furthermore we count PropertyMap statistics: how many property maps
251 exist, how many times were property maps cloned, how many times did
252 the property map history cache hit, prevent new allocations, how many
253 prototype invalidations were done, how many time the property map
254 proto cache hit.
256 Finally we count callsite misses on a per callsite bases, which occur
257 when a callsite has to be relinked, due to a previous assumption of
258 object layout being invalidated.
261 SYSTEM PROPERTY: nashorn.methodhandles.debug,
262 nashorn.methodhandles.debug=create
264 If this property is enabled, each MethodHandle related call that uses
265 the java.lang.invoke package gets its MethodHandle intercepted and an
266 instrumentation printout of arguments and return value appended to
267 it. This shows exactly which method handles are executed and from
268 where. (Also MethodTypes and SwitchPoints). This can be augmented with
269 more information, for example, instance count, by subclassing or
270 further extending the TraceMethodHandleFactory implementation in
271 MethodHandleFactory.java.
273 If the property is specialized with "=create" as its option,
274 instrumentation will be shown for method handles upon creation time
275 rather than at runtime usage.
278 SYSTEM PROPERTY: nashorn.methodhandles.debug.stacktrace
280 This does the same as nashorn.methodhandles.debug, but when enabled
281 also dumps the stack trace for every instrumented method handle
282 operation. Warning: This is enormously verbose, but provides a pretty
283 decent "grep:able" picture of where the calls are coming from.
285 See the description of the codegen logger below for a more verbose
286 description of this option
289 SYSTEM PROPERTY: nashorn.scriptfunction.specialization.disable
291 There are several "fast path" implementations of constructors and
292 functions in the NativeObject classes that, in their original form,
293 take a variable amount of arguments. Said functions are also declared
294 to take Object parameters in their original form, as this is what the
295 JavaScript specification mandates.
297 However, we often know quite a lot more at a callsite of one of these
298 functions. For example, Math.min is called with a fixed number (2) of
299 integer arguments. The overhead of boxing these ints to Objects and
300 folding them into an Object array for the generic varargs Math.min
301 function is an order of magnitude slower than calling a specialized
302 implementation of Math.min that takes two integers. Specialized
303 functions and constructors are identified by the tag
304 @SpecializedFunction and @SpecializedConstructor in the Nashorn
305 code. The linker will link in the most appropriate (narrowest types,
306 right number of types and least number of arguments) specialization if
307 specializations are available.
309 Every ScriptFunction may carry specializations that the linker can
310 choose from. This framework will likely be extended for user defined
311 functions. The compiler can often infer enough parameter type info
312 from callsites for in order to generate simpler versions with less
313 generic Object types. This feature depends on future lazy jitting, as
314 there tend to be many calls to user defined functions, some where the
315 callsite can be specialized, some where we mostly see object
316 parameters even at the callsite.
318 If this system property is set to true, the linker will not attempt to
319 use any specialized function or constructor for native objects, but
320 just call the generic one.
323 SYSTEM PROPERTY: nashorn.tcs.miss.samplePercent=<x>
325 When running with the trace callsite option (-tcs), Nashorn will count
326 and instrument any callsite misses that require relinking. As the
327 number of relinks is large and usually produces a lot of output, this
328 system property can be used to constrain the percentage of misses that
329 should be logged. Typically this is set to 1 or 5 (percent). 1% is the
330 default value.
333 SYSTEM_PROPERTY: nashorn.profilefile=<filename>
335 When running with the profile callsite options (-pcs), Nashorn will
336 dump profiling data for all callsites to stderr as a shutdown hook. To
337 instead redirect this to a file, specify the path to the file using
338 this system property.
341 ===============
342 2. The loggers.
343 ===============
345 The Nashorn loggers can be used to print per-module or per-subsystem
346 debug information with different levels of verbosity. The loggers for
347 a given subsystem are available are enabled by using
349 --log=<systemname>[:<level>]
351 on the command line.
353 Here <systemname> identifies the name of the subsystem to be logged
354 and the optional colon and level argument is a standard
355 java.util.logging.Level name (severe, warning, info, config, fine,
356 finer, finest). If the level is left out for a particular subsystem,
357 it defaults to "info". Any log message logged as the level or a level
358 that is more important will be output to stderr by the logger.
360 Several loggers can be enabled by a single command line option, by
361 putting a comma after each subsystem/level tuple (or each subsystem if
362 level is unspecified). The --log option can also be given multiple
363 times on the same command line, with the same effect.
365 For example: --log=codegen,fields:finest is equivalent to
366 --log=codegen:info --log=fields:finest
368 The subsystems that currently support logging are:
371 * compiler
373 The compiler is in charge of turning source code and function nodes
374 into byte code, and installs the classes into a class loader
375 controlled from the Context. Log messages are, for example, about
376 things like new compile units being allocated. The compiler has global
377 settings that all the tiers of codegen (e.g. Lower and CodeGenerator)
378 use.
381 * codegen
383 The code generator is the emitter stage of the code pipeline, and
384 turns the lowest tier of a FunctionNode into bytecode. Codegen logging
385 shows byte codes as they are being emitted, line number information
386 and jumps. It also shows the contents of the bytecode stack prior to
387 each instruction being emitted. This is a good debugging aid. For
388 example:
390 [codegen] #41 line:2 (f)_afc824e
391 [codegen] #42 load symbol x slot=2
392 [codegen] #43 {1:O} load int 0
393 [codegen] #44 {2:I O} dynamic_runtime_call GT:ZOI_I args=2 returnType=boolean
394 [codegen] #45 signature (Ljava/lang/Object;I)Z
395 [codegen] #46 {1:Z} ifeq ternary_false_5402fe28
396 [codegen] #47 load symbol x slot=2
397 [codegen] #48 {1:O} goto ternary_exit_107c1f2f
398 [codegen] #49 ternary_false_5402fe28
399 [codegen] #50 load symbol x slot=2
400 [codegen] #51 {1:O} convert object -> double
401 [codegen] #52 {1:D} neg
402 [codegen] #53 {1:D} convert double -> object
403 [codegen] #54 {1:O} ternary_exit_107c1f2f
404 [codegen] #55 {1:O} return object
406 shows a ternary node being generated for the sequence "return x > 0 ?
407 x : -x"
409 The first number on the log line is a unique monotonically increasing
410 emission id per bytecode. There is no guarantee this is the same id
411 between runs. depending on non deterministic code
412 execution/compilation, but for small applications it usually is. If
413 the system variable -Dnashorn.codegen.debug.trace=<x> is set, where x
414 is a bytecode emission id, a stack trace will be shown as the
415 particular bytecode is about to be emitted. This can be a quick way to
416 determine where it comes from without attaching the debugger. "Who
417 generated that neg?"
419 The --log=codegen option is equivalent to setting the system variable
420 "nashorn.codegen.debug" to true.
423 * lower
425 The lowering annotates a FunctionNode with symbols for each identifier
426 and transforms high level constructs into lower level ones, that the
427 CodeGenerator consumes.
429 Lower logging typically outputs things like post pass actions,
430 insertions of casts because symbol types have been changed and type
431 specialization information. Currently very little info is generated by
432 this logger. This will probably change.
435 * access
437 The --log=access option is equivalent to setting the system variable
438 "nashorn.callsiteaccess.debug" to true. There are several levels of
439 the access logger, usually the default level "info" is enough
441 It is very simple to create your own logger. Use the DebugLogger class
442 and give the subsystem name as a constructor argument.
445 * fields
447 The --log=fields option (at info level) is equivalent to setting the
448 system variable "nashorn.fields.debug" to true. At the info level it
449 will only show info about type assumptions that were invalidated. If
450 the level is set to finest, it will also trace every AccessorProperty
451 getter and setter in the program, show arguments, return values
452 etc. It will also show the internal representation of respective field
453 (Object in the normal case, unless running with the dual field
454 representation)