ghc-9.6.3: The GHC API

Safe Haskell | Safe-Inferred
Language | Haskell2010

GHC.Stg.Lift.Analysis

Contents

- When to lift
- Estimating closure growth
- AST annotation
- Lifting decision

Description

Provides the heuristics for when it's beneficial to lambda lift bindings. Most significantly, this employs a cost model to estimate impact on heap allocations, by looking at an STG expression's `Skeleton`.

Synopsis

- data Skeleton
  - = ClosureSk !Id !DIdSet !Skeleton
  - | RhsSk !Card !Skeleton
  - | AltSk !Skeleton !Skeleton
  - | BothSk !Skeleton !Skeleton
  - | NilSk
- data BinderInfo
  - = BindsClosure !Id !Bool
  - | BoringBinder !Id
- binderInfoBndr :: BinderInfo -> Id
- type LlStgBinding = GenStgBinding 'LiftLams
- type LlStgExpr = GenStgExpr 'LiftLams
- type LlStgRhs = GenStgRhs 'LiftLams
- type LlStgAlt = GenStgAlt 'LiftLams
- tagSkeletonTopBind :: CgStgBinding -> LlStgBinding
- goodToLift :: StgLiftConfig -> TopLevelFlag -> RecFlag -> (DIdSet -> DIdSet) -> [(BinderInfo, LlStgRhs)] -> Skeleton -> Maybe DIdSet
- closureGrowth :: (DIdSet -> DIdSet) -> (Id -> Int) -> IdSet -> DIdSet -> Skeleton -> IntWithInf

# When to lift

The analysis proceeds in two steps:

1. It tags the syntax tree with analysis information in the form of `BinderInfo` at each binder and `Skeleton`s at each let-binding by `tagSkeletonTopBind` and friends.
2. The resulting syntax tree is treated by the GHC.Stg.Lift module, calling out to `goodToLift` to decide if a binding is worthwhile to lift. `goodToLift` consults argument occurrence information in `BinderInfo` and estimates `closureGrowth`, for which it needs the `Skeleton`.

So the annotations from `tagSkeletonTopBind` ultimately fuel `goodToLift`, which employs a number of heuristics to identify and exclude lambda lifting opportunities deemed non-beneficial:

Top-level bindings
  can't be lifted.
Thunks
  and data constructors shouldn't be lifted in order not to destroy sharing.
Argument occurrences
  of binders prohibit them to be lifted. Doing the lift would re-introduce the very allocation at call sites that we tried to get rid off in the first place. We capture analysis information in `BinderInfo`. Note that we also consider a nullary application as argument occurrence, because it would turn into an n-ary partial application created by a generic apply function. This occurs in CPS-heavy code like the CS benchmark.
Join points
  should not be lifted, simply because there's no reduction in allocation to be had.
Abstracting over join points
  destroys join points, because they end up as arguments to the lifted function.
Abstracting over known local functions
  turns a known call into an unknown call (e.g. some `stg_ap_*`), which is generally slower. Can be turned off with `-fstg-lift-lams-known`.
Calling convention
  Don't lift when the resulting function would have a higher arity than available argument registers for the calling convention. Can be influenced with `-fstg-lift-(non)rec-args(-any)`.
Closure growth
  introduced when former free variables have to be available at call sites may actually lead to an increase in overall allocations resulting from a lift. Estimating closure growth is described in GHC.Stg.Lift.Analysis and is what most of this module is ultimately concerned with.

There's a wiki page with some more background and history.

# Estimating closure growth

We estimate closure growth by abstracting the syntax tree into a `Skeleton`, capturing only syntactic details relevant to `closureGrowth`, such as

- `ClosureSk`, representing closure allocation.
- `RhsSk`, representing a RHS of a binding and how many times it's called by an appropriate `Card`.
- `AltSk`, `BothSk` and `NilSk` for choice, sequence and empty element.

This abstraction is mostly so that the main analysis function `closureGrowth` can stay simple and focused. Also, skeletons tend to be much smaller than the syntax tree they abstract, so it makes sense to construct them once and and operate on them instead of the actual syntax tree.

A more detailed treatment of computing closure growth, including examples, can be found in the paper referenced from the wiki page.

# AST annotation

data Skeleton Source #

Captures details of the syntax tree relevant to the cost model, such as closures, multi-shot lambdas and case expressions.

Constructors

ClosureSk |

Fields

- !Id
- !DIdSet

  free vars

- !Skeleton

RhsSk |

Fields

- !Card

  how often the RHS was entered

- !Skeleton

AltSk !Skeleton !Skeleton |
BothSk !Skeleton !Skeleton |
NilSk |

#### Instances

Instances details

Outputable Skeleton Source # |
Instance details Defined in GHC.Stg.Lift.Analysis Methods ppr :: Skeleton -> SDoc Source #

data BinderInfo Source #

The type used in binder positions in `GenStgExpr`s.

Constructors

BindsClosure !Id !Bool | Let(-no-escape)-bound thing with a flag indicating whether it occurs as an argument or in a nullary application (see GHC.Stg.Lift.Analysis).
BoringBinder !Id | Every other kind of binder

#### Instances

Instances details

Outputable BinderInfo Source # |
Instance details Defined in GHC.Stg.Lift.Analysis Methods ppr :: BinderInfo -> SDoc Source #
OutputableBndr BinderInfo Source # |
Instance details Defined in GHC.Stg.Lift.Analysis Methods pprBndr :: BindingSite -> BinderInfo -> SDoc Source # pprPrefixOcc :: BinderInfo -> SDoc Source # pprInfixOcc :: BinderInfo -> SDoc Source # bndrIsJoin_maybe :: BinderInfo -> Maybe Int Source #

binderInfoBndr :: BinderInfo -> Id Source #

Gets the bound `Id` out a `BinderInfo`.

type LlStgBinding = GenStgBinding 'LiftLams Source #

type LlStgExpr = GenStgExpr 'LiftLams Source #

type LlStgRhs = GenStgRhs 'LiftLams Source #

type LlStgAlt = GenStgAlt 'LiftLams Source #

tagSkeletonTopBind :: CgStgBinding -> LlStgBinding Source #

Tags every binder with its `BinderInfo` and let bindings with their `Skeleton`s.

# Lifting decision

goodToLift Source #

Arguments

:: StgLiftConfig |
-> TopLevelFlag |
-> RecFlag |
-> (DIdSet -> DIdSet) | An expander function, turning `InId`s into `OutId`s. See `liftedIdsExpander`.
-> [(BinderInfo, LlStgRhs)] |
-> Skeleton |
-> Maybe DIdSet | `Just abs_ids` = This binding is beneficial to lift and `abs_ids` are the variables it would abstract over

Combines several heuristics to decide whether to lambda-lift a given `let`-binding to top-level. See GHC.Stg.Lift.Analysis for details.

closureGrowth Source #

Arguments

:: (DIdSet -> DIdSet) | Expands outer free ids that were lifted to their free vars
-> (Id -> Int) | Computes the closure footprint of an identifier
-> IdSet | Binding group for which lifting is to be decided
-> DIdSet | Free vars of the whole binding group prior to lifting it. These must be available at call sites if we decide to lift the binding group.
-> Skeleton | Abstraction of the scope of the function
-> IntWithInf | Closure growth. `infinity` indicates there was growth under a (multi-shot) lambda.

`closureGrowth expander sizer f fvs` computes the closure growth in words as a result of lifting `f` to top-level. If there was any growing closure under a multi-shot lambda, the result will be `infinity`. Also see GHC.Stg.Lift.Analysis.