[concurrency-interest] RFR: 8065804: JEP171:Clarifications/corrections for fence intrinsics
Oleksandr Otenko
oleksandr.otenko at oracle.com
Wed Dec 10 00:24:40 UTC 2014
Yes, I read the part of that paper about IRIW.
My thinking that the ordering of stores would be the more contentious
point also appears about the same thing.
In IRIW we have two parts of chain that's reasonable to expect to work:
x=1 <-- sw -- r1=x <-- po -- r2=y
y=1 <-- sw -- r3=y <-- po -- r4=x
Suppose r2==0. Then to show the outcome with r4==0 is forbidden need to
show an edge from r4=x to x=1. Total ordering of stores provides such an
edge: x=1 <-- so -- y=1 (if chosen otherwise, then we can prove r2!=0).
It looked like enforcing sw and po is reasonable and cheap. But total
ordering of stores isn't justified in the spec - it just is there, hence
I was wondering.
On a non-TSO there is no edge between the stores. So to construct the
proof the outcome r4==0 is forbidden they had to enforce a ordering
between other instructions, where r2==0 implies the preceding barrier
also precedes r3=y, which observed r3==1; then it follows that r1=x <--
so -- r4=x, and a contradiction shows r4==0 is forbidden.
The effort (and the need) to order the reads is tremendous, and doesn't
seem right, so I see why it is raising questions.
Alex
On 10/12/2014 00:00, David Holmes wrote:
> The "no known useful benefit" is based on the paper which states "we
> are not aware of any cases where IRIW arises as a natural programming
> idiom".
> I think your example would be written:
> Thread 1:
> x =1; storestore; y=1;
> Thread 2:
> r1 = y; r2 =x.
> Or more clearly, the most common pattern would be:
> Thread1:
> data = 1; storestore; dataReady = true;
> Thread 2:
> if dataReady
> r2 = data
> The above does not require IRIW. Conversely if you have IRIW you don't
> need the storestore.
> David
>
> -----Original Message-----
> *From:* concurrency-interest-bounces at cs.oswego.edu
> [mailto:concurrency-interest-bounces at cs.oswego.edu]*On Behalf Of
> *Oleksandr Otenko
> *Sent:* Wednesday, 10 December 2014 8:21 AM
> *Cc:* concurrency-interest at cs.oswego.edu; core-libs-dev
> *Subject:* Re: [concurrency-interest] RFR: 8065804:
> JEP171:Clarifications/corrections for fence intrinsics
>
> In that case I must say I can't see why you mentioned "no known
> useful benefit". The known useful benefit from ordering reads can
> be seen here:
>
> store in one order:
> Thread 1:
> x=1
> y=1
>
> load in reverse order:
> Thread 2:
> r1=y;
> r2=x;
>
> This is a common pattern, so ordering loads is already useful.
> Here, even though JMM talks about total order of all volatile
> operations, in practice the order of loads is weaker, as long as
> this weakening cannot be observed - eg on x86 enforcing order of
> loads among themselves is an entirely local matter.
>
> IRIW extends the store part to many threads, thus guaranteeing
> total store order for volatiles. I thought the total ordering of
> stores would be a more contentious point (but I agree with the
> point Hans makes about easier reasoning).
>
> Alex
>
> On 09/12/2014 21:36, David Holmes wrote:
>> The "thorn" is the need for the barriers in the readers not the
>> writers. (or perhaps as well as the writers in some cases - that
>> is part of the problem.)
>> David
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> *From:* concurrency-interest-bounces at cs.oswego.edu
>> [mailto:concurrency-interest-bounces at cs.oswego.edu]*On Behalf
>> Of *Oleksandr Otenko
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, 10 December 2014 6:34 AM
>> *To:* dholmes at ieee.org; Hans Boehm
>> *Cc:* core-libs-dev; concurrency-interest at cs.oswego.edu
>> *Subject:* Re: [concurrency-interest] RFR: 8065804:
>> JEP171:Clarifications/corrections for fence intrinsics
>>
>> Is the thorn the many allowed outcomes, or the single
>> disallowed outcome? (eg order consistency is too strict for
>> stores with no synchronizes-with between them?)
>>
>> Alex
>>
>>
>> On 26/11/2014 02:10, David Holmes wrote:
>>> Hi Hans,
>>> Given IRIW is a thorn in everyone's side and has no known
>>> useful benefit, and can hopefully be killed off in the
>>> future, lets not get bogged down in IRIW. But none of what
>>> you say below relates to multi-copy-atomicity.
>>> Cheers,
>>> David
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> *From:* hjkhboehm at gmail.com
>>> [mailto:hjkhboehm at gmail.com]*On Behalf Of *Hans Boehm
>>> *Sent:* Wednesday, 26 November 2014 12:04 PM
>>> *To:* dholmes at ieee.org
>>> *Cc:* Stephan Diestelhorst;
>>> concurrency-interest at cs.oswego.edu; core-libs-dev
>>> *Subject:* Re: [concurrency-interest] RFR: 8065804:
>>> JEP171:Clarifications/corrections for fence intrinsics
>>>
>>> To be concrete here, on Power, loads can normally be
>>> ordered by an address dependency or light-weight fence
>>> (lwsync). However, neither is enough to prevent the
>>> questionable outcome for IRIW, since it doesn't ensure
>>> that the stores in T1 and T2 will be made visible to
>>> other threads in a consistent order. That outcome can
>>> be prevented by using heavyweight fences (sync)
>>> instructions between the loads instead. Peter Sewell's
>>> group concluded that to enforce correct volatile
>>> behavior on Power, you essentially need a a heavyweight
>>> fence between every pair of volatile operations on
>>> Power. That cannot be understood based on simple
>>> ordering constraints.
>>>
>>> As Stephan pointed out, there are similar issues on ARM,
>>> but they're less commonly encountered in a Java
>>> implementation. If you're lucky, you can get to the
>>> right implementation recipe by looking at only
>>> reordering, I think.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 4:36 PM, David Holmes
>>> <davidcholmes at aapt.net.au
>>> <mailto:davidcholmes at aapt.net.au>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Stephan Diestelhorst writes:
>>> >
>>> > David Holmes wrote:
>>> > > Stephan Diestelhorst writes:
>>> > > > Am Dienstag, 25. November 2014, 11:15:36
>>> schrieb Hans Boehm:
>>> > > > > I'm no hardware architect, but fundamentally
>>> it seems to me that
>>> > > > >
>>> > > > > load x
>>> > > > > acquire_fence
>>> > > > >
>>> > > > > imposes a much more stringent constraint than
>>> > > > >
>>> > > > > load_acquire x
>>> > > > >
>>> > > > > Consider the case in which the load from x
>>> is an L1 hit, but a
>>> > > > > preceding load (from say y) is a
>>> long-latency miss. If we enforce
>>> > > > > ordering by just waiting for completion of
>>> prior operation, the
>>> > > > > former has to wait for the load from y to
>>> complete; while the
>>> > > > > latter doesn't. I find it hard to believe
>>> that this doesn't leave
>>> > > > > an appreciable amount of performance on the
>>> table, at least for
>>> > > > > some interesting microarchitectures.
>>> > > >
>>> > > > I agree, Hans, that this is a reasonable
>>> assumption. Load_acquire x
>>> > > > does allow roach motel, whereas the acquire
>>> fence does not.
>>> > > >
>>> > > > > In addition, for better or worse, fencing
>>> requirements on at least
>>> > > > > Power are actually driven as much by store
>>> atomicity issues, as by
>>> > > > > the ordering issues discussed in the
>>> cookbook. This was not
>>> > > > > understood in 2005, and unfortunately
>>> doesn't seem to be
>>> > amenable to
>>> > > > > the kind of straightforward explanation as
>>> in Doug's cookbook.
>>> > > >
>>> > > > Coming from a strongly ordered architecture to
>>> a weakly ordered one
>>> > > > myself, I also needed some mental adjustment
>>> about store (multi-copy)
>>> > > > atomicity. I can imagine others will be
>>> unaware of this difference,
>>> > > > too, even in 2014.
>>> > >
>>> > > Sorry I'm missing the connection between fences
>>> and multi-copy
>>> > atomicity.
>>> >
>>> > One example is the classic IRIW. With non-multi
>>> copy atomic stores, but
>>> > ordered (say through a dependency) loads in the
>>> following example:
>>> >
>>> > Memory: foo = bar = 0
>>> > _T1_ _T2_ _T3_ _T4_
>>> > st (foo),1 st (bar),1 ld r1, (bar)
>>> ld r3,(foo)
>>> > <addr dep / local
>>> "fence" here> <addr dep>
>>> > ld r2, (foo)
>>> ld r4, (bar)
>>> >
>>> > You may observe r1 = 1, r2 = 0, r3 = 1, r4 = 0 on
>>> non-multi-copy atomic
>>> > machines. On TSO boxes, this is not possible.
>>> That means that the
>>> > memory fence that will prevent such a behaviour
>>> (DMB on ARM) needs to
>>> > carry some additional oomph in ensuring multi-copy
>>> atomicity, or rather
>>> > prevent you from seeing it (which is the same thing).
>>>
>>> I take it as given that any code for which you may
>>> have ordering
>>> constraints, must first have basic atomicity
>>> properties for loads and
>>> stores. I would not expect any kind of fence to add
>>> multi-copy-atomicity
>>> where there was none.
>>>
>>> David
>>>
>>> > Stephan
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
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>>> >
>>> http://cs.oswego.edu/mailman/listinfo/concurrency-interest
>>>
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>>
>
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