RFR: 8316704: Regex-free parsing of Formatter and FormatProcessor specifiers

Claes Redestad redestad at openjdk.org
Mon Oct 16 16:18:10 UTC 2023


On Sun, 17 Sep 2023 16:01:33 GMT, Shaojin Wen <duke at openjdk.org> wrote:

> @cl4es made performance optimizations for the simple specifiers of String.format in PR https://github.com/openjdk/jdk/pull/2830. Based on the same idea, I continued to make improvements. I made patterns like %2d %02d also be optimized.
> 
> The following are the test results based on MacBookPro M1 Pro: 
> 
> 
> -Benchmark                          Mode  Cnt     Score     Error  Units
> -StringFormat.complexFormat         avgt   15  1862.233 ? 217.479  ns/op
> -StringFormat.int02Format           avgt   15   312.491 ?  26.021  ns/op
> -StringFormat.intFormat             avgt   15    84.432 ?   4.145  ns/op
> -StringFormat.longFormat            avgt   15    87.330 ?   6.111  ns/op
> -StringFormat.stringFormat          avgt   15    63.985 ?  11.366  ns/op
> -StringFormat.stringIntFormat       avgt   15    87.422 ?   0.147  ns/op
> -StringFormat.widthStringFormat     avgt   15   250.740 ?  32.639  ns/op
> -StringFormat.widthStringIntFormat  avgt   15   312.474 ?  16.309  ns/op
> 
> +Benchmark                          Mode  Cnt    Score    Error  Units
> +StringFormat.complexFormat         avgt   15  740.626 ? 66.671  ns/op (+151.45)
> +StringFormat.int02Format           avgt   15  131.049 ?  0.432  ns/op (+138.46)
> +StringFormat.intFormat             avgt   15   67.229 ?  4.155  ns/op (+25.59)
> +StringFormat.longFormat            avgt   15   66.444 ?  0.614  ns/op (+31.44)
> +StringFormat.stringFormat          avgt   15   62.619 ?  4.652  ns/op (+2.19)
> +StringFormat.stringIntFormat       avgt   15   89.606 ? 13.966  ns/op (-2.44)
> +StringFormat.widthStringFormat     avgt   15   52.462 ? 15.649  ns/op (+377.95)
> +StringFormat.widthStringIntFormat  avgt   15  101.814 ?  3.147  ns/op (+206.91)

It might be reasonable to add a few more common patterns to the `FormatSpecifier` fast-path, but where to draw the line?

FWIW the intent of micros like `complex` and `widthString` wasn't necessarily to invite further optimizations, but to explore the cost of failure, i.e., make sure that the fast-path doesn't add a substantial cost when it doesn't help or only helps somewhat. Since you now specialize for most of the patterns in the micros I think you need to explore some variants that you _don't_ optimize for, such as `"%10.3f"`. 

Orthogonal optimizations like the `FormatSpecifier` fast-path extension and the `print` fast-path should generally be separate PRs.

I think it would make sense to make the testing a bit more exhaustive, especially w.r.t argument indexes and specifiers taking multiple flags. Looking at test/jdk/java/util/Formatter/Basic-X.java.template we seem to test each flag, but lack tests combining many flags and permutations thereof. Could you take a stab at increasing coverage a bit here?

I'm also curious what performance numbers you get with the latest patch. If we go all the way like this some of the added microbenchmarks is a bit pointless so after checking you might want to cut back on some of those (just keep one of the floating point tests maybe)

I think this is shaping up nicely. Some unused code, then I think we can move ahead.

The new `FormatSpecifierParser` utility class adds a bit of boilerplate for something that could be a static utility: https://github.com/wenshao/jdk/pull/6 - but perhaps splitting it up a bit more helps JIT inlining further. I can take this on as a follow-up RFE if you prefer.

A few nits, otherwise I think this looks OK

I was worried this would sprawl out more, but perhaps ~230 lines of code is a reasonable extra weight to make the long tail of `String.format`'s  regex-free.

I was going to comment that the flag parsing was broken in f303f29 but it seems that it was fixed in the latest. I think we need to make a review pass over all existing tests to make sure all imaginable variants are covered.

The parser code also ought to be shared between `Formatter` and `FormatProcessor` so that there's a single source of truth going forward.

I think it makes sense to file an RFE and do a full review of this. "Regex-free parsing of Formatter and FormatProcessor specifiers"?

Please don't pile on new refactorings and improvements on a PR that has been opened for review. Better to let things brew as a draft for a bit if you're not sure you're done before opening the PR for review, then once it's been opened (like this one) consider preparing follow-up PR instead of refactoring as you go.

Specifically I'm not sure 0d977b2 is a good idea and would like you to roll those changes back. Object pooling for trivial, short-lived objects are considered an anti-pattern, as they add references to old GC generations and share many of the same drawbacks as lookup tables, such as increased cache traffic. Showing great wins on microbenchmarks while being a wash or even regressing real applications.

src/java.base/share/classes/java/util/Formatter.java line 2944:

> 2942:                             ++off;
> 2943:                             argSize = size + 1;
> 2944:                             size = 0;

pointless `size = 0`

src/java.base/share/classes/java/util/Formatter.java line 2949:

> 2947:                             }
> 2948:                         } else {
> 2949:                             if (first == '0') {

While it's clever to avoid re-parsing I think it muddies the control flow. It would be simpler if we always reset to `off = start; c = first` in this `else` block then unconditionally call `parseFlags(); parseWidth();` outside in `parse`. The few extra calls to `s.charAt(..)` this might add a little overhead on some tests, but the JIT might like the brevity and less branchy structure overall and on larger benchmarks.. Maybe worth experimenting with.

src/java.base/share/classes/java/util/Formatter.java line 2964:

> 2962:                                 widthSize = size;
> 2963:                             }
> 2964:                             size = 0;

Pointless `size = 0`

src/java.base/share/classes/java/util/Formatter.java line 2977:

> 2975:                 if (!Flags.isFlag(c)) {
> 2976:                     flagSize = size;
> 2977:                     size = 0;

pointless `size = 0`

src/java.base/share/classes/java/util/Formatter.java line 3011:

> 3009: 
> 3010:     static boolean isConversion(char c) {
> 3011:         return (c >= 'a' && c <= 'z') || (c >= 'A' || c <= 'Z') || c == '%';

Logical error:
Suggestion:

        return (c >= 'a' && c <= 'z') || (c >= 'A' && c <= 'Z') || c == '%';

src/java.base/share/classes/java/util/Formatter.java line 3140:

> 3138:         }
> 3139: 
> 3140:         FormatSpecifier(char conv, int flag, int width, int precision) {

This appears to be unused.

src/java.base/share/classes/java/util/Formatter.java line 3420:

> 3418:                     && fmt.a instanceof StringBuilder sb
> 3419:             ) {
> 3420:                 sb.append(value);

There's a lot of `if`s here, and this doesn't take into account locales with non-ASCII digits:

Locale ar = new Locale.Builder().setLanguageTag("ar-SA-u-nu-arab").build();
Locale.setDefault(ar);
System.out.println("%d".formatted(10000)); // should print "١٠٠٠٠" but prints "10000"

test/jdk/java/util/Formatter/Basic-X.java.template line 1748:

> 1746:         // perhaps an IllegalFormatArgumentIndexException should be defined?
> 1747:         tryCatch("%<%", IllegalFormatFlagsException.class);
> 1748: 

After adding test-cases to this template you need to run `genBasic.sh` (in the same folder) to regenerate all the `Basic*` tests. These changes then need to be added to the PR.

FWIW these new and existing tests that provoke `IllegalFormatPrecisionException` and `UnknownFormatConversionException` are common to all types, meaning there seems to be little point in generating them out into each and every `BasicByte`, `BasicInt` et.c.. Perhaps it would make more sense to add such tests directly to Basic.java to avoid some redundancy here - or a new `BasicCommon` test to put common tests into?

-------------

PR Review: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/15776#pullrequestreview-1630133740
PR Review: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/15776#pullrequestreview-1639452604
Changes requested by redestad (Reviewer).

PR Review: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/15776#pullrequestreview-1641781843
Marked as reviewed by redestad (Reviewer).

PR Review: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/15776#pullrequestreview-1641961236
PR Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/15776#issuecomment-1728424181
PR Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/15776#issuecomment-1730173405
PR Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/15776#issuecomment-1732562759
PR Review Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/15776#discussion_r1335806486
PR Review Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/15776#discussion_r1335817101
PR Review Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/15776#discussion_r1335817800
PR Review Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/15776#discussion_r1335779111
PR Review Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/15776#discussion_r1335234147
PR Review Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/15776#discussion_r1335667901
PR Review Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/15776#discussion_r1328152682
PR Review Comment: https://git.openjdk.org/jdk/pull/15776#discussion_r1350933399


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