[concurrency-interest] a volatile bug?

Christian Thalinger christian.thalinger at oracle.com
Wed May 16 16:42:22 PDT 2012


On May 16, 2012, at 2:22 PM, Aleksey Shipilev wrote:

> Well, I do not want to sound alarming, but... if I understand the C1
> code correctly, then C1 GVN does not account prior volatile reads at
> all. I can not find any code in C1 GVN code which actually prevents
> killing second non-volatile read after volatile one, which is required
> by JMM semantics.

Good investigation.  That seems to be the case.

> 
> I think I'll stop here. The impact of this issue is limited, given
> most of the guys run -server (even by default on most machines), so
> there is always the workaround for running with -server. Also, I would
> *speculate* turning off GVN with -XX:-UseGlobalValueNumbering when
> running with -client is still a workaround, but kind of insane one,
> since it can *severely* degrade performance.
> 
> Words of wisdom: I'm using this command-line to print out GVN tracing:
> $ ~/Install/jdk7u4/fastdebug/bin/java -XX:+PrintCompilation
> -XX:+PrintDominators -XX:+PrintCompilation  -XX:+PrintValueNumbering
> -Xbatch -XX:CompileOnly=Test.$1,Test -client  Test 2>&1 | tee asm.log
> 
> Can anyone more proficient in C1 code confirm this?

I can confirm the bug and I have a fix for it.

-- Chris

> 
> -Aleksey.
> 
> On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 12:41 AM, Aleksey Shipilev
> <aleksey.shipilev at gmail.com> wrote:
>> In my case, there are always two compiled versions for Test$1.run, one
>> with cached $b, second one is with correct read for $b. I'd guess
>> pastebin version had the second one.
>> 
>> -Aleksey.
>> 
>> On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 12:34 AM, Vitaly Davidovich <vitalyd at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I looked at the assembly on SO again (the pastebin link) and it seems to be
>>> correct actually: after 'a' is cmp'ed against zero, 'b' is read from
>>> memory.  But now someone is saying there that it sometimes generates the
>>> correct assembly and other times not - very strange.
>>> 0x025bd2b9: cmp $0x0,%edx
>>> 
>>> 30. 0x025bd2bc: je 0x025bd2a8 ;
>>> 
>>> 32. 0x025bd2be: mov $0x147062e8,%edx ; {oop('test/TestVolatile')}
>>> 
>>> 33. 0x025bd2c3: mov 0x1c4(%edx),%edx ;*getstatic b
>>> 
>>> 34. ; - test.TestVolatile::run at 10 (line 17)
>>> 
>>> 35. 0x025bd2c9: cmp $0x0,%edx
>>> 
>>> Sent from my phone
>>> 
>>> On May 16, 2012 3:55 PM, "Aleksey Shipilev" <aleksey.shipilev at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Update. GVN is clearly under suspicion -XX:-UseGlobalValueNumbering
>>>> mitigates the bug in my setup. Digging through C1 codebase to see
>>>> rules for volatiles.
>>>> 
>>>> -Aleksey.
>>>> 
>>>> On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 11:23 PM, Aleksey Shipilev
>>>> <aleksey.shipilev at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> All right, here's what is on the table.
>>>>> 
>>>>> This bug is reproduced for me on Linux i686 with:
>>>>> java version "1.7.0_04"
>>>>> Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_04-b20)
>>>>> Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 23.0-b21, mixed mode)
>>>>> 
>>>>> It reproduces immediately only with -client.
>>>>> Both -server and -Xint do NOT reproduce the bug.
>>>>> The code is there in original SO post
>>>>> 
>>>>> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10620680/why-volatile-in-java-5-doesnt-synchronize-cached-copies-of-variables-with-main
>>>>> 
>>>>> C1 seems to miscompile run(), and indeed does CSE for local:
>>>>> 
>>>>>  # {method} 'run' '()V' in 'Test$1'
>>>>> [Verified Entry Point]
>>>>>  0xb4a91e80: mov    %eax,-0x4000(%esp)
>>>>>  0xb4a91e87: push   %ebp
>>>>>  0xb4a91e88: sub    $0x18,%esp         ;*invokestatic access$000
>>>>>                                        ; - Test$1::run at 0 (line 11)
>>>>>  0xb4a91e8b: mov    $0xa09c4270,%edx   ;   {oop(a 'java/lang/Class' =
>>>>> 'Test')}
>>>>>>>>>>>  0xb4a91e90: mov    0x74(%edx),%edx    ;*getstatic b <<<<<----
>>>>>>>>>>> loads $b to %edx
>>>>>                                        ; - Test::access$000 at 0 (line 1)
>>>>>                                        ; - Test$1::run at 0 (line 11)
>>>>>  0xb4a91e93: jmp    0xb4a91e9e         ; OopMap{off=40}
>>>>>                                        ;*goto
>>>>>                                        ; - Test$1::run at 10 (line 13)
>>>>>  0xb4a91e98: test   %eax,0xb77a9100    ;*goto
>>>>>                                        ; - Test$1::run at 10 (line 13)
>>>>>                                        ;   {poll}
>>>>>  0xb4a91e9e: mov    $0xa09c4270,%ecx   ;   {oop(a 'java/lang/Class' =
>>>>> 'Test')}
>>>>>>>>>>  0xb4a91ea3: mov    0x70(%ecx),%ecx    ;*getstatic a  <<<<<
>>>>>>>>>> volatile read for $a
>>>>>                                        ; - Test::access$100 at 0 (line 1)
>>>>>                                        ; - Test$1::run at 4 (line 13)
>>>>>  0xb4a91ea6: cmp    $0x0,%ecx     // <---- $a is at %ecx
>>>>>  0xb4a91ea9: je     0xb4a91e98         ;*ifne
>>>>>                                        ; - Test$1::run at 7 (line 13)
>>>>>  >>>> 0xb4a91eab: cmp    $0x0,%edx     // <<<<<<---- $b is cached in
>>>>> %edx here
>>>>>  0xb4a91eae: jne    0xb4a91ed8         ;*ifne
>>>>>                                        ; - Test$1::run at 16 (line 17)
>>>>>  0xb4a91eb4: nopl   0x0(%eax)
>>>>>  0xb4a91eb8: jmp    0xb4a91f0e         ;   {no_reloc}
>>>>>  0xb4a91ebd: xchg   %ax,%ax
>>>>>  0xb4a91ec0: jmp    0xb4a91f28         ; implicit exception:
>>>>> dispatches to 0xb4a91f18
>>>>>  0xb4a91ec5: nop                       ;*getstatic out
>>>>>                                        ; - Test$1::run at 19 (line 18)
>>>>>  0xb4a91ec6: cmp    (%ecx),%eax        ; implicit exception:
>>>>> dispatches to 0xb4a91f32
>>>>>  0xb4a91ec8: mov    $0xa09c6488,%edx   ;*invokevirtual println
>>>>>                                        ; - Test$1::run at 24 (line 18)
>>>>>                                        ;   {oop("error")}
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Aleksey.
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 11:12 PM, Vitaly Davidovich <vitalyd at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> It can be a compiler (mis)optimization that causes this, and not x86
>>>>>> memory
>>>>>> ordering.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Someone posted the assembly output in the comments on SO and it does
>>>>>> seem
>>>>>> like there's a place that loads 'b' from the stack rather than memory.
>>>>>> Hans' theory of CSE sounds plausible - can someone repro this without
>>>>>> that
>>>>>> "int tt = b;" line?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Adding hotspot compiler guys in case they want to chime in.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Sent from my phone
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On May 16, 2012 3:07 PM, "Aleksey Shipilev"
>>>>>> <aleksey.shipilev at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 10:40 PM, Boehm, Hans <hans.boehm at hp.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>> A JDK bug AND a serious test suite omission?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Stress tests would probably JIT-compile the code in question. See
>>>>>>> below.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> But is the problem real?  Can it be reproduced on a mainstream JVM?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Same question.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Note that the example in the original posting also read b before the
>>>>>>>> loop,
>>>>>>>> so naïve common subexpression elimination would cause the bug.
>>>>>>>>  Hopefully
>>>>>>>> nobody does CSE in cases like this.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> FWIW, the test case in SO would probably not hit any compilation
>>>>>>> threshold in HotSpot, so it could be executed in interpreter. Then,
>>>>>>> assuming the interpreter does not reorder Java code, and assuming
>>>>>>> original SO poster runs Windows, and hence x86, and hence has TSO,
>>>>>>> this bug seems very unlikely. I would be surprised if it actually
>>>>>>> *can* be reproduced. That makes the whole story rather interesting.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> -Aleksey.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Concurrency-interest mailing list
>>>>>>> Concurrency-interest at cs.oswego.edu
>>>>>>> http://cs.oswego.edu/mailman/listinfo/concurrency-interest



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