RFR: 8199739: Use HeapAccess when loading oops from static fields in javaClasses.cpp

[Erik Österlund]

Hi Roman,

On 2018-03-20 11:26, Roman Kennke wrote:
> Am 20.03.2018 um 11:07 schrieb Erik Österlund:
>> Hi Roman,
>>
>> On 2018-03-19 21:11, Roman Kennke wrote:
>>> Am 19.03.2018 um 20:35 schrieb coleen.phillimore at oracle.com:
>>>> On 3/19/18 3:15 PM, Stefan Karlsson wrote:
>>>>> On 2018-03-19 20:00, coleen.phillimore at oracle.com wrote:
>>>>>> I like Roman's version with static_field_base() the best.  The reason
>>>>>> I wanted to keep static_field_addr and not have static_oop_addr was
>>>>>> so there is one function to find static fields and this would work
>>>>>> with the jvmci classes and with loading/storing primitives also.  So
>>>>>> I like the consistent change that Roman has.
>>>>> That's OK with me. This RFE grew in scope of what I first intended, so
>>>>> I'm fine with Roman taking over this.
>>>>>
>>>>>> There's a subtlety that I haven't quite figured out here.
>>>>>> static_field_addr gets an address mirror+offset, so needs a load
>>>>>> barrier on this offset, then needs a load barrier on the offset of
>>>>>> the additional load (?)
>>>>> There are two barriers in this piece of code:
>>>>> 1) Shenandoah needs a barrier to be able to read fields out of the
>>>>> java mirror
>>>>> 2) ZGC and UseCompressedOops needs a barrier when loading oop fields
>>>>> in the java mirror.
>>>>>
>>>>> Is that what you are referring to?
>>>> I had to read this thread over again, and am still foggy, but it was
>>>> because your original change didn't work for shenandoah, ie Kim's last
>>>> response.
>>>>
>>>> The brooks pointer has to be applied to get the mirror address as well
>>>> as reading fields out of the mirror, if I understand correctly.
>>>>
>>>> OopHandle::resolve() which is what java_mirror() is not accessorized but
>>>> should be for shenandoah.  I think.  I guess that was my question
>>>> before.
>>> The family of _at() functions in Access, those which accept oop+offset,
>>> do the chasing of the forwarding pointer in Shenandoah, then they apply
>>> the offset, load the memory field and return the value in the right
>>> type. They also do the load-barrier in ZGC (haven't checked, but that's
>>> just logical).
>>>
>>> There is also oop Access::resolve(oop) which is a bit of a hack. It has
>>> been introduced because of arraycopy and java <-> native bulk copy stuff
>>> that uses typeArrayOop::*_at_addr() family of methods. In those
>>> situations we still need to 1. chase the fwd ptr (for reads) or 2. maybe
>>> evacuate the object (for writes), where #2 is stronger than #1 (i.e. if
>>> we do #2, then we don't need to do #1). In order to keep things simple,
>>> we decided to make Access::resolve(oop) do #2, and have it cover all
>>> those cases, and put it in arrayOopDesc::base(). This does the right
>>> thing for all cases, but it is a bit broad, for example, it may lead to
>>> double-copying a potentially large array (resolve-copy src array from
>>> from-space to to-space, then copy it again to the dst array). For those
>>> reasons, it is advisable to think twice before using _at_addr() or
>>> in-fact Access::resolve() if there's a better/cleaner way to do it.
>> Are we certain that it is indeed only arraycopy that requires stable
>> accesses until the next thread transition?
>> I seem to recall that last time we discussed this, you thought that
>> there was more than arraycopy code that needed this. For example
>> printing and string encoding/decoding logic.
>>
>> If we are going to make changes based on the assumption that we will be
>> able to get rid of the resolve() barrier, then we should be fairly
>> certain that we can indeed get rid of it. So have the other previously
>> discussed roadblocks other than arraycopy disappeared?
> No, I don't think that resolve() can go away. If you look at:
>
> http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/hotspot-gc-dev/2018-March/021464.html
>
> You'll see all kinds of uses of _at_addr() that cannot be covered by
> some sort of arraycopy, e.g. the string conversions stuff.
>
> The above patch proposes to split resolve() to resolve_for_read() and
> resolve_for_write(), and I don't think it is unreasonable to distinguish
> those. Besides being better for Shenandoah (reduced latency on read-only
> accesses), there are conceivable GC algorithms that require that
> distinction too, e.g. transactional memory based GC or copy-on-write
> based GCs. But let's probably continue this discussion in the thread
> mentioned above?

As I thought. The reason I bring it up in this thread is because as I 
understand it, you are proposing to push this patch without renaming 
static_field_base() to static_field_base_raw(), which is what we did 
consistently everywhere else so far, with the motivation that you will 
remove resolve() from the other ones soon, and get rid of base_raw(). 
And I feel like we should have that discussion first. Until that is 
actually changed, static_field_base_raw() should be the name of that 
method. If we decide to change the other code to do something else, then 
we can revisit this then, but not yet.

Thanks,
/Erik

> Thanks, Roman
>