[webkit-dev] LLInt without JIT

Wed Mar 13 11:26:43 PDT 2013

Hello,

LLINT C Loop implementation is a pure JS interpretation mode, so you can't
enable along with JIT. But LLINT with assembly back-end is intended to have
both JIT(baseline & DFG) and interpreter mode simultaneously. The main goal
of LLINT assembly backend is for JIT emulation, so that code running in JIT
can easily fallback(vice versa) to interpreter mode with less or no cost
and also to have a triple tier virtual machine.

PSB, "Filip Pizlo" explained about this very nicely in the current email
thread :)

Regards,
Arun

On 13 March 2013 23:35, Gabor Rapcsanyi <rgabor at inf.u-szeged.hu> wrote:

>  Hello!
>
> I tried to compile JSC with LLInt CLoop backend and JIT but it didn't work
> for me. I tried it on Mac and Linux as well.
> When I looked into it a little I saw some strange guards like this:
>
> Source/JavaScriptCore/llint/LLIntOpcode.h
>
> #if ENABLE(LLINT_C_LOOP)
>
> #define FOR_EACH_LLINT_NOJIT_NATIVE_HELPER(macro) \
>     macro(getHostCallReturnValue, 1) \
>     macro(ctiOpThrowNotCaught, 1)
>
> #else // !ENABLE(LLINT_C_LOOP)
>
> #define FOR_EACH_LLINT_NOJIT_NATIVE_HELPER(macro) \
>     // Nothing to do here. Use the JIT impl instead.
>
> #endif // !ENABLE(LLINT_C_LOOP)
>
>
> It seems if we have CLoop we don't have JIT.
> So is this configuration supported anyway or we just want to use CLoop
> backend if we don't have JIT support?
>
> Regards,
>   -Gabor
>
>
>  Awesome, thanks for the detailed response.
>
>  I did not realize that going to the assembly backend would not produce
> a substantial improvement.  But after you explanation, I can see the
> reasons.
>
>  I'll do some more testing to see the impact.  If I see it to
> be worthwhile and I can fix it, I'll submit a patch, otherwise a bug.
>
>
>  On Fri, Mar 8, 2013 at 11:28 PM, Filip Pizlo <fpizlo at apple.com> wrote:
>
>> Yes.  You can use the assembly LLInt backend without using the JIT.
>>  That's how I was running it when I first wrote it.
>>
>>  I think that the code in Platform.h is being conservative, in the sense
>> that it assumes that if ENABLE(JIT) is not set then you're compiling for a
>> target that the LLInt wouldn't have a backend for.  This makes sense, if
>> you think about it: ENABLE_JIT is defined to 1 if we detect that we are on
>> a hardware/OS configuration that the JIT knows how to handle, and the LLInt
>> has backends for strictly fewer platforms than the JIT has backends for:
>> JIT supports x86 (32 and 64), ARM (traditional and THUMB2), MIPS, and SH4;
>> while the LLInt currently only supports x86 (32 and 64), ARM THUMB2, and
>> MIPS.  In short, requiring the JIT to use LLInt assembly backends is not a
>> strong requirement of the LLInt; it's just an artifact of Platform.h's
>> logic.
>>
>>  On hardware/OS configurations where ENABLE(JIT) is set, and the LLInt
>> is compiled to assembly, it is still possible to run with the JIT disabled.
>> The JIT ends up being disabled at run-time in that case. We often use this
>> for testing - you can set the JSC_useJIT environment variable to 'false'
>> and then you're running in a LLInt-only mode. This allows for quickly
>> checking if a bug is due to the JITs, or not.
>>
>>  But I would also note that the purpose of the LLInt assembly backends
>> is _not_ performance of the LLInt itself, but for performance of the
>> triple-tier system as a whole.  What those assembly backends give us is the
>> ability to run the LLInt using the same ABI that the JSC JITs use; this in
>> turn allows us to do two things: (1) zero-cost OSR from the LLInt to the
>> baseline JIT, and (2) perform every JS function call assuming
>> opportunistically that the callee has been JITed; if it isn't then the
>> machine code entrypoint that the callee reports is just the shared LLInt
>> entrypoint.  That entrypoint, in turn, doesn't really have to do anything
>> special - it just loads the callee from the callee stack frame, loads the
>> bytecode pointer from the callee, and indirect-jumps into the first
>> bytecode instruction.  We wouldn't be able to do either (1) or (2) easily
>> with a C (or C++) interpreter. I mean, we could do it, but JIT->interpreter
>> calls would be more expensive (because of the need to set up a C
>> interpreter stack frame). And OSR would take more effort - it wouldn't be
>> possible for the LLInt to just jump straight into JITed code like it does
>> now.
>>
>>  In summary, I don't expect the LLInt cloop backend to be any slower
>> than the LLInt assembly backends. Last I checked, it wasn't slower. I would
>> assume that a decent C compiler will take the LLInt cloop code and do
>> sufficient optimizations that it ends up generating roughly the same
>> assembly code that the LLInt assembly backends generate. So, I wouldn't
>> devote too much effort to switching from the cloop to the assembly backends
>> unless you had evidence that (a) it would actually be faster on the
>> benchmarks you care about; or (b) you wanted to take advantage of the
>> LLInt's ability to rapidly tier-up to one of the JSC JITs. It is because of
>> (b), not (a), that JSC's triple tier configuration uses the LLInt assembly
>> backends instead of cloop.
>>
>>  But if you have reason to believe that the LLInt assembly backends will
>> be better for your purposes then I think all it will take is hacking
>> Platform.h appropriately. If this turns out to be hard, then you should
>> file a bug, or even better, I would love to see a patch from you to improve
>> the logic in Platform.h to make this use case easier.
>>
>>  Hope this helps!
>>
>>  -Filip
>>
>>
>>
>>   On Mar 8, 2013, at 4:59 PM, Fritz Koenig <frkoenig at google.com> wrote:
>>
>>    LowLevelInterpreter.asm is processed to create LLIntAssembly.h for
>> the built platform.  It appears that if there is no jitting configured[1],
>> this will always create the C Loop.
>>
>>  Is there any way of using the assembly backends to create
>> LLIntAssembly.h when not jitting?
>>
>>  [1]: Source/WTF/wtf/Platform.h:815 /* If the jit is not available,
>> enable the LLInt C Loop: */
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>>
>>
>>
>
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-- 
*Arunprasad Rajkumar*
http://in.linkedin.com/in/ararunprasad
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