JuliaArrays / JuliaArrays/FixedSizeArrays.jl

Remove indirection by defaulting to `MemoryView`, not `Memory`

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Dominant language
Julia
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Description

A Discourse post by foobar_v2 mentioned an important fact I've never considered: Memory access has more indirections when accessed through a Memory as opposed to a MemoryRef:

  • Memory
    • Load the address of the Memory struct (mutable struct, so has its own address)
    • The memory struct contains a pointer to the buffer referred to by the Memory struct. Load the value from here
  • MemoryRef
    • Load the value directly from the pointer in MemoryRef without indirection

Therefore, a FixedSizeArray wrapping a MemoryView is more efficient than one wrapping a Memory, as it elides one pointer chase:

julia> using FixedSizeArrays, MemoryViews;

julia> v = [1,2,3];

julia> A = FixedSizeArray(v);

julia> B = FixedSizeArrays.new_fixed_size_array(MemoryView(v), (3,));

julia> f(x) = @inbounds x[3];

julia> @code_native debuginfo=:none dump_module=false f(A)
        .section        __TEXT,__text,regular,pure_instructions
        ldr     x8, [x1]
        ldr     x9, [x20, #16]
        ldr     x9, [x9, #16]
        ldr     xzr, [x9]
        ldr     x8, [x8, #8]
        ldr     x0, [x8, #16]
        ret

julia> @code_native debuginfo=:none dump_module=false f(B)
        .section        __TEXT,__text,regular,pure_instructions
        ldr     x8, [x20, #16]
        ldr     x8, [x8, #16]
        ldr     xzr, [x8]
        ldr     x8, [x0]
        ldr     x0, [x8, #16]
        ret

The tradeoff is that it's 32 bytes in size, as opposed to 16. The reason is that the MemoryView inlines into the FixedSizeArray, which is also the reason we safe a pointer load.
Eliding one pointer chase at the cost of 2 integers of memory is almost certainly a performance benefit.

I suggest that certain constructors like FixedSizeArray(::Array) and FixedSizeArray(::Memory) uses MemoryViews internally.

Contributor guide

No contributing guide indexed for this repository

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by locating the FixedSizeArray(::Array), FixedSizeArray(::Memory), and related constructors, then inspect how they store Memory versus MemoryView. Use the Julia REPL and the @code_native examples from the issue to compare the generated access paths. Done means the relevant constructors use MemoryView internally without breaking existing behavior or tests.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
julia
Domain
performance
Issue type
Refactor
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
45/100

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