prometheus / prometheus/client_rust

Undeterministic order in output

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#125 14 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Dominant language
Rust
Stars
606
Forks
113
Avg merge
9h 7m
Merged PRs (30d)
8

Description

The output or encode() is non-deterministic when creating multiple metrics of the same type.

So basically:

pub fn repro() -> String {
    let mut registry = <prometheus_client::registry::Registry>::default();

    let gauge = Family::<MyLabels, Gauge<f64, AtomicU64>>::default();
    registry.register("test", "help", gauge.clone());

    gauge
        .get_or_create(&MyLabels {
            label: "one".into(),
        })
        .set(0.1);
    gauge
        .get_or_create(&MyLabels {
            label: "two".into(),
        })
        .set(0.2);

    let mut buffer = String::new();

    encode(&mut buffer, &registry).unwrap();

    buffer
}

This will sometimes return this:

HELP test help.
# TYPE test gauge
test{label="one"} 0.1
test{label="two"} 0.2
# EOF

And sometimes this:

HELP test help.
# TYPE test gauge
test{label="two"} 0.2
test{label="one"} 0.1
# EOF

I would expect the metrics to be somehow sorted deterministically.

Contributor guide

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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 at encode and trace how the Registry and Family values are iterated when multiple metrics share a type. Use the provided repro to observe the ordering, then verify that repeated encodes produce the same metric order and match the expected deterministic output.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
rust
Domain
observability
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
68/100

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