python / python/cpython

Deferred reference counts

Aberta
#120,024 1 comentário 2 reações 0 responsáveis Ver no GitHub

Ninguém assumiu esta issue ainda.

interpreter-core performance type-feature
Linguagem predominante
Python
Estrelas
77.2k
Forks
35.9k
Métricas de merge de PRs
Métricas de PR pendentes

Descrição

Feature or enhancement

Proposal:

Approximately 80% of reference count operations occur in the interpreter. stats
The vast majority of these operations are needed only to maintain the correct reference counts for references in local variables and the evaluation stack.
We should not count these references, instead deferring them until we wish to perform incremental collection.

Doing so will give us a reasonable speedup on default builds, but the real value is for free-threading.
Free-threading requires that some references on the frame stack are deferred, but tagging those references is expensive. It is much more efficient to simply deferred all references on the frame stack.

This is not a new idea, in fact it is a very old one.

The implementation is conceptually fairly simple:

  • We don't count references in local variables and the evaluation stack
  • Any object that has a reference count of zero is, instead of being reclaimed, added to a "Zero count table"
  • When we perform collection, we update the reference count of all objects that have references on the stack, collect any objects with a zero reference count, and then reset the reference counts.

Like many "simple" ideas, the devil is in the detail.

There are two main concerns:

  • Reclamation of objects is not as prompt as before. We may use more resources, waiting for them to be reclaimed.
  • The overhead of updating references during collections may be as great or greater than the saving by deferring the reference counting.

We can keep reclamation acceptably prompt, by tracking the size of objects in the Zero Count Table, the size of objects allocated.
Once this number gets large enough, we perform a collection at the next opportunity.

We can keep the overhead of updating the reference counts low, by only deferring the top of the stack. Parts of the stack that are not accessed between collections, can be counted eagerly, reducing the amount of scanning needed to a few frames.

Previous discussion

https://github.com/faster-cpython/ideas/issues/677

Linked PRs
  • gh-121917
  • gh-121923
  • gh-122693
  • gh-122730
  • gh-122734
  • gh-122780
  • gh-122968
  • gh-125095
  • gh-125192
### Tasks
- [ ] https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/123391
- [x] Interpreter code generators need to be able to flush the stack around escaping calls.

Guia de contribuição

Abrir o guia de contribuição

Primeiros passos

  1. Leia a issue inteira e depois o guia de contribuição do projeto.
  2. Comente na issue dizendo que vai assumir — evita que duas pessoas façam o mesmo trabalho.
  3. Faça um fork do repositório e trabalhe em uma branch.
  4. Abra um pull request que referencie o número da issue.

Direção de pesquisa

Comece revisando os PRs vinculados e a discussão anterior em faster-cpython/ideas#677; em seguida, examine a tarefa restante na issue #123391. A proposta abrange a contagem de referências adiada, o rastreamento de contagens zero e o momento da coleta; sua conclusão exigiria resolver as preocupações de implementação listadas e concluir a tarefa pendente.

Escrita pelo modelo de indexação a partir do texto da issue.

Avaliação

Stack de tecnologia
python
Domínio
compilers
Tipo de issue
Funcionalidade
Dificuldade
5/5
Tempo estimado
Mais de uma semana
Status de atividade
Estagnada
Clareza
Precisa de esclarecimento
Facilidade para iniciantes
15/100

Receba novas issues na sua caixa de entrada

Um resumo curto de issues do GitHub para quem está começando.