Make size of TOS cache configurable
Nobody has claimed this yet.
- Dominant language
- Python
- Stars
- 77.2k
- Forks
- 35.9k
- PR merge metrics
- PR metrics pending
Description
TOS caching was introduced by https://github.com/python/cpython/issues/135379, but it only supports a fixed number of registers.
We should make it configurable, so that we can choose the optimum number of registers for any hardware/OS combination.
Probably the simplest way to do this is to generate executor cases and stencils code for up to the overall maximum number of registers, and guard each case/function with an #if MAX_CACHED_REGISTER > N where N is the number of registers needed for that variant.
Some cases/functions will also need to guarded for when MAX_CACHED_REGISTER is too low.
For example the ideal number of output registers for _BINARY_OP variants is 3.
For machines where MAX_CACHED_REGISTER < 3, we will need to generate variants with outputs < 3, but we want to exclude those variants for machines with MAX_CACHED_REGISTER >= 3
Overall this could result in generating a lot more code, probably more than double, but if MAX_CACHED_REGISTER is unchanged then the executable size should also be unchanged.
If we increase the MAX_CACHED_REGISTER to 4 or 5 we would expect the stencils and supporting tables to increase by ~35% and ~80% respectively (growth being a bit more than linear as some instructions have N**2 variants)
Linked PRs
- gh-145830
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start by reading issue 135379 and the linked work in PR 145830, then trace the TOS cache register-generation and stencil paths described here. Done means MAX_CACHED_REGISTER can select suitable variants for different hardware and OS combinations while preserving the stated executable-size behavior when unchanged.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- backend
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100