Re: string-for-each vs. for-each+string->list performance

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hi,

Linus Björnstam <linus.internet@fastmail.se> skribis:

> You can cut another 15-ish % from that loop by making an inline loop, btw
>
> (let loop ((pos 0))
>   (when (< pos (string-length str))
>     ...
>     (loop (1+ pos)))
>
> I have been looking at the disassembly, even for simpler cases, but I haven't 
> been able to understand enough of it. 
>
> BTW: string-for-each is in the default environment, and is probably the same 
> as the srfi-13 C implementation.

‘string-for-each’ in C (the default) is slower than its Scheme counterpart:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
scheme@(guile-user)> (define (sfe proc str)
                       (define len (string-length str))
                       (let loop ((i 0))
                         (unless (= i len)
                           (proc (string-ref str i))
                           (loop (+ 1 i)))))
scheme@(guile-user)> (define str (make-string 15000000))
scheme@(guile-user)> ,t (sfe identity str)
;; 0.263725s real time, 0.263722s run time.  0.000000s spent in GC.
scheme@(guile-user)> ,t (sfe identity str)
;; 0.259538s real time, 0.259529s run time.  0.000000s spent in GC.
scheme@(guile-user)> ,t (string-for-each identity str)
;; 0.841632s real time, 0.841624s run time.  0.000000s spent in GC.
scheme@(guile-user)> (version)
$2 = "3.0.2"
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

In general we seem to pay a high price for leaving (calling a subr) and
re-entering (via ‘scm_call_n’) the VM.  This is especially acute here
because there’s almost nothing happening in C, so we keep bouncing
between Scheme and C.

That’s another reason to start rewriting such primitives in Scheme and
have the C functions just call out to Scheme.

If we do:

  perf record guile -c '(string-for-each identity (make-string 15000000))'

we get this profile:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
Overhead  Command  Shared Object          Symbol
  31.10%  guile    libguile-3.0.so.1.1.1  [.] vm_regular_engine
  27.48%  guile    libguile-3.0.so.1.1.1  [.] scm_call_n
  14.34%  guile    libguile-3.0.so.1.1.1  [.] scm_jit_enter_mcode
   3.55%  guile    libguile-3.0.so.1.1.1  [.] scm_i_string_ref
   3.37%  guile    libguile-3.0.so.1.1.1  [.] get_callee_vcode
   2.34%  guile    libguile-3.0.so.1.1.1  [.] scm_call_1
   2.31%  guile    libguile-3.0.so.1.1.1  [.] scm_string_for_each
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Indeed, we get better performance when turning off JIT:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
$ GUILE_JIT_THRESHOLD=-1 time guile -c '(string-for-each identity (make-string 
15000000))'
0.47user 0.00system 0:00.47elapsed 100%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 26396maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (0major+1583minor)pagefaults 0swaps
$ GUILE_JIT_THRESHOLD=100 time guile -c '(string-for-each identity (make-string 
15000000))'
0.83user 0.00system 0:00.83elapsed 100%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 26948maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (0major+1748minor)pagefaults 0swaps
$ GUILE_JIT_THRESHOLD=0 time guile -c '(string-for-each identity (make-string 
15000000))'
0.84user 0.00system 0:00.85elapsed 100%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 27324maxresident)k
0inputs+0outputs (0major+2548minor)pagefaults 0swaps
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

So it seems that we just keep firing the JIT machinery on every
‘scm_call_n’ for no benefit.

That’s probably also the reason why ‘%after-gc-hunk’, ‘reap-pipes’, &
co. always show high in statprof:

  https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guile-devel/2020-05/msg00019.html  

Thanks,
Ludo’.