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RyuJIT: Porting to different platforms

First, understand the JIT architecture by reading RyuJIT overview.

What is a Platform?

  • Target instruction set
  • Target pointer size
  • Target operating system
  • Target calling convention and ABI (Application Binary Interface)
  • Runtime data structures (not really covered here)
  • GC encoding
  • All targets use the same GC encoding scheme and APIs, except for Windows x86, which uses JIT32_GCENCODER.
  • Debug information (mostly the same for all targets)
  • EH (exception handling) information (not really covered here)

One advantage of the CLR is that the VM (mostly) hides the (non-ABI) OS differences.

The Very High Level View

The following components need to be updated, or target-specific versions created, for a new platform.

  • The basics
  • target.h
  • Instruction set architecture:
  • registerXXX.h
  • emitXXX.h, emitfmtXXX.h
  • instrsXXX.h, emitXXX.cpp and targetXXX.cpp
  • lowerXXX.cpp
  • lsraXXX.cpp
  • codegenXXX.cpp and simdcodegenXXX.cpp
  • unwindXXX.cpp
  • Calling Convention and ABI: all over the place
  • 32 vs. 64 bits
  • Also all over the place. Some pointer size-specific data is centralized in target.h, but probably not 100%.

Porting stages and steps

There are several steps to follow to port the JIT (some of which can be be done in parallel), described below.

Initial bring-up

  • Create the new platform-specific files
  • Create the platform-specific build instructions (in CMakeLists.txt). This probably will require new platform-specific build instructions at the root level, as well as the JIT level of the source tree.
  • Focus on MinOpts; disable the optimization phases, or always test with DOTNET_JITMinOpts=1.
  • Disable optional features, such as:
  • FEATURE_EH -- if 0, all exception handling blocks are removed. Of course, tests with exception handling that depend on exceptions being thrown and caught won't run correctly.
  • FEATURE_STRUCTPROMOTE
  • FEATURE_FASTTAILCALL
  • FEATURE_TAILCALL_OPT
  • FEATURE_SIMD
  • Build the new JIT as an altjit. In this mode, a "base" JIT is invoked to compile all functions except the one(s) specified by the DOTNET_AltJit variable. For example, setting DOTNET_AltJit=Add and running a test will use the "base" JIT (say, the Windows x64 targeting JIT) to compile all functions except Add, which will be first compiled by the new altjit, and if it fails, fall back to the "base" JIT. In this way, only very limited JIT functionality need to work, as the "base" JIT takes care of most functions.
  • Implement the basic instruction encodings. Test them using a method like CodeGen::genArm64EmitterUnitTests().
  • Implement the bare minimum to get the compiler building and generating code for very simple operations, like addition.
  • Focus on the CodeGenBringUpTests (src\tests\JIT\CodeGenBringUpTests), starting with the simple ones.
  • These are designed such that for a test XXX.cs, there is a single interesting function named XXX to compile (that is, the name of the source file is the same as the name of the interesting function. This was done to make the scripts to invoke these tests very simple.). Set DOTNET_AltJit=XXX so the new JIT only attempts to compile that one function.
  • Merged test groups interfere with the simplicity of these tests by removing the entry point from each individual test and creating a single wrapper that calls all of the tests in a single process. To restore the old behavior, build the tests with the environment variable BuildAsStandalone set to true.
  • Use DOTNET_JitDisasm to see the generated code for functions, even if the code isn't run.

Expand test coverage

  • Get more and more tests to run successfully:
  • Run more of the JIT directory of tests
  • Run all of the Pri-0 "innerloop" tests
  • Run all of the Pri-1 "outerloop" tests
  • It is helpful to collect data on asserts generated by the JIT across the entire test base, and fix the asserts in order of frequency. That is, fix the most frequently occurring asserts first.
  • Track the number of asserts, and number of tests with/without asserts, to help determine progress.

Bring the optimizer phases on-line

  • Run tests with and without DOTNET_JITMinOpts=1.
  • It probably makes sense to set DOTNET_TieredCompilation=0 (or disable it for the platform entirely) until much later.

Improve quality

  • When the tests pass with the basic modes, start running with JitStress and JitStressRegs stress modes.
  • Bring GCStress on-line. This also requires VM work.
  • Work on DOTNET_GCStress=4 quality. When crossgen/ngen is brought on-line, test with DOTNET_GCStress=8 and DOTNET_GCStress=C as well.

Work on performance

  • Determine a strategy for measuring and improving performance, both throughput (compile time) and generated code quality (CQ).

Work on platform parity

  • Implement features that were intentionally disabled, or for which implementation was delayed.
  • Implement SIMD (Vector<T>) and hardware intrinsics support.

Front-end changes

  • Calling Convention
  • Struct args and returns seem to be the most complex differences
    • Importer and morph are highly aware of these
    • E.g. fgMorphArgs(), fgFixupStructReturn(), fgMorphCall(), fgPromoteStructs() and the various struct assignment morphing methods
  • HFAs on ARM
  • Tail calls are target-dependent, but probably should be less so
  • Intrinsics: each platform recognizes different methods as intrinsics (e.g. Sin only for x86, Round everywhere BUT amd64)
  • Target-specific morphs such as for mul, mod and div

Backend Changes

  • Lowering: fully expose control flow and register requirements
  • Code Generation: traverse blocks in layout order, generating code (InstrDescs) based on register assignments on nodes
  • Then, generate prolog & epilog, as well as GC, EH and scope tables
  • ABI changes:
  • Calling convention register requirements
    • Lowering of calls and returns
    • Code sequences for prologs & epilogs
  • Allocation & layout of frame

Target ISA "Configuration"

  • Conditional compilation (set in jit.h, based on incoming define, e.g. #ifdef X86) 
    _TARGET_64_BIT_ (32 bit target is just ! _TARGET_64BIT_)
_TARGET_XARCH_, _TARGET_ARMARCH_
_TARGET_AMD64_, _TARGET_X86_, _TARGET_ARM64_, _TARGET_ARM_
  • Target.h
  • InstrsXXX.h

Instruction Encoding

  • The insGroup and instrDesc data structures are used for encoding
  • instrDesc is initialized with the opcode bits, and has fields for immediates and register numbers.
  • instrDescs are collected into insGroup groups
  • A label may only occur at the beginning of a group
  • The emitter is called to:
  • Create new instructions (instrDescs), during CodeGen
  • Emit the bits from the instrDescs after CodeGen is complete
  • Update Gcinfo (live GC vars & safe points)

Adding Encodings

  • The instruction encodings are captured in instrsXXX.h. These are the opcode bits for each instruction
  • The structure of each instruction set's encoding is target-dependent
  • An "instruction" is just the representation of the opcode
  • An instance of instrDesc represents the instruction to be emitted
  • For each "type" of instruction, emit methods need to be implemented. These follow a pattern but a target may have unique ones, e.g. 
    emitter::emitInsMov(instruction ins, emitAttr attr, GenTree* node)
emitter::emitIns_R_I(instruction ins, emitAttr attr, regNumber reg, ssize_t val)
emitter::emitInsTernary(instruction ins, emitAttr attr, GenTree* dst, GenTree* src1, GenTree* src2) (currently Arm64 only)

Lowering

  • Lowering ensures that all register requirements are exposed for the register allocator
  • Use count, def count, "internal" reg count, and any special register requirements
  • Does half the work of code generation, since all computation is made explicit
    • But it is NOT necessarily a 1:1 mapping from lowered tree nodes to target instructions
  • Its first pass does a tree walk, transforming the instructions. Some of this is target-independent. Notable exceptions:
    • Calls and arguments
    • Switch lowering
    • LEA transformation
  • Its second pass walks the nodes in execution order
    • Sets register requirements
    • sometimes changes the register requirements children (which have already been traversed)
    • Sets the block order and node locations for LSRA
    • LinearScan::startBlockSequence() and LinearScan::moveToNextBlock()

Register Allocation

  • Register allocation is largely target-independent
  • The second phase of Lowering does nearly all the target-dependent work
  • Register candidates are determined in the front-end
  • Local variables or temps, or fields of local variables or temps
  • Not address-taken, plus a few other restrictions
  • Sorted by lvaSortByRefCount(), and determined by lvIsRegCandidate()

Addressing Modes

  • The code to find and capture addressing modes is particularly poorly abstracted
  • genCreateAddrMode(), in CodeGenCommon.cpp traverses the tree looking for an addressing mode, then captures its constituent elements (base, index, scale & offset) in "out parameters"
  • It never generates code, and is only used by gtSetEvalOrder, and by Lowering

Code Generation

  • For the most part, the code generation method structure is the same for all architectures
  • Most code generation methods start with "gen"
  • Theoretically, CodeGenCommon.cpp contains code "mostly" common to all targets (this factoring is imperfect)
  • Method prolog, epilog,
  • genCodeForBBList()
  • Walks the trees in execution order, calling genCodeForTreeNode(), which needs to handle all nodes that are not "contained"
  • Generates control flow code (branches, EH) for the block