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tags: much faster, parallel "make tags"

PATCH Superseded Alexey Dobriyan 3 participants 8 messages May 8, 2015 – Aug 19, 2015

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#0 lore raw

PATCH v3 1/1 tags: much faster, parallel "make tags"

ctags is single-threaded program. Split list of files to be tagged into equal parts, 1 part for each CPU and then merge the results.

Speedup on one 2-way box I have is ~143 s => ~99 s (-31%). On another 4-way box: ~120 s => ~65 s (-46%!).

Resulting "tags" files aren't byte-for-byte identical because ctags program numbers anon struct and enum declarations with "__anonNNN" symbols. If those lines are removed, "tags" file becomes byte-for-byte identical with those generated with current code.

---

 scripts/tags.sh |   36 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----
 1 file changed, 31 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
scripts/tags.sh +31 -5
@@ -152,7 +152,19 @@ dogtags()
 
 exuberant()
 {
-	all_target_sources | xargs $1 -a                        \
+	rm -f .make-tags.*
+
+	all_target_sources >.make-tags.src
+	NR_CPUS=$(getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN 2>/dev/null || echo 1)
+	NR_LINES=$(wc -l <.make-tags.src)
+	NR_LINES=$((($NR_LINES + $NR_CPUS - 1) / $NR_CPUS))
+
+	split -a 6 -d -l $NR_LINES .make-tags.src .make-tags.src.
+
+	for i in .make-tags.src.*; do
+		N=$(echo $i | sed -e 's/.*\.//')
+		# -u: don't sort now, sort later
+		xargs <$i $1 -a -f .make-tags.$N -u		\
 	-I __initdata,__exitdata,__initconst,			\
 	-I __cpuinitdata,__initdata_memblock			\
 	-I __refdata,__attribute,__maybe_unused,__always_unused \
@@ -211,7 +223,21 @@ exuberant()
 	--regex-c='/DEFINE_PCI_DEVICE_TABLE\((\w*)/\1/v/'		\
 	--regex-c='/(^\s)OFFSET\((\w*)/\2/v/'				\
 	--regex-c='/(^\s)DEFINE\((\w*)/\2/v/'				\
-	--regex-c='/DEFINE_HASHTABLE\((\w*)/\1/v/'
+	--regex-c='/DEFINE_HASHTABLE\((\w*)/\1/v/'			\
+	&
+	done
+	wait
+	rm -f .make-tags.src .make-tags.src.*
+
+	# write header
+	$1 -f $2 /dev/null
+	# remove headers
+	for i in .make-tags.*; do
+		sed -i -e '/^!/d' $i &
+	done
+	wait
+	sort .make-tags.* >>$2
+	rm -f .make-tags.*
 
 	all_kconfigs | xargs $1 -a                              \
 	--langdef=kconfig --language-force=kconfig              \
@@ -276,7 +302,7 @@ emacs()
 xtags()
 {
 	if $1 --version 2>&1 | grep -iq exuberant; then
-		exuberant $1
+		exuberant $1 $2
 	elif $1 --version 2>&1 | grep -iq emacs; then
 		emacs $1
 	else
@@ -322,13 +348,13 @@ case "$1" in
 
 	"tags")
 		rm -f tags
-		xtags ctags
+		xtags ctags tags
 		remove_structs=y
 		;;
 
 	"TAGS")
 		rm -f TAGS
-		xtags etags
+		xtags etags TAGS
 		remove_structs=y
 		;;
 esac
#1 lore raw
Quoted 20 lines · Alexey Dobriyan

ctags is single-threaded program. Split list of files to be tagged into equal parts, 1 part for each CPU and then merge the results.

Speedup on one 2-way box I have is ~143 s => ~99 s (-31%). On another 4-way box: ~120 s => ~65 s (-46%!).

Resulting "tags" files aren't byte-for-byte identical because ctags program numbers anon struct and enum declarations with "__anonNNN" symbols. If those lines are removed, "tags" file becomes byte-for-byte identical with those generated with current code.

---

 scripts/tags.sh |   36 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----
 1 file changed, 31 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

scripts/tags.sh dogtags() · line 158

Quoted 8 lines
scripts/tags.sh +4 -1
@@ -152,7 +152,19 @@ dogtags()
 
 exuberant()
 {
-	all_target_sources | xargs $1 -a                        \
+	rm -f .make-tags.*
+
+	all_target_sources >.make-tags.src
+	NR_CPUS=$(getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN 2>/dev/null || echo 1)

nproc is simpler and available since coreutils 8.1 (2009-11-18)

scripts/tags.sh dogtags() · line 162

Quoted 4 lines
scripts/tags.sh +4 -0
+	NR_LINES=$(wc -l <.make-tags.src)
+	NR_LINES=$((($NR_LINES + $NR_CPUS - 1) / $NR_CPUS))
+
+	split -a 6 -d -l $NR_LINES .make-tags.src .make-tags.src.

split -d -nl/$(nproc) is simpler and available since coreutils 8.8 (2010-12-22)

Quoted 18 lines
scripts/tags.sh +10 -1
+
+	for i in .make-tags.src.*; do
+		N=$(echo $i | sed -e 's/.*\.//')
+		# -u: don't sort now, sort later
+		xargs <$i $1 -a -f .make-tags.$N -u		\
 	-I __initdata,__exitdata,__initconst,			\
 	-I __cpuinitdata,__initdata_memblock			\
 	-I __refdata,__attribute,__maybe_unused,__always_unused \
@@ -211,7 +223,21 @@ exuberant()
 	--regex-c='/DEFINE_PCI_DEVICE_TABLE\((\w*)/\1/v/'		\
 	--regex-c='/(^\s)OFFSET\((\w*)/\2/v/'				\
 	--regex-c='/(^\s)DEFINE\((\w*)/\2/v/'				\
-	--regex-c='/DEFINE_HASHTABLE\((\w*)/\1/v/'
+	--regex-c='/DEFINE_HASHTABLE\((\w*)/\1/v/'			\
+	&
+	done
+	wait
+	rm -f .make-tags.src .make-tags.src.*

scripts/tags.sh exuberant() · line 240

Quoted 10 lines
scripts/tags.sh +10 -0
+
+	# write header
+	$1 -f $2 /dev/null
+	# remove headers
+	for i in .make-tags.*; do
+		sed -i -e '/^!/d' $i &
+	done
+	wait
+	sort .make-tags.* >>$2
+	rm -f .make-tags.*

Using sort --merge would speed up significantly?

Even faster would be to get sort to skip the header lines, avoiding the need for sed. It's a bit awkward and was discussed at:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/coreutils/2013-01/msg00027.html
Summarising that, is if not using merge you can:

  tlines=$(($(wc -l < "$2") + 1))
  tail -q -n+$tlines .make-tags.* | LC_ALL=C sort >>$2

Or if merge is appropriate then:

  tlines=$(($(wc -l < "$2") + 1))
  eval "eval LC_ALL=C sort -m '<(tail -n+$tlines .make-tags.'{1..$(nproc)}')'" >>$2

Note eval is fine here as inputs are controlled within the script

cheers,
Pádraig.

p.s. To avoid temp files altogether you could wire everything up through fifos, though that's probably overkill here TBH

p.p.s. You may want to trap EXIT cleanup to rm -f .make-tags.*

#2 lore raw
Quoted 11 lines · Pádraig Brady

scripts/tags.sh dogtags() · line 158

Quoted 7 lines · Alexey Dobriyan

exuberant()
{

scripts/tags.sh +4 -1
-	all_target_sources | xargs $1 -a                        \
+	rm -f .make-tags.*
+
+	all_target_sources >.make-tags.src
+	NR_CPUS=$(getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN 2>/dev/null || echo 1)

nproc is simpler and available since coreutils 8.1 (2009-11-18)

nproc was discarded because getconf is standartized.

Quoted 6 lines

scripts/tags.sh dogtags() · line 162

Quoted 4 lines
scripts/tags.sh +4 -0
+	NR_LINES=$(wc -l <.make-tags.src)
+	NR_LINES=$((($NR_LINES + $NR_CPUS - 1) / $NR_CPUS))
+
+	split -a 6 -d -l $NR_LINES .make-tags.src .make-tags.src.

split -d -nl/$(nproc) is simpler and available since coreutils 8.8 (2010-12-22)

-nl/ can't count and always make first file somewhat bigger, which is suspicious. What else it can't do right?

Quoted 4 lines

scripts/tags.sh exuberant() · line 240

Quoted 2 lines
scripts/tags.sh +2 -0
+	sort .make-tags.* >>$2
+	rm -f .make-tags.*

Using sort --merge would speed up significantly?

By ~1 second, yes.

Quoted 5 lines

Even faster would be to get sort to skip the header lines, avoiding the need for sed. It's a bit awkward and was discussed at:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/coreutils/2013-01/msg00027.html
Summarising that, is if not using merge you can:

Quoted 7 lines
  tlines=$(($(wc -l < "$2") + 1))
  tail -q -n+$tlines .make-tags.* | LC_ALL=C sort >>$2

Or if merge is appropriate then:

  tlines=$(($(wc -l < "$2") + 1))
  eval "eval LC_ALL=C sort -m '<(tail -n+$tlines .make-tags.'{1..$(nproc)}')'" >>$2

Might as well teach ctags to do real parallel processing. LC_* are set by top level Makefile.

Quoted 1 line

p.p.s. You may want to trap EXIT cleanup to rm -f .make-tags.*

The real question is how to kill ctags reliably.
Naive

	trap 'kill $(jobs -p); rm -f .make-tags.*' TERM INT

doesn't work.

Files are removed, but processes aren't.

#3 lore raw

[fix Andrew's email]

Quoted 58 lines · Alexey Dobriyan
Quoted 11 lines · Pádraig Brady

scripts/tags.sh dogtags() · line 158

Quoted 7 lines · Alexey Dobriyan

exuberant()
{

scripts/tags.sh +4 -1
-	all_target_sources | xargs $1 -a                        \
+	rm -f .make-tags.*
+
+	all_target_sources >.make-tags.src
+	NR_CPUS=$(getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN 2>/dev/null || echo 1)

nproc is simpler and available since coreutils 8.1 (2009-11-18)

nproc was discarded because getconf is standartized.

Quoted 6 lines

scripts/tags.sh dogtags() · line 162

Quoted 4 lines
scripts/tags.sh +4 -0
+	NR_LINES=$(wc -l <.make-tags.src)
+	NR_LINES=$((($NR_LINES + $NR_CPUS - 1) / $NR_CPUS))
+
+	split -a 6 -d -l $NR_LINES .make-tags.src .make-tags.src.

split -d -nl/$(nproc) is simpler and available since coreutils 8.8 (2010-12-22)

-nl/ can't count and always make first file somewhat bigger, which is suspicious. What else it can't do right?

Quoted 4 lines

scripts/tags.sh exuberant() · line 240

Quoted 2 lines
scripts/tags.sh +2 -0
+	sort .make-tags.* >>$2
+	rm -f .make-tags.*

Using sort --merge would speed up significantly?

By ~1 second, yes.

Quoted 5 lines

Even faster would be to get sort to skip the header lines, avoiding the need for sed. It's a bit awkward and was discussed at:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/coreutils/2013-01/msg00027.html
Summarising that, is if not using merge you can:

Quoted 7 lines
  tlines=$(($(wc -l < "$2") + 1))
  tail -q -n+$tlines .make-tags.* | LC_ALL=C sort >>$2

Or if merge is appropriate then:

  tlines=$(($(wc -l < "$2") + 1))
  eval "eval LC_ALL=C sort -m '<(tail -n+$tlines .make-tags.'{1..$(nproc)}')'" >>$2

Might as well teach ctags to do real parallel processing. LC_* are set by top level Makefile.

Quoted 1 line

p.p.s. You may want to trap EXIT cleanup to rm -f .make-tags.*

The real question is how to kill ctags reliably.
Naive

	trap 'kill $(jobs -p); rm -f .make-tags.*' TERM INT

doesn't work.

Files are removed, but processes aren't.

#4 lore raw
In reply to Alexey Dobriyan
Quoted 13 lines · Alexey Dobriyan
Quoted 11 lines · Pádraig Brady

scripts/tags.sh dogtags() · line 158

Quoted 7 lines · Alexey Dobriyan

exuberant()
{

scripts/tags.sh +4 -1
-	all_target_sources | xargs $1 -a                        \
+	rm -f .make-tags.*
+
+	all_target_sources >.make-tags.src
+	NR_CPUS=$(getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN 2>/dev/null || echo 1)

nproc is simpler and available since coreutils 8.1 (2009-11-18)

Quoted 1 line

nproc was discarded because getconf is standartized.

Note getconf doesn't honor CPU affinity which may be fine here?

$ taskset -c 0 getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN
4
$ taskset -c 0 nproc
1
Quoted 9 lines
Quoted 6 lines

scripts/tags.sh dogtags() · line 162

Quoted 4 lines
scripts/tags.sh +4 -0
+	NR_LINES=$(wc -l <.make-tags.src)
+	NR_LINES=$((($NR_LINES + $NR_CPUS - 1) / $NR_CPUS))
+
+	split -a 6 -d -l $NR_LINES .make-tags.src .make-tags.src.

split -d -nl/$(nproc) is simpler and available since coreutils 8.8 (2010-12-22)

-nl/ can't count and always make first file somewhat bigger, which is suspicious. What else it can't do right?

It avoids the overhead of reading all data and counting the lines, by splitting the data into approx equal numbers of lines as detailed at:
http://gnu.org/s/coreutils/split

Quoted 25 lines
Quoted 4 lines

scripts/tags.sh exuberant() · line 240

Quoted 2 lines
scripts/tags.sh +2 -0
+	sort .make-tags.* >>$2
+	rm -f .make-tags.*

Using sort --merge would speed up significantly?

By ~1 second, yes.

Quoted 5 lines

Even faster would be to get sort to skip the header lines, avoiding the need for sed. It's a bit awkward and was discussed at:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/coreutils/2013-01/msg00027.html
Summarising that, is if not using merge you can:

Quoted 7 lines
  tlines=$(($(wc -l < "$2") + 1))
  tail -q -n+$tlines .make-tags.* | LC_ALL=C sort >>$2

Or if merge is appropriate then:

  tlines=$(($(wc -l < "$2") + 1))
  eval "eval LC_ALL=C sort -m '<(tail -n+$tlines .make-tags.'{1..$(nproc)}')'" >>$2

Might as well teach ctags to do real parallel processing. LC_* are set by top level Makefile.

Quoted 1 line

p.p.s. You may want to trap EXIT cleanup to rm -f .make-tags.*

Quoted 8 lines

The real question is how to kill ctags reliably.
Naive

	trap 'kill $(jobs -p); rm -f .make-tags.*' TERM INT

doesn't work.

Files are removed, but processes aren't.

Is $(jobs -p) generating the correct list?
On an interactive shell here it is.
Perhaps you need to explicitly use #!/bin/sh -m at the start to enable job control like that? Another option would be to append each background $! pid to a list and kill that list.
Note also you may want to wait after the kill too.

cheers,
Pádraig.

#5 lore raw
Quoted 14 lines · Pádraig Brady
Quoted 13 lines · Alexey Dobriyan
Quoted 11 lines · Pádraig Brady

scripts/tags.sh dogtags() · line 158

Quoted 7 lines · Alexey Dobriyan

exuberant()
{

scripts/tags.sh +4 -1
-	all_target_sources | xargs $1 -a                        \
+	rm -f .make-tags.*
+
+	all_target_sources >.make-tags.src
+	NR_CPUS=$(getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN 2>/dev/null || echo 1)

nproc is simpler and available since coreutils 8.1 (2009-11-18)

Quoted 8 lines
Quoted 1 line

nproc was discarded because getconf is standartized.

Note getconf doesn't honor CPU affinity which may be fine here?

$ taskset -c 0 getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN
4
$ taskset -c 0 nproc
1

Why would anyone tag files under affinity?

Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 6 lines

scripts/tags.sh dogtags() · line 162

Quoted 4 lines
scripts/tags.sh +4 -0
+	NR_LINES=$(wc -l <.make-tags.src)
+	NR_LINES=$((($NR_LINES + $NR_CPUS - 1) / $NR_CPUS))
+
+	split -a 6 -d -l $NR_LINES .make-tags.src .make-tags.src.

split -d -nl/$(nproc) is simpler and available since coreutils 8.8 (2010-12-22)

Quoted 6 lines
Quoted 2 lines

-nl/ can't count and always make first file somewhat bigger, which is suspicious. What else it can't do right?

It avoids the overhead of reading all data and counting the lines, by splitting the data into approx equal numbers of lines as detailed at:
http://gnu.org/s/coreutils/split

~1 second -- statistical error.

Quoted 28 lines
Quoted 28 lines
Quoted 4 lines

scripts/tags.sh exuberant() · line 240

Quoted 2 lines
scripts/tags.sh +2 -0
+	sort .make-tags.* >>$2
+	rm -f .make-tags.*

Using sort --merge would speed up significantly?

By ~1 second, yes.

Quoted 5 lines

Even faster would be to get sort to skip the header lines, avoiding the need for sed. It's a bit awkward and was discussed at:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/coreutils/2013-01/msg00027.html
Summarising that, is if not using merge you can:

Quoted 7 lines
  tlines=$(($(wc -l < "$2") + 1))
  tail -q -n+$tlines .make-tags.* | LC_ALL=C sort >>$2

Or if merge is appropriate then:

  tlines=$(($(wc -l < "$2") + 1))
  eval "eval LC_ALL=C sort -m '<(tail -n+$tlines .make-tags.'{1..$(nproc)}')'" >>$2

Might as well teach ctags to do real parallel processing. LC_* are set by top level Makefile.

Quoted 1 line

p.p.s. You may want to trap EXIT cleanup to rm -f .make-tags.*

The real question is how to kill ctags reliably.
Naive

Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 5 lines
	trap 'kill $(jobs -p); rm -f .make-tags.*' TERM INT

doesn't work.

Files are removed, but processes aren't.

Is $(jobs -p) generating the correct list?

It looks like it does.

Quoted 6 lines

On an interactive shell here it is.
Perhaps you need to explicitly use #!/bin/sh -m at the start to enable job control like that? Another option would be to append each background $! pid to a list and kill that list.
Note also you may want to wait after the kill too.

All of this doesn't work reliably.

I switched to "xargs -P" and Ctrl+C became reliable, immediate and free for programmer. See updated patch.

#6 lore raw

PATCH v4 1/1 tags: much faster, parallel "make tags"

ctags is single-threaded program. Split list of files to be tagged into almost equal parts, process them on every CPU and merge the results.

Speedup is ~30-45% (!) (depending on number of cores).

Resulting "tags" files aren't byte-for-byte identical because ctags program numbers anon struct and enum declarations with "__anonNNN" symbols. If those lines are removed, "tags" file becomes byte-for-byte identical with those generated with current code.

v4: switch from shell "&; wait"' parallelism to "xargs -P" for reliable cleanup.

---

 scripts/tags.sh |   58 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----
 1 file changed, 53 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
scripts/tags.sh +53 -5
@@ -152,7 +152,41 @@ dogtags()
 
 exuberant()
 {
-	all_target_sources | xargs $1 -a                        \
+	trap 'rm -f .make-tags.*; exit 1' TERM INT
+	rm -f .make-tags.*
+
+	all_target_sources >.make-tags.0
+
+	# Default xargs(1) total command line size.
+	XARGS_ARG_MAX=$((128 * 1024))
+	# Split is unequal w.r.t file count, but asking for both size and
+	# line count limit is too much in 2015.
+	#
+	# Reserve room for fixed ctags(1) arguments.
+	split -a 6 -d -C $(($XARGS_ARG_MAX - 4 * 1024)) .make-tags.0 .make-tags.x
+	rm -f .make-tags.0
+
+	# xargs(1) appears to not support command line tweaking,
+	# so it has to be prepared in advance (see '-f').
+	NR_TAGS=$(ls -1 .make-tags.x* | wc -l)
+	touch .make-tags.1
+	for i in $(seq 0 $(($NR_TAGS - 1))); do
+		N=$(printf "%06u" $i)
+		echo -n "-f .make-tags.t$N " >>.make-tags.1
+		tr '\n' ' ' <.make-tags.x$N >>.make-tags.1
+		echo >>.make-tags.1
+		rm -f .make-tags.x$N
+	done
+
+	# Tag files in parallel.
+	#
+	# "xargs -I" puts command line piece as one argument,
+	# so shell is employed to split it back.
+	NR_CPUS=$(getconf _NPROCESSORS_ONLN 2>/dev/null || echo 1)
+	# ctags -u: don't sort now, sort later
+	xargs -P $NR_CPUS -L 1 -I CMD -s $XARGS_ARG_MAX		\
+		<.make-tags.1					\
+		sh -c "$1 -a -u					\
 	-I __initdata,__exitdata,__initconst,			\
 	-I __cpuinitdata,__initdata_memblock			\
 	-I __refdata,__attribute,__maybe_unused,__always_unused \
@@ -211,7 +245,21 @@ exuberant()
 	--regex-c='/DEFINE_PCI_DEVICE_TABLE\((\w*)/\1/v/'		\
 	--regex-c='/(^\s)OFFSET\((\w*)/\2/v/'				\
 	--regex-c='/(^\s)DEFINE\((\w*)/\2/v/'				\
-	--regex-c='/DEFINE_HASHTABLE\((\w*)/\1/v/'
+	--regex-c='/DEFINE_HASHTABLE\((\w*)/\1/v/'			\
+	CMD"
+	rm -f .make-tags.1
+
+	# Remove headers.
+	for i in .make-tags.t*; do
+		sed -i -e '/^!/d' $i
+	done
+
+	# Write final header.
+	$1 -f $2 /dev/null
+
+	# Append sorted results.
+	sort .make-tags.t* >>$2
+	rm -f .make-tags.t*
 
 	all_kconfigs | xargs $1 -a                              \
 	--langdef=kconfig --language-force=kconfig              \
@@ -276,7 +324,7 @@ emacs()
 xtags()
 {
 	if $1 --version 2>&1 | grep -iq exuberant; then
-		exuberant $1
+		exuberant $1 $2
 	elif $1 --version 2>&1 | grep -iq emacs; then
 		emacs $1
 	else
@@ -322,13 +370,13 @@ case "$1" in
 
 	"tags")
 		rm -f tags
-		xtags ctags
+		xtags ctags tags
 		remove_structs=y
 		;;
 
 	"TAGS")
 		rm -f TAGS
-		xtags etags
+		xtags etags TAGS
 		remove_structs=y
 		;;
 esac
#7 lore raw
Quoted 2 lines · Alexey Dobriyan

ctags is single-threaded program. Split list of files to be tagged into almost equal parts, process them on every CPU and merge the results.

Sorry, I missed the v4 of the patch.

scripts/tags.sh exuberant() · line 262

Quoted 11 lines
scripts/tags.sh +11 -0
+	# Remove headers.
+	for i in .make-tags.t*; do
+		sed -i -e '/^!/d' $i
+	done
+
+	# Write final header.
+	$1 -f $2 /dev/null
+
+	# Append sorted results.
+	sort .make-tags.t* >>$2
+	rm -f .make-tags.t*

This still breaks Exuberant ctags in emacs mode:

$ ln -s /usr/bin/ctags ~/bin/etags
$ make TAGS
  GEN     TAGS
etags: "TAGS" doesn't look like a tag file; I refuse to overwrite it.
etags: "TAGS" doesn't look like a tag file; I refuse to overwrite it.

The TAGS file is corrupted because of the sorting.

Michal