Implement new heuristics

Author: gbaraldi

NEWS.md

@@ -30,6 +30,7 @@ Compiler/Runtime improvements
 
 * The `@pure` macro is now deprecated. Use `Base.@assume_effects :foldable` instead ([#48682]).
 * The mark phase of the Garbage Collector is now multi-threaded ([#48600]).
+* Updated GC heuristics to count allocated pages instead of individual objects ([#50144]).
 * [JITLink](https://llvm.org/docs/JITLink.html) is enabled by default on Linux aarch64 when Julia is linked to LLVM 15 or later versions ([#49745]).
   This should resolve many segmentation faults previously observed on this platform.
 

doc/src/devdocs/gc.md

@@ -67,6 +67,10 @@ This scheme eliminates the need of explicitly keeping a flag to indicate a full
 ## Heuristics
 
 GC heuristics tune the GC by changing the size of the allocation interval between garbage collections.
-If a GC was unproductive, then we increase the size of the allocation interval to allow objects more time to die.
-If a GC returns a lot of space we can shrink the interval. The goal is to find a steady state where we are
-allocating just about the same amount as we are collecting.
+
+The GC heuristics measure how big the heap size is after a collection and set the next collection to when the heap size is twice as big as the current size or to the maximum heap size.
+The heuristics measure the heap size by counting the number of pages that are in use and the objects that use malloc. Previously we measured the heap size by counting
+the alive objects, but that doesn't take into account fragmentation which could lead to bad decisions, that also meant that we used thread local information (allocations) to make
+decisions about a process wide (when to GC), measuring pages means the decision is global.
+
+The GC will do full collections when the heap size reaches 80% of the maximum allowed size.

src/gc-debug.c

@@ -1,7 +1,10 @@
 // This file is a part of Julia. License is MIT: https://julialang.org/license
 
 #include "gc.h"
+#include "julia.h"
 #include <inttypes.h>
+#include <stddef.h>
+#include <stdint.h>
 #include <stdio.h>
 
 // re-include assert.h without NDEBUG,
@@ -1224,7 +1227,7 @@ JL_DLLEXPORT void jl_enable_gc_logging(int enable) {
     gc_logging_enabled = enable;
 }
 
-void _report_gc_finished(uint64_t pause, uint64_t freed, int full, int recollect) JL_NOTSAFEPOINT {
+void _report_gc_finished(uint64_t pause, uint64_t freed, int full, int recollect, int64_t live_bytes) JL_NOTSAFEPOINT {
     if (!gc_logging_enabled) {
         return;
     }
@@ -1233,6 +1236,21 @@ void _report_gc_finished(uint64_t pause, uint64_t freed, int full, int recollect
         full ? "full" : "incr",
         recollect ? "recollect" : ""
     );
+
+    jl_safe_printf("Heap stats: bytes_mapped %.1f, bytes_decomitted %.1f, bytes_allocd %.1f\nbytes_freed %.1f, bytes_mallocd %.1f, malloc_bytes_freed %.1f\npages_perm_allocd %zu, heap_size %.1f, heap_target %.1f, live_bytes %1.f\n",
+        jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.bytes_mapped)/1e6,
+        jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.bytes_decomitted)/1e6,
+        jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.bytes_allocd)/1e6,
+        jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.bytes_freed)/1e6,
+        jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.bytes_mallocd)/1e6,
+        jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.malloc_bytes_freed)/1e6,
+        jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.pages_perm_allocd),
+        jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.heap_size)/1e6,
+        jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.heap_target)/1e6,
+        live_bytes/1e6
+    );
+    double bytes_mapped = (jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.bytes_mapped) - jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.bytes_decomitted) + jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.bytes_mallocd) - jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.malloc_bytes_freed))/1e6;
+    jl_safe_printf("Fragmentation %f, mapped_bytes %1.f\n", (double)live_bytes/(double)jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.heap_size), bytes_mapped);
 }
 
 #ifdef __cplusplus

src/gc-pages.c

@@ -52,6 +52,7 @@ char *jl_gc_try_alloc_pages_(int pg_cnt) JL_NOTSAFEPOINT
         // round data pointer up to the nearest gc_page_data-aligned
         // boundary if mmap didn't already do so.
         mem = (char*)gc_page_data(mem + GC_PAGE_SZ - 1);
+    jl_atomic_fetch_add_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.bytes_mapped, pages_sz);
     return mem;
 }
 
@@ -180,6 +181,7 @@ void jl_gc_free_page(jl_gc_pagemeta_t *pg) JL_NOTSAFEPOINT
     madvise(p, decommit_size, MADV_DONTNEED);
 #endif
     msan_unpoison(p, decommit_size);
+    jl_atomic_fetch_add_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.bytes_decomitted, GC_PAGE_SZ);
 }
 
 #ifdef __cplusplus