Page based heap size heuristics

NEWS.md

@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ Language changes
 
 Compiler/Runtime improvements
 -----------------------------
+* Updated GC heuristics to count allocated pages instead of individual objects ([#50144]).
 
 Command-line option changes
 ---------------------------

doc/src/devdocs/gc.md

@@ -67,6 +67,12 @@ 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 according to the algorithm described by https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3563323,
+in summary, it argues that the heap target should have a square root relationship with the live heap, and that it should also be scaled by how fast the GC is freeing objects and how fast the mutators are allocating.
+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,
@@ -1217,15 +1220,25 @@ 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;
     }
     jl_safe_printf("GC: pause %.2fms. collected %fMB. %s %s\n",
-        pause/1e6, freed/1e6,
+        pause/1e6, freed/(double)(1<<20),
         full ? "full" : "incr",
         recollect ? "recollect" : ""
     );
+
+    jl_safe_printf("Heap stats: bytes_mapped %.2f MB, bytes_resident %.2f MB, heap_size %.2f MB, heap_target %.2f MB, live_bytes %.2f MB\n, Fragmentation %.3f",
+        jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.bytes_mapped)/(double)(1<<20),
+        jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.bytes_resident)/(double)(1<<20),
+        jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.heap_size)/(double)(1<<20),
+        jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.heap_target)/(double)(1<<20),
+        live_bytes/(double)(1<<20),
+        (double)live_bytes/(double)jl_atomic_load_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.heap_size)
+    );
+    // Should fragmentation use bytes_resident instead of heap_size?
 }
 
 #ifdef __cplusplus

src/gc-pages.c

@@ -52,6 +52,8 @@ 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);
+    jl_atomic_fetch_add_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.bytes_resident, pages_sz);
     return mem;
 }
 
@@ -115,6 +117,7 @@ NOINLINE jl_gc_pagemeta_t *jl_gc_alloc_page(void) JL_NOTSAFEPOINT
     // try to get page from `pool_freed`
     meta = pop_lf_page_metadata_back(&global_page_pool_freed);
     if (meta != NULL) {
+        jl_atomic_fetch_add_relaxed(&gc_heap_stats.bytes_resident, GC_PAGE_SZ);
         gc_alloc_map_set(meta->data, GC_PAGE_ALLOCATED);
         goto exit;
     }
@@ -188,6 +191,7 @@ 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_resident, -decommit_size);
 }
 
 #ifdef __cplusplus