I'm using PackageCompiler hoping to create an executable that eliminates just-in-time compilation overhead.
The documentation explains that I must define a function julia_main to call my program's logic, and write a "snoop file", a script that calls functions I wish to precompile. My julia_main takes a single argument, the location of a file containing the input data to be analysed. So to keep things simple my snoop file simply makes one call to julia_main with a particular input file. So I'd hope to see the generated executable run nice and fast (no compilation overhead) when executed against that same input file.
But alas, that's not what I see. In a fresh Julia instance julia_main takes approx 74 seconds for the first execution and about 4.5 seconds for subsequent executions. The executable file takes approx 50 seconds each time it's called.
My use of the build_executable function looks like this:
julia> using PackageCompiler
julia> build_executable("d:/philip/source/script/julia/jsource/SCRiPTMain.jl",
"testexecutable",
builddir = "d:/temp/builddir4",
snoopfile = "d:/philip/source/script/julia/jsource/snoop.jl",
compile = "all",
verbose = true)
Questions:
- Are the above arguments correct to achieve my aim of an executable with no JIT overhead?
- Any other advice for me?
Here's what happens in response to that call to build_executable. The lines from Start of snoop file execution! to End of snoop file execution! are emitted by my code.
Julia program file:
"d:\philip\source\script\julia\jsource\SCRiPTMain.jl"
C program file:
"C:\Users\Philip\.julia\packages\PackageCompiler\CJQcs\examples\program.c"
Build directory:
"d:\temp\builddir4"
Executing snoopfile: "d:\philip\source\script\julia\jsource\snoop.jl"
Start of snoop file execution!
┌ Warning: The 'control file' contains the key 'InterpolateCovariance' with value 'true' but that is not supported. Pass a value of 'false' or omit the key altogether.
└ @ ValidateInputs d:\Philip\Source\script\Julia\JSource\ValidateInputs.jl:685
Time to build model 20.058000087738037
Saving c:/temp/SCRiPT/SCRiPTModel.jls
Results written to c:/temp/SCRiPT/SCRiPTResultsJulia.json
Time to write file: 3620 milliseconds
Time in method runscript: 76899 milliseconds
End of snoop file execution!
[ Info: used 1313 out of 1320 precompile statements
Build static library "testexecutable.a":
atexit_hook_copy = copy(Base.atexit_hooks) # make backup
# clean state so that any package we use can carelessly call atexit
empty!(Base.atexit_hooks)
Base.__init__()
Sys.__init__() #fix https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/30479
using REPL
Base.REPL_MODULE_REF[] = REPL
Mod = @eval module $(gensym("anon_module")) end
# Include into anonymous module to not polute namespace
Mod.include("d:\\\\temp\\\\builddir4\\\\julia_main.jl")
Base._atexit() # run all exit hooks we registered during precompile
empty!(Base.atexit_hooks) # don't serialize the exit hooks we run + added
# atexit_hook_copy should be empty, but who knows what base will do in the future
append!(Base.atexit_hooks, atexit_hook_copy)
Build shared library "testexecutable.dll":
`'C:\Users\Philip\.julia\packages\WinRPM\Y9QdZ\deps\usr\x86_64-w64-mingw32\sys-root\mingw\bin\gcc.exe' --sysroot 'C:\Users\Philip\.julia\packages\WinRPM\Y9QdZ\deps\usr\x86_64-w64-mingw32\sys-root' -shared '-DJULIAC_PROGRAM_LIBNAME="testexecutable.dll"' -o testexecutable.dll -Wl,--whole-archive testexecutable.a -Wl,--no-whole-archive -std=gnu99 '-IC:\Users\philip\AppData\Local\Julia-1.2.0\include\julia' -DJULIA_ENABLE_THREADING=1 '-LC:\Users\philip\AppData\Local\Julia-1.2.0\bin' -Wl,--stack,8388608 -ljulia -lopenlibm -m64 -Wl,--export-all-symbols`
Build executable "testexecutable.exe":
`'C:\Users\Philip\.julia\packages\WinRPM\Y9QdZ\deps\usr\x86_64-w64-mingw32\sys-root\mingw\bin\gcc.exe' --sysroot 'C:\Users\Philip\.julia\packages\WinRPM\Y9QdZ\deps\usr\x86_64-w64-mingw32\sys-root' '-DJULIAC_PROGRAM_LIBNAME="testexecutable.dll"' -o testexecutable.exe 'C:\Users\Philip\.julia\packages\PackageCompiler\CJQcs\examples\program.c' testexecutable.dll -std=gnu99 '-IC:\Users\philip\AppData\Local\Julia-1.2.0\include\julia' -DJULIA_ENABLE_THREADING=1 '-LC:\Users\philip\AppData\Local\Julia-1.2.0\bin' -Wl,--stack,8388608 -ljulia -lopenlibm -m64`
Copy Julia libraries to build directory:
7z.dll
BugpointPasses.dll
libamd.2.4.6.dll
libamd.2.dll
libamd.dll
libatomic-1.dll
libbtf.1.2.6.dll
libbtf.1.dll
libbtf.dll
libcamd.2.4.6.dll
libcamd.2.dll
libcamd.dll
libccalltest.dll
libccolamd.2.9.6.dll
libccolamd.2.dll
libccolamd.dll
libcholmod.3.0.13.dll
libcholmod.3.dll
libcholmod.dll
libclang.dll
libcolamd.2.9.6.dll
libcolamd.2.dll
libcolamd.dll
libdSFMT.dll
libexpat-1.dll
libgcc_s_seh-1.dll
libgfortran-4.dll
libgit2.dll
libgmp.dll
libjulia.dll
libklu.1.3.8.dll
libklu.1.dll
libklu.dll
libldl.2.2.6.dll
libldl.2.dll
libldl.dll
libllvmcalltest.dll
libmbedcrypto.dll
libmbedtls.dll
libmbedx509.dll
libmpfr.dll
libopenblas64_.dll
libopenlibm.dll
libpcre2-8-0.dll
libpcre2-8.dll
libpcre2-posix-2.dll
libquadmath-0.dll
librbio.2.2.6.dll
librbio.2.dll
librbio.dll
libspqr.2.0.9.dll
libspqr.2.dll
libspqr.dll
libssh2.dll
libssp-0.dll
libstdc++-6.dll
libsuitesparseconfig.5.4.0.dll
libsuitesparseconfig.5.dll
libsuitesparseconfig.dll
libsuitesparse_wrapper.dll
libumfpack.5.7.8.dll
libumfpack.5.dll
libumfpack.dll
libuv-2.dll
libwinpthread-1.dll
LLVM.dll
LLVMHello.dll
zlib1.dll
All done
julia>
EDIT
I was afraid that creating a minimal working example would be hard, but it was straightforward:
TestBuildExecutable.jl contains:
module TestBuildExecutable
Base.@ccallable function julia_main(ARGS::Vector{String}=[""])::Cint
@show sum(myarray())
return 0
end
#Function which takes approx 8 seconds to compile. Returns a 500 x 20 array of 1s
function myarray()
[1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1;
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1;
# PLEASE EDIT TO INSERT THE MISSING 496 LINES, EACH IDENTICAL TO THE LINE ABOVE!
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1;
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1]
end
end #module
SnoopFile.jl contains:
module SnoopFile
currentpath = dirname(@__FILE__)
push!(LOAD_PATH, currentpath)
unique!(LOAD_PATH)
using TestBuildExecutable
println("Start of snoop file execution!")
TestBuildExecutable.julia_main()
println("End of snoop file execution!")
end # module
In a fresh Julia instance, julia_main takes 8.3 seconds for the first execution and half a millisecond for the second execution:
julia> @time TestBuildExecutable.julia_main()
sum(myarray()) = 10000
8.355108 seconds (425.36 k allocations: 25.831 MiB, 0.06% gc time)
0
julia> @time TestBuildExecutable.julia_main()
sum(myarray()) = 10000
0.000537 seconds (25 allocations: 82.906 KiB)
0
So next I call build_executable:
julia> using PackageCompiler
julia> build_executable("d:/philip/source/script/julia/jsource/TestBuildExecutable.jl",
"testexecutable",
builddir = "d:/temp/builddir15",
snoopfile = "d:/philip/source/script/julia/jsource/SnoopFile.jl",
verbose = false)
Julia program file:
"d:\philip\source\script\julia\jsource\TestBuildExecutable.jl"
C program file:
"C:\Users\Philip\.julia\packages\PackageCompiler\CJQcs\examples\program.c"
Build directory:
"d:\temp\builddir15"
Start of snoop file execution!
sum(myarray()) = 10000
End of snoop file execution!
[ Info: used 79 out of 79 precompile statements
All done
Finally, in a Windows Command Prompt:
D:\temp\builddir15>testexecutable
sum(myarray()) = 1000
D:\temp\builddir15>
which took (by my stopwatch) 8 seconds to run, and it takes 8 seconds to run every time it's executed, not just the first time. This is consistent with the executable doing a JIT compile every time it's run, but the snoop file is designed to avoid that!
Version information:
julia> versioninfo()
Julia Version 1.2.0
Commit c6da87ff4b (2019-08-20 00:03 UTC)
Platform Info:
OS: Windows (x86_64-w64-mingw32)
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700 CPU @ 3.40GHz
WORD_SIZE: 64
LIBM: libopenlibm
LLVM: libLLVM-6.0.1 (ORCJIT, skylake)
Environment:
JULIA_NUM_THREADS = 8
JULIA_EDITOR = "C:\Users\Philip\AppData\Local\Programs\Microsoft VS Code\Code.exe"