When Python is not compiled with PGO, the performance of Python on call_simple
and call_method microbenchmarks depend highly on the code placement. In the
worst case, the performance slowdown can be up to 70%.
The GCC __attribute__((hot)) attribute helps to keep hot code close to reduce
the risk of such major slowdown. This attribute is ignored when Python is
compiled with PGO.
The following functions are considered as hot according to statistics collected
by perf record/perf report:
* _PyEval_EvalFrameDefault()
* call_function()
* _PyFunction_FastCall()
* PyFrame_New()
* frame_dealloc()
* PyErr_Occurred()
* BUILD_TUPLE_UNPACK and BUILD_MAP_UNPACK_WITH_CALL no longer generated with
single tuple or dict.
* Restored more informative error messages for incorrect var-positional and
var-keyword arguments.
* Removed code duplications in _PyEval_EvalCodeWithName().
* Removed redundant runtime checks and parameters in _PyStack_AsDict().
* Added a workaround and enabled previously disabled test in test_traceback.
* Removed dead code from the dis module.
Tested on macOS 10.11 dtrace, Ubuntu 16.04 SystemTap, and libbcc.
Largely based by an initial patch by Jesús Cea Avión, with some
influence from Dave Malcolm's SystemTap patch and Nikhil Benesch's
unification patch.
Things deliberately left out for simplicity:
- ustack helpers, I have no way of testing them at this point since
they are Solaris-specific
- PyFrameObject * in function__entry/function__return, this is
SystemTap-specific
- SPARC support
- dynamic tracing
- sys module dtrace facility introspection
All of those might be added later.
Issue #27830: Add _PyObject_FastCallKeywords(): avoid the creation of a
temporary dictionary for keyword arguments.
Other changes:
* Cleanup call_function() and fast_function() (ex: rename nk to nkwargs)
* Remove now useless do_call(), replaced with _PyObject_FastCallKeywords()
Issue #27213: Rework CALL_FUNCTION* opcodes to produce shorter and more
efficient bytecode:
* CALL_FUNCTION now only accepts position arguments
* CALL_FUNCTION_KW accepts position arguments and keyword arguments, but keys
of keyword arguments are packed into a constant tuple.
* CALL_FUNCTION_EX is the most generic, it expects a tuple and a dict for
positional and keyword arguments.
CALL_FUNCTION_VAR and CALL_FUNCTION_VAR_KW opcodes have been removed.
2 tests of test_traceback are currently broken: skip test, the issue #28050 was
created to track the issue.
Patch by Demur Rumed, design by Serhiy Storchaka, reviewed by Serhiy Storchaka
and Victor Stinner.
Issue #27830: Similar to _PyObject_FastCallDict(), but keyword arguments are
also passed in the same C array than positional arguments, rather than being
passed as a Python dict.
Issue #27809: PyEval_CallObjectWithKeywords() doesn't increment temporary the
reference counter of the args tuple (positional arguments). The caller already
holds a strong reference to it.
Issue #27128. When a Python function is called with no arguments, but all
parameters have a default value: use default values as arguments for the fast
path.
Issue #27128: Modify PyEval_CallObjectWithKeywords() to use
_PyObject_FastCall() when args==NULL and kw==NULL. It avoids the creation of a
temporary empty tuple for positional arguments.
Issue #27128: Add _PyObject_FastCall(), a new calling convention avoiding a
temporary tuple to pass positional parameters in most cases, but create a
temporary tuple if needed (ex: for the tp_call slot).
The API is prepared to support keyword parameters, but the full implementation
will come later (_PyFunction_FastCall() doesn't support keyword parameters
yet).
Add also:
* _PyStack_AsTuple() helper function: convert a "stack" of parameters to
a tuple.
* _PyCFunction_FastCall(): fast call implementation for C functions
* _PyFunction_FastCall(): fast call implementation for Python functions
Serhiy Storchaka
Raymond Hettinger
Victor Stinner
Yury Selivanov
Berker Peksag
Łukasz Langa
Benjamin Peterson
Brett Cannon