wasmtime / PR #10340 Add "pure" flag to `ir::MemFlags` · git-wasmtime

Stream: git-wasmtime

Topic: wasmtime / PR #10340 Add "pure" flag to `ir::MemFlags`

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 05 2025 at 23:49):

fitzgen opened PR #10340 from fitzgen:pure-memflag to bytecodealliance:main:

This flag represents whether the memory operation's safety (e.g. the validity of its notrap and readonly claims) is purely a function of its data dependencies.

If this flag is true, then it is okay to code motion this instruction to arbitrary locations, in the function, including across blocks and conditional branches, so long as data dependencies (and trap ordering, if relevant) are upheld.

If this flag is false, then the memory operation's safety potentially relies upon invariants that are not reflected in its data dependencies, and therefore it is not safe to code motion this operation. For example, this operation could be in a block that is dominated by a control-flow bounds check that makes this operation safe, and that invariant is not reflected in its operands. It would be unsafe to code motion such an instruction above its associated bounds check, even if its data dependencies would still be satisfied.

I've added this flag because we were doing exactly that kind of code motion where we moved a readonly and notrap memory operation past its associated null-check and therefore it was no longer safe to perform and we would get a segfault. This could only be triggered when the Wasm typed-function-references proposal was enabled, which is not a tier-1 proposal, so it is not considered a vulnerability. Nonetheless, it is a pretty scary kind of bug, and other code paths weren't affected due to pretty subtle interactions. And this is the motivation for the new "pure" flag: without needing to explicitly opt into data-dependency-based code motion (i.e. set the "pure" flag), it is too easy to accidentally move loads past their control-flow-based safety guards.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 05 2025 at 23:49):

fitzgen requested cfallin for a review on PR #10340.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 05 2025 at 23:49):

fitzgen requested wasmtime-compiler-reviewers for a review on PR #10340.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 05 2025 at 23:49):

fitzgen requested alexcrichton for a review on PR #10340.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 05 2025 at 23:49):

fitzgen requested wasmtime-core-reviewers for a review on PR #10340.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:01):

cfallin submitted PR review:

Thanks for finding this and for the excellent documentation of semantics of the new flag. I think this is a reasonable solution.

Would you mind adding two filetests (e.g. in cranelift/filetests/filetests/egraph/) testing that a non-pure load won't LICM, and that a pure/readonly/notrap one will? (This will also force the parser bit below)

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:01):

cfallin created PR review comment:

We'll need the corresponding change to the parser (cranelift/reader/src/parser.rs) too, I think.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:08):

fitzgen updated PR #10340.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:09):

fitzgen submitted PR review.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:09):

fitzgen created PR review comment:

That all happens via ir::MemFlags::set_by_name, so the parser itself doesn't actually need any updating.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:10):

fitzgen commented on PR #10340:

Would you mind adding two filetests (e.g. in cranelift/filetests/filetests/egraph/) testing that a non-pure load won't LICM, and that a pure/readonly/notrap one will? (This will also force the parser bit below)

Extended load-hoist.clif to test both hoisting and non-hoisting. Good idea, thanks!

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:11):

alexcrichton submitted PR review.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:11):

alexcrichton created PR review comment:

How come this is readonly? Can't the length change over time?

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:11):

alexcrichton created PR review comment:

This raises an eyebrow from me. Functionally I don't think this is an issue, but it seems kind of weird to have a pure, but not readonly, MemFlags. I could sort of extend that to "what is a pure but trapping load?".

To be conservative though, do you think it would be reasonable to validate that pure memflags are always notrap+readonly? Or is there a use case for a trapping pure operation or non-readonly pure operation?

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:12):

fitzgen submitted PR review.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:12):

fitzgen created PR review comment:

Nope, GC arrays have fixed length.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:13):

alexcrichton submitted PR review.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:13):

alexcrichton created PR review comment:

Ah! Ok color me ignorant then

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:14):

fitzgen submitted PR review.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:14):

fitzgen created PR review comment:

The semantics of pure are "this memory operation's safety, including the validity of its other flags, depend only on its data dependencies". There is nothing about that statement that requires the memory operation also be readonly or also be notrap. Therefore, I'd rather not add additional validation code that ultimately isn't necessary.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:16):

fitzgen submitted PR review.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:16):

fitzgen created PR review comment:

We could potentially rename it to data-pure or something if you think that would be better?

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:32):

alexcrichton submitted PR review.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:32):

alexcrichton created PR review comment:

What I'm worried about is that it's a pretty subtle definition and you basically can't do anything if you only check pure, it's only if pure + readonly + notrap are all set that something can actually be done about moving the instruction around. I do realize it's more validation though... Do you feel that there's not that much risk of someone in the future using pure by accident?

In terms of bikeshedding I suppose my concern does indeed stem from the term "pure" being pretty overloaded and my gut feeling about "pure" things is "oh hey you can put that anywhere and it's fine". Basically I do think my concern might be assuaged with a different name. That being said "data-pure" doesn't feel all that different from "pure", but perhaps different enough?

I'm trying to think of other ideas...

notrap_always

notrap_everywhere

semantically_ok_to_put_anywhere (ok definitely not)

cfg_independent

I'm reading up on readonly and that already says that nothing about the memory can change from when the function starts to when it ends, so maybe notrap_foo as a name? Maybe notrap_pure? Something like that maybe...

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:47):

cfallin submitted PR review.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 00:47):

cfallin created PR review comment:

I actually agree that it probably doesn't make sense to have a load that is pure but not readonly: pure means that we can sink or hoist it anywhere (constrained by its address input data dependency); that should only be possible if the memory is unchanging. (Right? Or are there cases where we're ok with hoisting but the value is changing, and we might load a different value if hoisted?)

pure is a bit different than (and orthogonal to) notrap though: it's ok to have an address that maybe traps, but traps everywhere the same. In other words, pure says "the trappiness of this address is unchanging" while notrap says "this address is not trappy at this location".

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 01:00):

cfallin submitted PR review.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 01:00):

cfallin created PR review comment:

Maybe we should name flags based on actions that we expect or permit the compiler to do instead:

can_trap: add trap metadata. This is the inverse of notrap (why invert it? because we're describing actions, not lack of actions)

can_skip: allow dead-code elimination if unused

can_move: can hoist or sink as data dependencies allow

can_merge: can reuse values from equivalent loads, even without alias analysis proving this (i.e., value is readonly)

Is that sufficient to express what we need? is_pure_for_egraph is then can_skip + can_move + can_merge (since the egraph can do all three); DCE uses can_skip; if we do other things in the future we have the specific action-permissions defined for those.

Alternately-alternately, we could look at the predicates we define today and give specific names to those: e.g., redefine pure to be what is_pure_for_egraph tests; and then notrap (or can_trap) for DCE; and I think that's it?

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 02:12):

github-actions[bot] commented on PR #10340:

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Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 17:14):

fitzgen submitted PR review.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 17:14):

fitzgen created PR review comment:

I like can_{trap,skip,move,merge} and think that is a good place to aim towards ending up at. This PR's pure is equivalent to can_move, but the rest of those flags don't align exactly with what we have today. For example, can_skip would be is-not-a-store && notrap today -- would it ever make sense to have can_skip on a store?

Anyways, what do we think of, in order to land this PR, renaming this PR's pure to move, can_move, or movable and then kicking the can down the road for the rest of the potential flags overhaul?

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 17:21):

cfallin submitted PR review.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 17:21):

cfallin created PR review comment:

SGTM!

And yes, I think at least can_skip and can_merge apply only to loads. Stores can definitely vary on trappiness, and I think can_move makes sense too -- some store that we want to happen at some point but don't care where (analogous to eventual consistency or relaxed-consistency atomics).

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 21:36):

fitzgen updated PR #10340.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 21:36):

fitzgen has enabled auto merge for PR #10340.

Wasmtime GitHub notifications bot (Mar 06 2025 at 22:12):

fitzgen merged PR #10340.

Last updated: Dec 06 2025 at 06:05 UTC