Fix Instant/Duration math precision & associativity on Windows #57380
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Thanks so much for the thorough PR and description! I've been feeling for some time now that we probably want to just switch to a bland Duration as the internal storage for all Instant and possibly SystemTime. That I think would also solve this and likely improve our portability of these types across platforms without actually sacrificing much functionality.
One comment I'd have is that we may want to consider the esoteric use case of moving very far back in time. If you take a huge duration and subtract it from the current Instant it may work today and may have overflow with this PR. I... think though that this may affect SystemTime more than Instant, so it may not be a worry for this PR at all! Mind testing this out locally though to see how it goes?
If it's of interest, I can write up how these timing types work on the tier 1 platforms to address #32626 as well, since I'm already in here figuring it out.
It would definitely be of interest! We'd be more than happy to help take a look at some docs here.
cc @sfackler, I think you've had thoughts on the implementations of these APIs on the past, just wanted to make sure you didn't have any objections to this either!
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Thanks for the quick turnaround! I got a fresh shiny Windows VM going after work today, and I can finally get the test suite to run, albeit a bit slowly. I believe you're correct about the potential for a loss of range with this change as it is today, at least on some machines. Given a pair of windows hosts, if one is giving us PerfCounter increments in nanoseconds and another is giving us microseconds, the precision of our math, and extent of time we can represent, has to vary accordingly. If you'd like to see one, I can come up with a concrete example of a Personally I'm leaning toward moving the underlying type to a I think this probably isn't much of a breaking change since we already don't promise anything about the |
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In either case, I'll stack on another commit to update the docs with whatever we decide on :-D |
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I think I personally feel that this is the best way to go now. Using a second/nanosecond counter (even if it's not precisely To be clear I would be worried about something like representing the date 1500 in I'm not really sure how well this is supported today, however, nor whether it's really a case that comes up that often. I believe for In any case starting with Windows sounds like a good idea, and we can probably just copy all the code into |
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I wonder if there's ever a situation where |
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Checking in -- @sfackler did you get a chance to peek at this PR / do you have an opinion about using a Duration as the backing type for Instant? @retep998 - it's certainly possible, although since 1/ns = 1 GHz, so it seems unlikely to me that we'd have a clock much more precise, given the speeds CPUs operate at... food for thought. |
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Ah ok, it's been long enough that @bearcage if you want to go ahead and make the changes I think that should be good to do! |
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Sorry that took me a little to get to — my usual windows machine is still failing to build the test suite (I suspect I've misconfigured visual studio at some point along the way). Regardless, the last commit on here reworks this PR to use a Duration as the backing type, which simplifies the code a fair bit. If this looks good overall, I'll stack on another commit to reduce the perf_counter module interface to a couple querying functions, and cut another PR for applying the same change to macos. |
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The job Click to expand the log.I'm a bot! I can only do what humans tell me to, so if this was not helpful or you have suggestions for improvements, please ping or otherwise contact |
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I'm not sure what's up with that travis failure — looking at the logs, it's showing a failure referring to code that doesn't exist in the current HEAD: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust/blob/a31ec05f8d1d865c0e7d447e4f14ce19924b2285/src/libstd/sys/windows/time.rs#L46 travis snippet: Any chance it's got some wonky caching going on? |
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I think that may perhaps be a "merge conflict" of sorts? If you rebase I think that code should show up |
Right now we do unit conversions between PerfCounter measurements and nanoseconds for every add/sub we do between Durations and Instants on Windows machines. This leads to goofy behavior, like this snippet failing: ``` let now = Instant::now(); let offset = Duration::from_millis(5); assert_eq!((now + offset) - now, (now - now) + offset); ``` with precision problems like this: ``` thread 'main' panicked at 'assertion failed: `(left == right)` left: `4.999914ms`, right: `5ms`', src\main.rs:6:5 ``` To fix it, this changeset does the unit conversion once, when we measure the clock, and all the subsequent math in u64 nanoseconds. It also adds an exact associativity test to the `sys/time.rs` test suite to make sure we don't regress on this in the future.
Per review comments, this commit switches out the backing type for Instant on windows to a Duration. Tests all pass, and the code's a lot simpler (plus it should be portable now, with the exception of the QueryPerformanceWhatever functions).
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Ahh right, I forgot y'all have a fancy post-merge CI system — thanks for the pointer! Rebased and fixed. |
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Looks great to me! It's probably worthwhile having a small comment in |
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Added, thanks! Let's land this one first, and we can do other platforms separately, then pull 'em all out to a simpler sys interface, if that sounds good to you. EDIT: Quick question — the contributing guide doesn't mention anything else beyond getting this PR merged — do I need to support these changes through release anywhere or anything like that? |
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@bors: r+ |
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📌 Commit 14ce536 has been approved by |
Nope you're all good, after this is merged to master it just sails on to the stable release :) |
Fix Instant/Duration math precision & associativity on Windows
**tl;dr** Addition and subtraction on Duration/Instant are not associative on windows because we use the perfcounter frequency in every calculation instead of just when we measure time.
This is my first contrib (PR or Issue) to Rust, so please lmk if I've done this wrong. I followed CONTRIBUTING to the extent I could given my system doesn't seem to be able to build the compiler with changes in the source tree. I also asked about this issue in #rust-beginners a week or so ago, before digging through libstd -- I'm unsure if there's a good way to follow up on that, but I'd be happy to update the docs on the timing structs if this fixes the problem.
## Issue
The `Duration` type keeps seconds in the upper-64 and nanoseconds in the lower-32 bits. In theory doing math on these ought to be basically the same as doing math on any other 64 or 32 bit integral number.
On windows (and I think macos too), however, our math gets messy because the Instant type stores the current point in time in units of HPET Performance Counter counts, not nanoseconds, and does unit conversions on every math operation, rather than just when we measure the time from the system clock.
I tried this code:
```
use std::time::{Duration, Instant};
fn main() {
let now = Instant::now();
let offset = Duration::from_millis(5);
assert_eq!((now + offset) - now, (now - now) + offset);
}
```
On UNIX machines (linux and macos) it behaves as you'd expect -- [no crash](https://play.rust-lang.org/?version=stable&mode=debug&edition=2018&gist=cf2206c0b7e07d8ecc7767a512364094).
On Windows hosts, however, it blows up because of a precision problem in the Instant +/- Duration math:
```
C:\Users\aberg\work\timetest (master -> origin)
λ cargo run
Finished dev [unoptimized + debuginfo] target(s) in 0.02s
Running `target\debug\timetest.exe`
thread 'main' panicked at 'assertion failed: `(left == right)`
left: `4.999914ms`,
right: `5ms`', src\main.rs:6:5
note: Run with `RUST_BACKTRACE=1` for a backtrace.
error: process didn't exit successfully: `target\debug\timetest.exe` (exit code: 101)
C:\Users\aberg\work\timetest (master -> origin)
λ cat src\main.rs
use std::time::{Duration, Instant};
fn main() {
let now = Instant::now();
let offset = Duration::from_millis(5);
assert_eq!((now + offset) - now, (now - now) + offset);
}
```
On windows I think this is a consequence of doing the HPET-PerfCounter-Unit conversion on each math operation. I suspect the reason it works on macs is that (from what I could find online) most apple machines report timing in nanoseconds anyway. For anyone interested, the equivalent functions on macos, with a little work to fish out the numerator/denominator from a timebase struct:
* `QueryPerformanceCounter()` -> `mach_absolute_time()`
* `QueryPerformanceFrequency()` -> `mach_timebase_info()`
If this PR ends up working as I expect it to when CI runs the tests, I can make the same changes to the macos implementation.
## Potential Fix
We ought to be able to sort this out by storing nanoseconds, rather than PerfCounter units, that way intermediate math is done in the most precise units we support and we're only doing unit conversions when we actually measure the system clock (and it might even translate to a small perf gain for people doing tons of Instant/Duration math).
I believe this will address the underlying cause of rust-lang#56034, and make the guessed epsilon constant from rust-lang#56059 unnecessary. If it's of interest, I can write up how these timing types work on the tier 1 platforms to address rust-lang#32626 as well, since I'm already in here figuring it out.
## This Patch
To that end, I've got this patch, which I think should fix it on windows, but I'm having trouble testing it -- any time I change anything in libstd I start getting this error, which no amount of clean building seems to resolve:
```
C:\Users\aberg\work\rust (master -> origin)
λ python x.py test --stage 0 --no-doc src/libstd
Updating only changed submodules
Submodules updated in 0.27 seconds
Finished dev [unoptimized] target(s) in 2.41s
Building stage0 std artifacts (x86_64-pc-windows-msvc -> x86_64-pc-windows-msvc)
Finished release [optimized] target(s) in 6.78s
Copying stage0 std from stage0 (x86_64-pc-windows-msvc -> x86_64-pc-windows-msvc / x86_64-pc-windows-msvc)
Building stage0 test artifacts (x86_64-pc-windows-msvc -> x86_64-pc-windows-msvc)
Compiling test v0.0.0 (C:\Users\aberg\work\rust\src\libtest)
error[E0460]: found possibly newer version of crate `std` which `getopts` depends on
--> src\libtest\lib.rs:36:1
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36 | extern crate getopts;
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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= note: perhaps that crate needs to be recompiled?
= note: the following crate versions were found:
crate `std`: \\?\C:\Users\aberg\work\rust\build\x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\stage0-sysroot\lib\rustlib\x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\lib\libstd-d7a80ca2ae113c97.rlib
crate `std`: \\?\C:\Users\aberg\work\rust\build\x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\stage0-sysroot\lib\rustlib\x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\lib\std-d7a80ca2ae113c97.dll
crate `getopts`: \\?\C:\Users\aberg\work\rust\build\x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\stage0-test\x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\release\deps\libgetopts-ae40a96de5f5d144.rlib
error: aborting due to previous error
For more information about this error, try `rustc --explain E0460`.
error: Could not compile `test`.
To learn more, run the command again with --verbose.
command did not execute successfully: "C:\\Users\\aberg\\work\\rust\\build\\x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\\stage0\\bin\\cargo.exe" "build" "--target" "x86_64-pc-windows-msvc" "-j" "12" "--release" "--manifest-path" "C:\\Users\\aberg\\work\\rust\\src/libtest/Cargo.toml" "--message-format" "json"
expected success, got: exit code: 101
failed to run: C:\Users\aberg\work\rust\build\bootstrap\debug\bootstrap test --stage 0 --no-doc src/libstd
Build completed unsuccessfully in 0:00:20
```
---
Since you wrote the linked PRs and might remember looking at related problems:
r? @alexcrichton
Rollup of 9 pull requests Successful merges: - #57380 (Fix Instant/Duration math precision & associativity on Windows) - #57606 (Get rid of the fake stack frame for reading from constants) - #57803 (Several changes to libunwind for SGX target) - #57846 (rustdoc: fix ICE from loading proc-macro stubs) - #57860 (Add os::fortanix_sgx::ffi module) - #57861 (Don't export table by default in wasm) - #57863 (Add suggestion for incorrect field syntax.) - #57867 (Fix std::future::from_generator documentation) - #57873 (Stabilize no_panic_pow) Failed merges: r? @ghost
tl;dr Addition and subtraction on Duration/Instant are not associative on windows because we use the perfcounter frequency in every calculation instead of just when we measure time.
This is my first contrib (PR or Issue) to Rust, so please lmk if I've done this wrong. I followed CONTRIBUTING to the extent I could given my system doesn't seem to be able to build the compiler with changes in the source tree. I also asked about this issue in #rust-beginners a week or so ago, before digging through libstd -- I'm unsure if there's a good way to follow up on that, but I'd be happy to update the docs on the timing structs if this fixes the problem.
Issue
The
Durationtype keeps seconds in the upper-64 and nanoseconds in the lower-32 bits. In theory doing math on these ought to be basically the same as doing math on any other 64 or 32 bit integral number.On windows (and I think macos too), however, our math gets messy because the Instant type stores the current point in time in units of HPET Performance Counter counts, not nanoseconds, and does unit conversions on every math operation, rather than just when we measure the time from the system clock.
I tried this code:
On UNIX machines (linux and macos) it behaves as you'd expect -- no crash.
On Windows hosts, however, it blows up because of a precision problem in the Instant +/- Duration math:
On windows I think this is a consequence of doing the HPET-PerfCounter-Unit conversion on each math operation. I suspect the reason it works on macs is that (from what I could find online) most apple machines report timing in nanoseconds anyway. For anyone interested, the equivalent functions on macos, with a little work to fish out the numerator/denominator from a timebase struct:
QueryPerformanceCounter()->mach_absolute_time()QueryPerformanceFrequency()->mach_timebase_info()If this PR ends up working as I expect it to when CI runs the tests, I can make the same changes to the macos implementation.
Potential Fix
We ought to be able to sort this out by storing nanoseconds, rather than PerfCounter units, that way intermediate math is done in the most precise units we support and we're only doing unit conversions when we actually measure the system clock (and it might even translate to a small perf gain for people doing tons of Instant/Duration math).
I believe this will address the underlying cause of #56034, and make the guessed epsilon constant from #56059 unnecessary. If it's of interest, I can write up how these timing types work on the tier 1 platforms to address #32626 as well, since I'm already in here figuring it out.
This Patch
To that end, I've got this patch, which I think should fix it on windows, but I'm having trouble testing it -- any time I change anything in libstd I start getting this error, which no amount of clean building seems to resolve:
Since you wrote the linked PRs and might remember looking at related problems:
r? @alexcrichton