open lmake

This file is part of the open-lmake distribution (git@github.com:cesar-douady/open-lmake.git)

This program is free software: you can redistribute/modify under the terms of the GPL-v3 (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html).

This program is distributed WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

purpose

lmake is like make, except that it is practical, scalable and reliable

more specifically

handle parallelism & remote execution
automatic dependency tracking :
- system activity is tracked to detect file accesses (reads & writes)
- dependencies are automatically added upon read
- no need for any kind of pre-analysis
- even dependencies to non-existing files are kept, in case they appear
it is extremely fast :
- everything is cached, in particular dependencies so that the discovery process is only run when a job is run for the first time or when execution showed they changed
- up-to-date analysis is based on CRC's, not on date, so that when a target is remade identically to its previous content, dependents are not remade
- all the internal engine is based on id's, not strings, strings are only used to import (e.g. dep tracking) or export (job execution)
it is extremely memory efficient :
- keeping the state of all dependencies is inherently very expensive
- thorough efforts are made to keep this book keeping minimal
- in particular, names (that tend to be rather long in practice) are kept in a prefix-tree sharing the directory parts
generally speaking 1.000.000 targets can be handled with no burden
makefile is based on Python3.6 (& upward) :
- no reason to invent a new language
- each rule is a class
- can leverage loops, conditions, inheritance, ... all Python power
- job scripts can be either shell scripts or Python functions
- very readable, no cabalistic automatic variables make has
target matching is based on regular expressions :
- rather than the very poor '%' of make
- there can be several stems
- dependencies are generating using f-strings, very flexible
rules may have several targets :
- usually target list is known before job is executed
- but target reg-expr is also supported for rules such as untar that generate a bunch of targets whose precise list depends on source content
lmake is oriented towards reproducibility :
- it tracks the source control system (usually git) and refuses to rely on data that are not tracked
  - you can force such dependencies, in which cases these exceptions will be reported at each run
and more...

installation

requirements

c++20
python 3.6 or later with developer support (i.e. access to the Python.so file)

it has been tested with the dockers listed in the docker directory

to compile lmake

type make
- this builds all necessary files and some unit tests
- you must invoke git clean -fdx if you modified the Makefile
- you may have to invoke git clean -fdx lmake_env or even git clean -fdx after a git pull
  - lmake_env is a directory which builds lmake under lmake, for test purpose, no guarantee that the resulting lmake is funtional for now
  - it is not cleaned on purpose before running as this creates variability for testing lmake, but may fail
  - and generally speaking, make is not robust to past history, so a full 'git clean -fdx' may be necessary
- you can type make LMAKE to just build all necessary files
- you can type make lmake.tar.gz (built by default) to make a tar ball of the compiled files that you can easily deploy
install
- untar lmake.tar.gz wherever you want and have your PATH point to the bin directory.
  - the bin sub-dir contains the executables meant to be executed by the user
  - the _bin sub-dir contains the executables necessary for lmake to run, but not meant to be directly invoked by the user
    - it also contains some executables to help debugging lmake itself.
  - the lib sub-dir contains binary and python files for use by the user
  - the _lib sub-dir contains the binary and python files necessary for lmake to run, but not meant for direct use by the user
  - the relative positions of these 4 dirs must remain the same, i.e. they must stay in the same directory with the same names.
specialization
- you can specialize the build process to better suit your needs :
- this can be done by setting variables
  - for example, you can run : CXX=/my/g++ make
  - PYTHON2 can be set to your preferred Python 2 (defaults to python2). You will be told if it is not supported.
  - PYTHON can be set to your preferred Python 3 (defaults to python3). You will be told if it is not supported.
  - CXX can be set to your preferred C++ compiler. You will be told if it is not supported.
  - LMAKE_FLAGS can be defined as O[0123]G?D?T?S[AB]C?
    - O[0123] controls the -O option (default : 3 )
    - G controls the -g option (default : no debug )
    - d controls -DNDEBUG (default : asserts are enabled)
    - t controls -DNO_TRACE (default : traces are enabled )
  - the -j flag of make is automatically set to the number of processors, you may want to override this, though
- it is up to you to provide a suitable LD_LIBRARY_PATH value. it will be transferred as a default value for rules, to the extent it is necessary to provide the lmake semantic
- if you modify these variables, you should execute git clean as make will not detect such modifications automatically.

coding rules

statics & globals

variables with executable cxtor/dxtor are never put (or with much care) in statics or globals
- this includes string's, despite these being declared constexpr in the STL
reason is that init order is unpredictible, as is finalization order
this induces hard to find bugs
when required, a pointer (initilized to nullptr) and a new is done in a timely manner
this way, variable is not automatically destructed

cases

CamelCase for namespaces, types, template parameters and constexpr
snake_case for other names

name prefixes

_ : private (including static functions in .cc files that are de facto not accessible from elsewhere)
c_ : const
s_ : static
g_ : global
t_ : thread local
np_ : non-portable
:: : standard library or a few exceptions defined in src/utils.hh which, in my mind, should have been part of the STL, e.g. ::vector_view (analogous to ::string_view)

Names are suffixed with _ if needed to suppress ambiguities

abbreviations

general rules :
- words are abbreviated depending on their use and span : the shorter the span and the heavier the usage , the more they are abbreviated
- words may be abbreviated by their beginning, such as env for environ
- words may be abbreviated using only consons such as src for source
- these may be combined as in dst for destination
- words may further be abbreviated to a single letter or by the first letter of each word (e.g. tf for target flag) when name spans no more than a few lines
- words include standard name such as syscall names or libc functions

special cases :

abbrev	full-name
ddate	disk date
dflag	dependency flag
filename	file name
lnk	symbolic link
ongoing	on going
pdate	process date
regexpr	regular expression
serdes	serialize, deserialize
tflag	target flag
wrt	with respect to

layout

lines are limited to 200 characters (as is this document)
functions are limited to 100 lines :
- there are few exceptions, though, where it was impossible to cut without making too artificial a sub-function
generally speaking code is put on a single line when several lines are similar and alignment helps readability
separators (such as commas, operators, parentheses, ...) pertaining to the same expression are at the same indentation level
- and subexpressions are at the next indentation level if on one or several lines by themselves
- the identation level is the number of tab's appearing on the line before the considered item
- when item is less than 3 characters long, the next indentation level (preceded by a tab) is on the same line
- expressions are either compact (no space or minimum), spaced (a space between each operators and sub-expressions) or multi-line (with sub-expressions indented)
- example :
```
  a = make_a(
  	my_first_coef [  0] * my_first_data  // note alignment makes expression structure appearing immediately
  +	my_second_coef[i  ] * my_second_data // note + at identation level 3, subexrpession at indentation level 4
  +	my_third_coef [i*2] * my_third_data  // note following comment means this one is repeated
  +	my_foorth_coef[i*3] * my_foorth_data // .
  ) ;
```

invariants are either

in swear/fail if reasonably fast to check
in a function chk (even if never called) when they can be expressed programatically
else in comments preceded by the keyword INVARIANT

invariants are expected and enforced by public methods

this is a general consideration : methods are private/public depending on their dangerosity
private methods can violate them, though
- e.g. _clear are local methods violating invariants, clear handles consequences
public methods can violate unrelated invariants they can live w/
- e.g. Node.mk_plain does not enforce job invariant about having all its targets set

data members are

public when they can be read with no pre-condition and modified individually w/o violating invariants
private otherwise

if branch order

When there is a choice between "if (cond) branch1 else branch2" and "if (!cond) branch2 else branch1", the order is governed by the following prioritized considerations (prefer means put first) :

if there is natural chronological order between branch1 and branch2, respect the natural order
prefer simpler branch
prefer normal case to error case
prefer "true" case to "false" case (at semantic level)
prefer positive test (i.e. prefer == to !=, x or +x to !x, etc.)

bool values and if

Most objects have a natural "empty" value, such as empty strings, empty vectors, the first value of an enum, etc.

It is extremely practical to write if (err_msg) process_err() ; rather than if (!err+msg.empty()) process_err() ;
This suggests to have casts to bool mostly everywhere, but
- this does not apply to enum nor to STL classes
- this creates a lot of ambiguities
- this is actually pretty dangerous as this weakens static type checking (as bool can in turn be converted to int...)
The pefect balance is to define the prefix operators + (non empty) and ! (empty) :
- we can write if (+err_msg) process_err() ; or if (!err_msg) process_ok() ; which is still very light
- it can apply to any type

goto's

goto's are used when they allow the code to be easier to read and understand
they are always forward unless specifically flagged with a BACKWARD comment, which is exceptional

comments

comments can be realigned with the command _bin/align_comments 4 200 [// or #]
standard comments
- //vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv
- main purpose of the function
- //^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
- XXX means something has to be reworked (it is recommanded to highlight it in you editor)
- /!\ means something requires your special attention (it is recommanded to highlight it in you editor)
- BACKWARD means the associated goto goes backward
- INVARIANT means an invariant is described
- fast path means that the corresponding code can be suppressed without altering the semantic
- . means same as above
- ... at the end means comment continue on next line where ... appears again
- /*garbage*/ means we dont care about the value, it is only there to be certain having no uninitialized values
apply https://isocpp.github.io/CppCoreGuidelines/CppCoreGuidelines to the best extent

general description

main classes

Req represents an lmake command
- several Req's may be present as several lmake command may run (but there is a single server serving all of them)
Rule represents a derivation rule
- i.e. a pattern to derive some target files from some source files
Job represents a job
- i.e. a script that may be executed by instantiating a Rule for a particular set of stems
- a Job has several targets and several dependencies
- targets may be explicit in the Rule (it is said static), or it may be described as matching a regular expression (it is said star).
  - this is not to be confused by regular expressions used to match a Rule. For example :
    - {File}.o in a compilation rule : this is a static target (a Job produces a single .o)
    - {Dir}.untar/{File*} in a tar exapnsion rule : these are star targets (a Job produces a bunch of files in a single directory)
- dependencies may be expressed explicitly in the Rule (is is said static), or discovered by spying job execution syscall's (it is said hidden)
  - typically in a compilation rule, .c files are static deps, .h files are hidden deps
Node represents a file
- a Node has a prioritized list of Job's to try to generate it
- Job's with higher priorities are tried first
- at given priority, if several jobs can be executed :
  - they are all tried in parallel, hoping that a single one will actually generate the node
    - if several of them actually generate the node, it will be an error condition
  - unless it can be certain in advance that several of them will generate the node, in which case the error is generated before execution

the heart of the algorithm is composed of

for static considerations (i.e. does not depend on Req) :
- Node::set_buildable : analyse a Node and determine if it can be made (3-way answer : No, Yes, Maybe)
  - calls Job::Job on Job candidates (down-hill recursion)
- Job::Job for the plain case : construct a Job if its dependances have a chance to be makable
  - calls Node::set_buildable on static deps (down-hill recursion)
for dynamic considerations (i.e. depends on Req) :
- Node::make : analyse a Node, calling Job::make on job candidates that can produce it
  - calls Job::make on Job candidates (down-hill recursion)
  - calls Job::make on Job's waiting for it as a dep (up-hill recursion)
- Job::make : analyse a Job, looking at deps and calling submit if necessary, and waking up dependents if up to date
  - calls Node::make on all deps (down-hill recursion)
  - calls Job::submit
  - calls Node::make on targets just made up-to-date (up-hill recursion)
- Job::submit : submit a Job
  - launch job execution which will eventually trigger a call to Job::end when done
- Job::end : analyse a Job at end of execution, calling make to analyse the result
  - calls Job::make to analyze execution and ensure everything is ok (or re-submit if there is any reason to do so)

state

the state is directly maintainted on disk in mapped files :
- files are located in LMAKE/store
- code that handle them is in :
  - src/lmakeserver/store.hh & .cc for its part specific to lmake
  - src/store for generic code that handle :
    - simple objects (possibly with side-car, i.e. a secondary storage with a 1 to 1 correspondance)
    - vectors
    - prefix-tree
    - red-black tree (not used in lmake, could be suppressed)
the prefix tree is mostly used to store file and job names
- only a 32 bits id is used in most of the code
- id's (the Node and Job objects are very light objects containing only the id) can find their name with the name() method
- names can find their associated id by just constructing the Name or Job object with the name as sole argument
- overall, this is extremely efficient and fast
  - need about 20-40 bytes per file, independently of the name length which is often above 200
  - building the name string from the tree is marginally slower than a simple copy and the id mechanism makes this need the exception rather than the rule
this makes booting extremely fast, suppressing the need to keep a live daemon
persistent states are associated with Rule's, Job's, Node's but not Req's

traces

when lmake is executed, a trace of activity is generated for debug purpose
this is true for all executables (lmake, lmakeserver, autodep, ...)
traces are located in :
- LMAKE/lmake/local_admin/trace/<executable>
  - for lmakeserver, the most important trace, an history of the last few executions is kept
- LMAKE/lmake/remote_admin/job_trace/<seq_id> for remote job execution
the first character of each line is either ' or ""
- this is because the trace file is managed as a circular buffer for performance
- so each time we wrap around, this first character is toggled between ' and "
trace entries are timestamped and a letter indicates the thread :
- '=' refers to the main thread
- in server :
  - C : cancel jobs in slurm backend
  - D : handle lencode/ldecode
  - E : job end
  - H : heartbeat
  - J : record job data
  - L : launch jobs, both in local and slurm backends (2 threads)
  - M : job management
  - R : deferred reports
  - S : job start
  - T : wait terminated processes in local backend
  - W : deferred processing of wakeup connection errors
- in job exec :
  - : compute crc
- in lmake :
  - I : manage ^C
trace records are indented to reflect the call graph
- indentation are done with tabs, preceded by a follow up character (chosen to be graphically light), this eases the reading
- when a function is entered, a * replaces the follow up character
to add a trace record :
- in a function that already has a Trace variable, just call the variable with the info you want to trace
- else, declare a variable of type Trace. The first argument is a title that will be repeated in all records using the same trace object
- all Trace objects created while this one is alive will be indented, thus reproducing the call graph in the trace

modification

before pushing any modification :
- run make without argument to check nothing unrelated to your modifications is broken
to add a backend :
- make a file src/lmakeserver/backends/<your_backend>.cc
  - and git add it
- use src/lmakeserver/backends/local.cc as a template
- run git grep PER_BACKEND to see all parts that must be modified
to add a cache :
- make files src/lmakeserver/caches/<your_cache>.hh & .cc
  - and git add them
- use src/lmakeserver/caches/dir_cache.hh & .cc as a template
- run git grep PER_CACHE to see all parts that must be modified
to add a command handled by the server :
- make a file src/<your_command>.cc
  - and git add it
- use src/lshow.cc as a template
- run git grep PER_CMD to see all parts that must be modified

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README.md

README.md

open lmake

purpose

more specifically

installation

requirements

to compile lmake

coding rules

statics & globals

cases

name prefixes

abbreviations

layout

invariants are either

invariants are expected and enforced by public methods

data members are

if branch order

bool values and if

goto's

comments

general description

main classes

the heart of the algorithm is composed of

state

traces

modification

Files

README.md

Latest commit

History

README.md

File metadata and controls

open lmake

purpose

more specifically

installation

requirements

to compile lmake

coding rules

statics & globals

cases

name prefixes

abbreviations

layout

invariants are either

invariants are expected and enforced by public methods

data members are

if branch order

bool values and if

goto's

comments

general description

main classes

the heart of the algorithm is composed of

state

traces

modification