• Damien George's avatar
    py: Rework bytecode and .mpy file format to be mostly static data. · f2040bfc
    Damien George authored
    
    
    Background: .mpy files are precompiled .py files, built using mpy-cross,
    that contain compiled bytecode functions (and can also contain machine
    code). The benefit of using an .mpy file over a .py file is that they are
    faster to import and take less memory when importing.  They are also
    smaller on disk.
    
    But the real benefit of .mpy files comes when they are frozen into the
    firmware.  This is done by loading the .mpy file during compilation of the
    firmware and turning it into a set of big C data structures (the job of
    mpy-tool.py), which are then compiled and downloaded into the ROM of a
    device.  These C data structures can be executed in-place, ie directly from
    ROM.  This makes importing even faster because there is very little to do,
    and also means such frozen modules take up much less RAM (because their
    bytecode stays in ROM).
    
    The downside of frozen code is that it requires recompiling and reflashing
    the entire firmware.  This can be a big barrier to entry, slows down
    development time, and makes it harder to do OTA updates of frozen code
    (because the whole firmware must be updated).
    
    This commit attempts to solve this problem by providing a solution that
    sits between loading .mpy files into RAM and freezing them into the
    firmware.  The .mpy file format has been reworked so that it consists of
    data and bytecode which is mostly static and ready to run in-place.  If
    these new .mpy files are located in flash/ROM which is memory addressable,
    the .mpy file can be executed (mostly) in-place.
    
    With this approach there is still a small amount of unpacking and linking
    of the .mpy file that needs to be done when it's imported, but it's still
    much better than loading an .mpy from disk into RAM (although not as good
    as freezing .mpy files into the firmware).
    
    The main trick to make static .mpy files is to adjust the bytecode so any
    qstrs that it references now go through a lookup table to convert from
    local qstr number in the module to global qstr number in the firmware.
    That means the bytecode does not need linking/rewriting of qstrs when it's
    loaded.  Instead only a small qstr table needs to be built (and put in RAM)
    at import time.  This means the bytecode itself is static/constant and can
    be used directly if it's in addressable memory.  Also the qstr string data
    in the .mpy file, and some constant object data, can be used directly.
    Note that the qstr table is global to the module (ie not per function).
    
    In more detail, in the VM what used to be (schematically):
    
        qst = DECODE_QSTR_VALUE;
    
    is now (schematically):
    
        idx = DECODE_QSTR_INDEX;
        qst = qstr_table[idx];
    
    That allows the bytecode to be fixed at compile time and not need
    relinking/rewriting of the qstr values.  Only qstr_table needs to be linked
    when the .mpy is loaded.
    
    Incidentally, this helps to reduce the size of bytecode because what used
    to be 2-byte qstr values in the bytecode are now (mostly) 1-byte indices.
    If the module uses the same qstr more than two times then the bytecode is
    smaller than before.
    
    The following changes are measured for this commit compared to the
    previous (the baseline):
    - average 7%-9% reduction in size of .mpy files
    - frozen code size is reduced by about 5%-7%
    - importing .py files uses about 5% less RAM in total
    - importing .mpy files uses about 4% less RAM in total
    - importing .py and .mpy files takes about the same time as before
    
    The qstr indirection in the bytecode has only a small impact on VM
    performance.  For stm32 on PYBv1.0 the performance change of this commit
    is:
    
    diff of scores (higher is better)
    N=100 M=100             baseline -> this-commit  diff      diff% (error%)
    bm_chaos.py               371.07 ->  357.39 :  -13.68 =  -3.687% (+/-0.02%)
    bm_fannkuch.py             78.72 ->   77.49 :   -1.23 =  -1.563% (+/-0.01%)
    bm_fft.py                2591.73 -> 2539.28 :  -52.45 =  -2.024% (+/-0.00%)
    bm_float.py              6034.93 -> 5908.30 : -126.63 =  -2.098% (+/-0.01%)
    bm_hexiom.py               48.96 ->   47.93 :   -1.03 =  -2.104% (+/-0.00%)
    bm_nqueens.py            4510.63 -> 4459.94 :  -50.69 =  -1.124% (+/-0.00%)
    bm_pidigits.py            650.28 ->  644.96 :   -5.32 =  -0.818% (+/-0.23%)
    core_import_mpy_multi.py  564.77 ->  581.49 :  +16.72 =  +2.960% (+/-0.01%)
    core_import_mpy_single.py  68.67 ->   67.16 :   -1.51 =  -2.199% (+/-0.01%)
    core_qstr.py               64.16 ->   64.12 :   -0.04 =  -0.062% (+/-0.00%)
    core_yield_from.py        362.58 ->  354.50 :   -8.08 =  -2.228% (+/-0.00%)
    misc_aes.py               429.69 ->  405.59 :  -24.10 =  -5.609% (+/-0.01%)
    misc_mandel.py           3485.13 -> 3416.51 :  -68.62 =  -1.969% (+/-0.00%)
    misc_pystone.py          2496.53 -> 2405.56 :  -90.97 =  -3.644% (+/-0.01%)
    misc_raytrace.py          381.47 ->  374.01 :   -7.46 =  -1.956% (+/-0.01%)
    viper_call0.py            576.73 ->  572.49 :   -4.24 =  -0.735% (+/-0.04%)
    viper_call1a.py           550.37 ->  546.21 :   -4.16 =  -0.756% (+/-0.09%)
    viper_call1b.py           438.23 ->  435.68 :   -2.55 =  -0.582% (+/-0.06%)
    viper_call1c.py           442.84 ->  440.04 :   -2.80 =  -0.632% (+/-0.08%)
    viper_call2a.py           536.31 ->  532.35 :   -3.96 =  -0.738% (+/-0.06%)
    viper_call2b.py           382.34 ->  377.07 :   -5.27 =  -1.378% (+/-0.03%)
    
    And for unix on x64:
    
    diff of scores (higher is better)
    N=2000 M=2000        baseline -> this-commit     diff      diff% (error%)
    bm_chaos.py          13594.20 ->  13073.84 :  -520.36 =  -3.828% (+/-5.44%)
    bm_fannkuch.py          60.63 ->     59.58 :    -1.05 =  -1.732% (+/-3.01%)
    bm_fft.py           112009.15 -> 111603.32 :  -405.83 =  -0.362% (+/-4.03%)
    bm_float.py         246202.55 -> 247923.81 : +1721.26 =  +0.699% (+/-2.79%)
    bm_hexiom.py           615.65 ->    617.21 :    +1.56 =  +0.253% (+/-1.64%)
    bm_nqueens.py       215807.95 -> 215600.96 :  -206.99 =  -0.096% (+/-3.52%)
    bm_pidigits.py        8246.74 ->   8422.82 :  +176.08 =  +2.135% (+/-3.64%)
    misc_aes.py          16133.00 ->  16452.74 :  +319.74 =  +1.982% (+/-1.50%)
    misc_mandel.py      128146.69 -> 130796.43 : +2649.74 =  +2.068% (+/-3.18%)
    misc_pystone.py      83811.49 ->  83124.85 :  -686.64 =  -0.819% (+/-1.03%)
    misc_raytrace.py     21688.02 ->  21385.10 :  -302.92 =  -1.397% (+/-3.20%)
    
    The code size change is (firmware with a lot of frozen code benefits the
    most):
    
           bare-arm:  +396 +0.697%
        minimal x86: +1595 +0.979% [incl +32(data)]
           unix x64: +2408 +0.470% [incl +800(data)]
        unix nanbox: +1396 +0.309% [incl -96(data)]
              stm32: -1256 -0.318% PYBV10
             cc3200:  +288 +0.157%
            esp8266:  -260 -0.037% GENERIC
              esp32:  -216 -0.014% GENERIC[incl -1072(data)]
                nrf:  +116 +0.067% pca10040
                rp2:  -664 -0.135% PICO
               samd:  +844 +0.607% ADAFRUIT_ITSYBITSY_M4_EXPRESS
    
    As part of this change the .mpy file format version is bumped to version 6.
    And mpy-tool.py has been improved to provide a good visualisation of the
    contents of .mpy files.
    
    In summary: this commit changes the bytecode to use qstr indirection, and
    reworks the .mpy file format to be simpler and allow .mpy files to be
    executed in-place.  Performance is not impacted too much.  Eventually it
    will be possible to store such .mpy files in a linear, read-only, memory-
    mappable filesystem so they can be executed from flash/ROM.  This will
    essentially be able to replace frozen code for most applications.
    Signed-off-by: default avatarDamien George <damien@micropython.org>
    f2040bfc
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