# Optimizer Counter Analysis

It is possible by means of providing some special command-line
options to ask the Swift compiler to produce different statistics about
the optimizer counters. Optimizer counters are most typically counters
representing different aspects of a SIL representation for a Swift module
being compiled, e.g. the number of SIL basic blocks or instructions. 
These counters may also reveal some details about transformations
and optimizations performed on SIL, e.g. the duration of an optimization
or how much memory was consumed by the compiler. Therefore having the
information about the changes of optimizer counters over time allows for
analysis of changes to the SIL representation during the compilation.
 
This document describes how you collect and analyze the counters produced by
the optimizer of the Swift compiler. This analysis is useful if you need to get
a detailed insight into the optimizer passes, their effect on the SIL code, 
compile times, compiler's memory consumption, etc. For example, you can find
out which optimization passes or phases of optimization produce most new SIL
instructions or delete most SIL functions.

## Table of contents
<!-- TOC -->
- [Optimizer Counter Analysis](#optimizer-counter-analysis)
  - [Table of contents](#table-of-contents)
  - [Which optimizer counters are available for recording](#which-optimizer-counters-are-available-for-recording)
  - [How and when the optimizer counters are collected and recorded](#how-and-when-the-optimizer-counters-are-collected-and-recorded)
  - [Differences between different modes of optimizer counters collection](#differences-between-different-modes-of-optimizer-counters-collection)
    - [Module level counters](#module-level-counters)
    - [Function level counters](#function-level-counters)
    - [Instruction level counters](#instruction-level-counters)
  - [Configuring which counters changes should be recorded](#configuring-which-counters-changes-should-be-recorded)
  - [On-line and off-line processing of optimizer counters](#on-line-and-off-line-processing-of-optimizer-counters)
  - [Specifying where the optimizer counters should be stored](#specifying-where-the-optimizer-counters-should-be-stored)
  - [The format of the recorded optimizer counters](#the-format-of-the-recorded-optimizer-counters)
  - [Storing the produced statistics into a database](#storing-the-produced-statistics-into-a-database)
  - [The database schema for counters](#the-database-schema-for-counters)
  - [Analyzing collected counters using SQL](#analyzing-collected-counters-using-sql)
    - [Examples of interesting SQL queries](#examples-of-interesting-sql-queries)
      - [Compute aggregate times for each optimization pass/transformation](#compute-aggregate-times-for-each-optimization-passtransformation)
      - [Which pass created/deleted most functions?](#which-pass-createddeleted-most-functions)
      - [Which pass at which optimization pipeline stage created/deleted most functions?](#which-pass-at-which-optimization-pipeline-stage-createddeleted-most-functions)
      - [Which pass created/removed most instructions?](#which-pass-createdremoved-most-instructions)
      - [Which pass at which stage created/removed most instructions?](#which-pass-at-which-stage-createdremoved-most-instructions)
      - [Which functions were changed most by which stage when it comes to the instruction counts](#which-functions-were-changed-most-by-which-stage-when-it-comes-to-the-instruction-counts)
      - [Get the number of instructions at the beginning and at the end of the optimization pipeline for each function](#get-the-number-of-instructions-at-the-beginning-and-at-the-end-of-the-optimization-pipeline-for-each-function)
      - [Show functions which have the biggest size at the end of the optimization pipeline](#show-functions-which-have-the-biggest-size-at-the-end-of-the-optimization-pipeline)
      - [Which optimization pipeline stage took most time?](#which-optimization-pipeline-stage-took-most-time)
      - [Which stage added/removed most instructions (in term of deltas)?](#which-stage-addedremoved-most-instructions-in-term-of-deltas)
<!-- /TOC -->

## Which optimizer counters are available for recording 

The following statistics can be recorded:

  * For SILFunctions: the number of SIL basic blocks for each SILFunction, the
    number of SIL instructions, the number of SILInstructions of a specific
    kind (e.g. a number of alloc_ref instructions), the number of debug
    variables

  * For SILModules: the number of SIL basic blocks in the SILModule, the number
    of SIL instructions, the number of SILFunctions, the number of
    SILInstructions of a specific kind (e.g. a number of alloc_ref
    instructions) the amount of memory used by the compiler.

## How and when the optimizer counters are collected and recorded

The pass manager of the SIL optimizer invokes special hooks before and after it
executes any optimization transformation (often called an optimization pass).

The hook checks if there are any changes of counter values since the last time
it was invoked. If there are any changes, then the counters are re-computed.
They are first re-computed for SILFunctions and then for the SILModule being
compiled. The re-computation algorithm is trying to be incremental and fast by
re-computing only the minimal amount of counters instead of scanning the whole
SILModule every time.

Those counters that are changed are reported if they satisfy different
filtering conditions, which are configurable. For example, you may want to see
only counters that have changed by more than 50% since last time.
Alternatively, you may want to log as many counters as possible, in which case
they will be logged on every invocation of the hook.

If there were no changes to the counters that satisfy the filtering conditions,
those changes would not be logged. This means that the final set of logged
changes may be incomplete, i.e. it would not reflect all changes that happened
to those counters.

## Differences between different modes of optimizer counters collection

You can collect optimizer counters at different levels of granularity depending
on your needs. The granularity also affects the amount of recorded data that
will be produced, because the amount of recorded data grows if you decide to
collect more fine-grained counters.

### Module level counters
The most coarse-grained counters are the module level counters, which are
enabled by using `-Xllvm -sil-stats-modules` command-line option. They are
usually logged only if a given optimizer counter changed a lot for the whole
SILModule, which does not happen that often, because most optimization passes
perform just very small transformations on a single function and thus do not
significantly change any module-wide counters.

### Function level counters
The next level of granularity are SILFunction counters, which are enabled by
using `-Xllvm -sil-stats-functions` command-line option. They track statistics
for SILFunctions. Every SILFunction has its own set of these counters.
Obviously, interesting changes to these counters happen more often than to the
module-wide counters.

### Instruction level counters
The finest level of granularity are SILInstruction counters, which are enabled
by using `-Xllvm -sil-stats-only-instructions` command-line option. You can use
them to e.g. collect statistics about how many specific SIL instructions are
used by a given SILFunction or a SILModule. For example, you can count how many
`alloc_ref` instructions occur in a given SILFunction or SILModule. If you are
interested in collecting the stats only for some specific SIL instructions, you
can use a comma-separated list of instructions as a value of the option,
e.g. `-Xllvm -sil-stats-only-instructions=alloc_ref,alloc_stack`. If you need to
collect stats about all kinds of SIL instructions, you can use this syntax: 
`-Xllvm -sil-stats-only-instructions=all`.

### Debug variable level counters
A different type of counter is the lost debug variables counter. It is enabled
by using the `-Xllvm -sil-stats-lost-variables` command-line option. It only
tracks statistics about lost variables in SILFunctions. It is not enabled by
any other command-line option, but can be combined with the others. It is not
compatible with thresholds, it always counts lost variables. Note that it does
not track the number of debug variables: it counts the number of debug variables
that were present, but aren't anymore. If a variable changes location or scope,
which is not allowed, it will be counted as lost.

## Configuring which counters changes should be recorded

The user has a possibility to configure a number of thresholds, which control
what needs to be recorded. Many of those thresholds are formulated for the
deltas, e.g. the delta should be more than 50%.

The value of the delta for a given old and new values of a counter are computed
using the following simple formula:

 `delta = 100% * (new_value - old_value)/old_value`

So, a delta basically reflects how big is the change of the counter value
when expressed as a percentage of the old value.

TBD Provide more information about different command-line options for
configuring the thresholds.

## On-line and off-line processing of optimizer counters

As explained above, some of the counters filtering happens on-line at
compile-time already. If this is enough for your purposes, you can use them "as
is".

But in many cases, you may want to perform more complex analysis of the
collected counters, e.g. you may want to aggregate them by the optimization
pass or by a stage of the optimization pipeline, etc. This is not directly
supported by the on-line filtering mode. Instead, you can record all the
interesting counters and then post-process it off-line by first storing them
into a SQLite database by means if a special utility and then using the regular
SQL queries to perform any kind of analysis and aggregation that you may need.

## Specifying where the optimizer counters should be stored

By default, all the collected statistics are written to the
standard error.

But it is possible to write into a custom file by specifying the following
command-line option: 

  `-Xllvm -sil-stats-output-file=your_file_name`
  
When multiple processes are used with the same command, you might want to add
the following command line option to append the PID to the output file name:

  `-Xllvm -sil-stats-per-process-output`

## The format of the recorded optimizer counters

The counters are recorded using a simple CSV (comma separated value) format.
Each line represents a single counter value or a counter value change.

For counter value updates, the CSV line looks like this:
  * `Kind, CounterName, StageName, TransformName,
    TransformPassNumber, DeltaValue, OldCounterValue,
    NewCounterValue, Duration, Symbol`

And for counter stats it looks like this:
  * `Kind, CounterName, StageName, TransformName,   
     TransformPassNumber, CounterValue, Duration, Symbol`

 where the names used above have the following meaning:

* `Kind` is one of `function`, `module`, `function_history`.
  * `function` and
    `module` correspond directly to the module-level and function-level counters
  * `function_history` corresponds to the verbose mode of function
    counters collection, when changes to the SILFunction counters are logged 
    unconditionally, without any on-line filtering.
* `CounterName` is typically one of `block`, `inst`, `function`, `memory`,
   `lostvars`, or `inst_instruction_name` if you collect counters for specific
   kinds of SIL instructions.
* `Symbol` is e.g. the name of a function
* `StageName` is the name of the current optimizer pipeline stage
* `TransformName` is the name of the current optimizer transformation/pass
* `Duration` is the duration of the transformation
* `TransformPassNumber` is the optimizer pass number. It is useful if you 
   want to reproduce the result later using 
   `-Xllvm -sil-opt-pass-count -Xllvm TransformPassNumber`

## Extract Lost Variables per Pass

For lost variables, there is a script to output a CSV with only the amount of
lost variables per pass. You can then easily open the resulting CSV in Numbers
to make graphs.

`utils/process-stats-lost-variables csv_file_with_counters > csv_aggregate`

When using per-process output, you can pass all of the files to the same
script:

`utils/process-stats-lost-variables csv_file_with_counters.* > csv_aggregate`

## Storing the produced statistics into a database

To store the set of produced counters into a database, you can use the
following command: 

`utils/optimizer_counters_to_sql.py  csv_file_with_counters your_database.db`

## The database schema for counters

The database uses a very simple self-explaining schema:

```sql
CREATE TABLE Counters(
  Id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT,
  Stage TEXT NOT NULL,
  Transform TEXT NOT NULL,
  Kind TEXT,
  Counter TEXT NOT NULL,
  PassNum INT NOT NULL,
  Delta NUMBER,
  Old INT,
  New INT,
  Duration INT,
  Symbol TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT '');
```

## Analyzing collected counters using SQL

First, you need to connect to your database, so that you can issue SQL queries.
This can be accomplished e.g. by the following command:

 `sqlite3 your_database.db`

After executing this command, you will be presented with a SQLite command
prompt and you can start entering SQL queries. Each query should end with
a semicolon.

### Examples of interesting SQL queries

SQL gives you a lot of freedom to perform different kinds of analysis. Below
you can find some examples of typical queries, which you can use "as is" or as
a basis for formulating more complex queries.

#### Compute aggregate times for each optimization pass/transformation

```sql
select C.Transform, sum(C.Duration)
from Counters C
where C.counter = 'inst' and C.kind = 'module'
group by C.Transform;
```

#### Which pass created/deleted most functions?
```sql
select C.Transform, sum(C.Delta)
from Counters C
where C.counter = 'functions' and C.kind = 'module'
group by C.Transform;
```

#### Which pass at which optimization pipeline stage created/deleted most functions?
```sql
select C.Stage, C.Transform, sum(C.Delta)
from Counters C where C.counter = 'functions' and C.kind = 'module'
group by C.Stage, C.Transform;
```

#### Which pass created/removed most instructions?

```sql
# Sort by biggest changes 
select C.Transform, sum(C.Delta)
from Counters C where C.counter = 'inst' and C.kind = 'module'
group by C.Transform
order by abs(sum(C.Delta));
```

#### Which pass at which stage created/removed most instructions?
```sql
# Sort by biggest changes 
select C.Stage, C.Transform, sum(C.Delta)
from Counters C where C.counter = 'inst' and C.kind = 'module'
group by C.Stage, C.Transform
order by abs(sum(C.Delta));
```

#### Which functions were changed most by which stage when it comes to the instruction counts

```sql
select C.Stage, min(C.Old), max(C.Old), Symbol
from Counters C where C.counter = 'inst' and C.kind = 'function_history'
group by C.Symbol, C.Stage
having min(C.Old) <> max(C.Old)
order by abs(max(C.Old)-min(C.Old)); 
```

#### Get the number of instructions at the beginning and at the end of the optimization pipeline for each function
```sql
select MinOld.Id, MinOld.Old, MaxOld.Id, MaxOld.Old, MinOld.Symbol
from 
(
  select C.Id, C.Old, C.Symbol
  from Counters C where C.counter = 'inst' and C.kind = 'function_history'
  group by C.Symbol
  having C.Id = max(Id)
) as MaxOld,
(select C.Id, C.Old, C.Symbol
   from Counters C
   where C.counter = 'inst' and C.kind = 'function_history'
   group by C.Symbol
   having C.Id = min(Id)
) as MinOld
where MinOld.Symbol == MaxOld.Symbol;
```

#### Show functions which have the biggest size at the end of the optimization pipeline
```sql
select MinOld.Id, MinOld.Old, MaxOld.Id, MaxOld.Old, MinOld.Symbol
from 
(
  select C.Id, C.Old, C.Symbol
  from Counters C
  where C.counter = 'inst' and C.kind = 'function_history'
  group by C.Symbol
  having C.Id = max(Id)
) as MaxOld,
(
  select C.Id, C.Old, C.Symbol
  from Counters C
  where C.counter = 'inst' and C.kind = 'function_history'
  group by C.Symbol
  having C.Id = min(Id)
) as MinOld
where MinOld.Symbol == MaxOld.Symbol
order by MaxOld.Old;
```

#### Which optimization pipeline stage took most time?
```sql
select sum(Duration), Stage
from Counters C
where C.counter = 'inst' and C.kind = 'module'
group by Stage
order by sum(C.Duration); 
```

#### Which stage added/removed most instructions (in term of deltas)?
```sql
select sum(Delta), Stage
from Counters C where C.counter = 'inst' and C.kind = 'module'
group by Stage
order by sum(C.Delta);
```
