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Sandboxes.md

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Introduction

This file briefly describes the requirements for building a custom BLIS sandbox.

Simply put, a sandbox in BLIS provides an alternative implementation to the gemm operation.

To get a little more specific, a sandbox provides an alternative implementation to the function bli_gemmnat(), which is the object-based API call for computing the gemm operation via native execution.

Note: Native execution simply means that an induced method will not be used. It's what you probably already think of when you think of implementing the gemm operation: a series of loops around an optimized (usually assembly-based) microkernel with some packing functions thrown in at various levels.

Why sandboxes? Sometimes you want to experiment with tweaks or changes to the gemm operation, but you want to do so in a simple environment rather than the highly macroized and refactored (and somewhat obfuscated) code of the core framework. By building a BLIS sandbox, you can experiment (within limits) and still benefit from BLIS's existing build system, testsuite, and toolbox of utility functions.

Enabling a sandbox

To enable a sandbox at configure-time, you simply specify it as an option to configure. Either of the following usages are accepted:

$ ./configure --enable-sandbox=ref99 auto
$ ./configure -s ref99 auto

Here, we tell configure that we want to use the ref99 sandbox, which corresponds to a sub-directory of sandbox named ref99. (Reminder: the auto argument is the configuration target and thus unrelated to sandboxes.) As configure runs, you should get output that includes lines similar to:

configure: configuring for alternate gemm implementation:
configure:   sandbox/ref99

And when you build BLIS, the last files to be compiled will be the source code in the specified sandbox:

Compiling obj/haswell/sandbox/ref99/blx_gemm_front.o ('haswell' CFLAGS for sandboxes)
Compiling obj/haswell/sandbox/ref99/blx_gemm_int.o ('haswell' CFLAGS for sandboxes)
Compiling obj/haswell/sandbox/ref99/base/blx_blksz.o ('haswell' CFLAGS for sandboxes)
Compiling obj/haswell/sandbox/ref99/cntl/blx_gemm_cntl.o ('haswell' CFLAGS for sandboxes)
...

That's it! After the BLIS library is built, it will contain your chosen sandbox's implementation of bli_gemmnat() instead of the default implementation.

Sandbox rules

Like any civilized sandbox, there are rules for playing here. Please follow these guidelines for the best sandbox developer experience.

  1. Don't bother worrying about makefiles. We've already taken care of the boring/annoying/headache-inducing build system stuff for you. :) By configuring BLIS with a sandbox enabled, make will scan your sandbox directory and compile all of its source code using similar compilation rules as were used for the rest of the framework. In addition, the compilation command line will automatically contain one -I<includepath> option for every subdirectory in your sandbox, so it doesn't matter where in your sandbox you place your header files. They will be found!

  2. Your sandbox must be written in C99 or C++11. If you write your sandbox in C++11, you must use one of the BLIS-approved file extensions for your source files (.cc, .cpp, .cxx) and your header files (.hh, .hpp, .hxx). Note that blis.h already contains all of its definitions inside of an extern "C" block, so you should be able to #include "blis.h" from your C++11 source code without any issues.

  3. All of your code to replace BLIS's default implementation of bli_gemmnat() should reside in the named sandbox directory, or some directory therein. (Obviously.) For example, the "reference" sandbox is located in sandbox/ref99. All of the code associated with this sandbox will be contained within sandbox/ref99.

  4. The only header file that is required of your sandbox is bli_sandbox.h. It must be named bli_sandbox.h because blis.h will #include this file when the sandbox is enabled at configure-time. That said, you will probably want to keep the file empty. Why require a file that is supposed to be empty? Well, it doesn't have to be empty. Anything placed in this file will be folded into the flattened (monolithic) blis.h at compile-time. Therefore, you should only place things (e.g. prototypes or type definitions) in bli_sandbox.h if those things would be needed at compile-time by: (a) the BLIS framework itself, or (b) an application that calls your sandbox-enabled BLIS library. Usually, neither of these situations will require any of your local definitions since those local definitions are only needed to define your sandbox implementation of bli_gemmnat(), and this function is already prototyped by BLIS.

  5. Your definition of bli_gemmnat() should be the only function you define in your sandbox that begins with bli_. If you define other functions that begin with bli_, you risk a namespace collision with existing framework functions. To guarantee safety, please prefix your locally-defined sandbox functions with another prefix. Here, in the ref99 sandbox, we use the prefix blx_. (The x is for sandbox. Or experimental.) Also, please avoid the prefix bla_ since that prefix is also used in BLIS for BLAS compatibility functions.

If you follow these rules, you will be much more likely to have a pleasant experience integrating your BLIS sandbox into the larger framework.

Caveats

Notice that the BLIS sandbox is not all-powerful. You are more-or-less stuck working with the existing BLIS infrastructure.

For example, with a BLIS sandbox you can do the following kinds of things:

  • use a different gemm algorithmic partitioning path than the default Goto-like algorithm;
  • experiment with different implementations of packm (not just packm kernels, which can already be customized within each sub-configuration);
  • try inlining your functions manually;
  • pivot away from using obj_t objects at higher algorithmic level (such as immediately after calling bli_gemmnat()) to try to avoid some overhead;
  • create experimental implementations of new BLAS-like operations (provided that you also provide an implementation of bli_gemmnat()).

You cannot, however, use a sandbox to do the following kinds of things:

  • define new datatypes (half-precision, quad-precision, short integer, etc.) and expect the rest of BLIS to "know" how to handle them;
  • use a sandbox to replace the default implementation of a different level-3 operation, such as Hermitian rank-k update;
  • change the existing BLIS APIs (typed or object);
  • remove support for one or more BLIS datatypes (to cut down on library size, for example).

Another important limitation is the fact that the build system currently uses "framework CFLAGS" when compiling the sandbox source files. These are the same CFLAGS used when compiling general framework source code,

# Example framework CFLAGS used by 'haswell' sub-configuration
-O3 -Wall -Wno-unused-function -Wfatal-errors -fPIC -std=c99
-D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=200112L -I./include/haswell -I./frame/3/
-I./frame/ind/ukernels/ -I./frame/1m/ -I./frame/1f/ -I./frame/1/
-I./frame/include -DBLIS_VERSION_STRING=\"0.3.2-51\"

which are likely more general-purpose than the CFLAGS used for, say, optimized kernels or even reference kernels.

# Example optimized kernel CFLAGS used by 'haswell' sub-configuration
-O3 -mavx2 -mfma -mfpmath=sse -march=core-avx2 -Wall -Wno-unused-function
-Wfatal-errors -fPIC -std=c99 -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=200112L -I./include/haswell
-I./frame/3/ -I./frame/ind/ukernels/ -I./frame/1m/ -I./frame/1f/ -I./frame/1/
-I./frame/include -DBLIS_VERSION_STRING=\"0.3.2-51\"

(To see precisely which flags are being employed for any given file, enable verbosity at compile-time via make V=1.) Compiling sandboxes with these more versatile CFLAGS compiler options means that we only need to compile one instance of each sandbox source file, even when targeting multiple configurations (for example, via ./configure x86_64). However, it also means that sandboxes are not ideal for microkernels, as they sometimes need additional compiler flags not included in the set used for framework CFLAGS in order to yield the highest performance. If you have a new microkernel you would like to use within a sandbox, you can always develop it within a sandbox. However, once it is stable and ready for use by others, it's best to formally register the kernel(s) along with a new configuration, which will allow you to specify kernel-specific compiler flags to be used when compiling your microkernel. Please see the Configuration Guide for more details, and when in doubt, please don't be shy about seeking guidance from BLIS developers by opening a new issue or sending a message to the blis-devel mailing list.

Notwithstanding these limitations, hopefully you still find BLIS sandboxes useful!

Known issues

  • Mixed datatype support. Unless you really know what you are doing, you should probably disable mixed datatype support when using a sandbox. (Mixed datatype support can be disabled by configuring with --disable-mixed-dt.) The BLIS testsuite is smart enough to verify that you've configured BLIS with mixed datatype support before allowing you to test with mixed domains/precisions enabled in input.general. However, if those options are enabled and BLIS was built with mixed datatype support, then BLIS assumes that the implementation of gemm will support mixing of datatypes. BLIS must assume this, because there's no way for it to confirm at runtime that an implementation was written to support mixing datatypes. Note that even the ref99 sandbox included with BLIS does not support mixed-datatype computation.

Conclusion

If you encounter any problems, or are really bummed-out that gemm is the only operation for which you can provide a sandbox implementation, please open a new issue on GitHub.

If you are unsure about how something works, you can still open an issue. Or, you can send a message to blis-devel mailing list.

Happy sandboxing!