[native-image] Startup time of native compiled with graalvm 20.1-dev is noticably slower than 19.3.0 on macOS

[borkdude]

Given a simple class like:

public class Foo {

    public static void main(String [] args) {
        System.out.println("Hello");
    }
}

$ javac Foo.java

$ brew install Tenzer/tap/multitime

$ export GRAALVM_HOME=/Users/borkdude/Downloads/graalvm-ce-java8-19.3.0/Contents/Home
$GRAALVM_HOME/bin/native-image Foo --no-server
$ multitime -n100 ./foo

===> multitime results
1: ./foo
            Mean        Std.Dev.    Min         Median      Max
real        0.007       0.001       0.005       0.008       0.009
user        0.002       0.000       0.002       0.002       0.003
sys         0.002       0.000       0.001       0.002       0.004

$ export GRAALVM_HOME=/Users/borkdude/Downloads/graalvm-ce-java8-20.1.0-dev/Contents/Home
$GRAALVM_HOME/bin/native-image Foo --no-server
$ multitime -n100 ./foo

===> multitime results
1: ./foo
            Mean        Std.Dev.    Min         Median      Max
real        0.015       0.001       0.011       0.015       0.016
user        0.007       0.001       0.005       0.007       0.008
sys         0.005       0.000       0.004       0.005       0.006

I noticed this when trying out 20.1-dev jdk8 with babashka, a scripting tool made with GraalVM. On GraalVM 19.3.0 java8 it has a startup time of around 14ms, but when I was trying GraalVM 20.1-dev it became 24ms which is 10ms slower.

$ export GRAALVM_HOME=/Users/borkdude/Downloads/graalvm-ce-java8-19.3.0/Contents/Home
$ script/compile 
$ multitime -n100 ./bb '(System/getProperty "java.vm.version")'

===> multitime results
1: ./bb "(System/getProperty \"java.vm.version\")"
            Mean        Std.Dev.    Min         Median      Max
real        0.014       0.001       0.012       0.014       0.016
user        0.005       0.000       0.004       0.005       0.006
sys         0.006       0.001       0.004       0.006       0.008

$ export GRAALVM_HOME=/Users/borkdude/Downloads/graalvm-ce-java8-20.1.0-dev/Contents/Home
$ script/compile 
$ multitime -n100 ./bb '(System/getProperty "java.vm.version")'

===> multitime results
1: ./bb "(System/getProperty \"java.vm.version\")"
            Mean        Std.Dev.    Min         Median      Max
real        0.024       0.002       0.018       0.024       0.026
user        0.011       0.001       0.008       0.011       0.011
sys         0.010       0.001       0.007       0.010       0.012

To build babashka:

$ git clone https://github.com/borkdude/babashka --recursive

Install lein, a Clojure build tool.

Set GRAALVM_HOME to either 19 or 20 with java8.

Then run script/compile (on linux or macos).

This will produce a bb executable.

[borkdude]

This does not seem to be the case on linux, so it seems to be mac specific:

On linux:

19:

1: ./bb -e "(+ 1 2 3)"
            Mean        Std.Dev.    Min         Median      Max
real        0.015       0.010       0.005       0.010       0.035       
user        0.008       0.006       0.000       0.006       0.023       
sys         0.008       0.007       0.000       0.005       0.031      

20:

1: ./bb -e "(+ 1 2 3)"
            Mean        Std.Dev.    Min         Median      Max
real        0.014       0.009       0.006       0.010       0.037       
user        0.006       0.005       0.000       0.005       0.024       
sys         0.008       0.006       0.000       0.006       0.027  

This data was provided to me by @sogaiu.

[olpaw]

@borkdude thanks for your bug report. I will take a look.

[borkdude]

@olpaw I re-tested with the newly released 20.0.0 java8 version, but the problem is still there. If it helps, this is an uberjar of babashka:

https://github.com/borkdude/babashka/releases/download/v0.0.70/babashka-0.0.70-standalone.jar

It is provided which each new release:

https://github.com/borkdude/babashka/releases

This is the part of the compilation script using that jar:

if [ -z "$BABASHKA_XMX" ]; then
    export BABASHKA_XMX="-J-Xmx3g"
fi

$BABASHKA_VERSION=0.0.70

$GRAALVM_HOME/bin/native-image \
  -jar target/babashka-$BABASHKA_VERSION-standalone.jar \
  -H:Name=bb \
  -H:+ReportExceptionStackTraces \
  -J-Dclojure.spec.skip-macros=true \
  -J-Dclojure.compiler.direct-linking=true \
  "-H:IncludeResources=BABASHKA_VERSION" \
  "-H:IncludeResources=SCI_VERSION" \
  -H:ReflectionConfigurationFiles=reflection.json \
  --initialize-at-run-time=java.lang.Math\$RandomNumberGeneratorHolder \
  --initialize-at-build-time \
  -H:Log=registerResource: \
  -H:EnableURLProtocols=http,https \
  --enable-all-security-services \
  -H:+JNI \
  --verbose \
  --no-fallback \
  --no-server \
  "$BABASHKA_XMX"

[borkdude]

@olpaw Some additional data related to general performance, not only startup time.

With 20.0.0-java8 on macOS:

$ time ./bb "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
1000000
./bb    1.98s  user 0.10s system 99% cpu 2.089 total

With 19.3.1-java8 on macOS:

$ time ./bb "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
1000000
./bb    1.59s  user 0.08s system 99% cpu 1.676 total

That's a 25% loss in performance for v20.

[borkdude]

On linux the performance on version 20-java8 is slightly worse (6%) but not as noticeable as with macOS:

19.3.1:
$ multitime -n10 -s1 -q ./bb "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
===> multitime results
1: -q ./bb "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
            Mean        Std.Dev.    Min         Median      Max
real        1.785       0.037       1.737       1.780       1.873       
user        1.709       0.039       1.653       1.716       1.797       
sys         0.076       0.015       0.040       0.080       0.092    
12:44 AM

20.0.0:
$ multitime -n10 -s1 -q ./bb "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
===> multitime results
1: -q ./bb "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
            Mean        Std.Dev.    Min         Median      Max
real        1.897       0.055       1.837       1.872       1.988       
user        1.819       0.044       1.762       1.800       1.889       
sys         0.078       0.015       0.052       0.078       0.100  

This data was provided by @sogaiu who uses linux.

[olpaw]

With 20.0.0-java8 on macOS

Thanks for checking with latest releases!

[olpaw]

Atm, this is my prime subject:

> otool -L hellojava_19.3.1 
hellojava_19.3.1:
    /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1252.200.5)
    /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation (compatibility version 150.0.0, current version 1535.12.0)
    /usr/lib/libz.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.2.11)
> otool -L hellojava_latest 
hellojava_latest:
    /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/CoreServices (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 921.2.0)
    /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1252.200.5)
    /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation (compatibility version 150.0.0, current version 1535.12.0)
    /usr/lib/libz.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.2.11)

We are now additionally dynamically linking to CoreServices and this likely adds to the startup time.

[olpaw]

Yep, that's it. If I comment out https://github.com/oracle/graal/blob/9a53453d5528e04dcc9bf8895705c62c5a74c4c7/substratevm/src/com.oracle.svm.hosted/src/com/oracle/svm/hosted/jdk/JNIRegistrationJava.java#L139 I'm back to the startup characteristics of 19.3.1.

While we cannot fully eliminate this dynamic dependency we could make the dependency conditional on actual requirement instead of unconditional linking. @eginez please take this one from here and implement the conditional linking so that we only have to pay for the increased startup time if we actually need it.

[borkdude]

@olpaw That's good news! Is this also the cause of the general performance regression of about 25% on macOS? https://github.com/oracle/graal/issues/2136#issuecomment-587941241

[eginez]

That makes sense, we had it conditionally linked before if I recall correctly. I'll issue a fix for this , thanks @olpaw and @borkdude

[olpaw]

@borkdude most likely yes. I only tested with a trivial hello world that does nothing except startup. Your examples with babashka are actually doing a bit of work so pure startup is mixed with actual work that would likely water down the effect of increased startup overhead.

[borkdude]

@olpaw That's true, but the "general performance" I was referring to later was not about startup (although this issue reported that as the first thing and it's already if that can be fixed). A loop with a 1000000 iterations takes 25% longer on macOS 20-java8 (1.98s) than macOS 19.3.1-java8 (1.59s).

[olpaw]

@borkdude tomorrow I will take a look at your bb data by building it locally with the recipe you provide in https://github.com/oracle/graal/issues/2136#issuecomment-587865438

[olpaw]

@borkdude I cannot reproduce your +25% against master:

paul@pauls-iMac:~/OLabs/bb/babashka-0.0.70> time ./bb_old "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
1000000

real    0m1.556s
user    0m1.403s
sys 0m0.144s
paul@pauls-iMac:~/OLabs/bb/babashka-0.0.70> time ./bb_old "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
1000000

real    0m1.616s
user    0m1.429s
sys 0m0.180s
paul@pauls-iMac:~/OLabs/bb/babashka-0.0.70> time ./bb_old "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
1000000

real    0m1.562s
user    0m1.387s
sys 0m0.170s
paul@pauls-iMac:~/OLabs/bb/babashka-0.0.70> time ./bb "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
1000000

real    0m1.614s
user    0m1.411s
sys 0m0.200s
paul@pauls-iMac:~/OLabs/bb/babashka-0.0.70> time ./bb "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
1000000

real    0m1.583s
user    0m1.421s
sys 0m0.150s
paul@pauls-iMac:~/OLabs/bb/babashka-0.0.70> time ./bb "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
1000000

real    0m1.573s
user    0m1.416s
sys 0m0.148s

where bb_old is built with graalvm-ce-java8-19.3.1 and bb with master

babashka-0.0.70> strings bb | grep -p '^com.oracle.svm.core.VM.*='
com.oracle.svm.core.VM.Target.CCompiler=clang|apple|x86_64|10.0.1
com.oracle.svm.core.VM.Target.StaticLibraries=libnet.a|libzip.a|libjava.a|libnio.a|libsunec.a|libffi.a|liblibchelper.a|libstrictmath.a|libjvm.a
com.oracle.svm.core.VM.Target.Platform=org.graalvm.nativeimage.Platform$DARWIN_AMD64
com.oracle.svm.core.VM.Target.LibC=com.oracle.svm.core.c.libc.GLibc
com.oracle.svm.core.VM=GraalVM 20.1.0-dev Java 8 LIBGRAAL
com.oracle.svm.core.VM.Target.Libraries=-framework CoreServices|stdc++|pthread|-framework CoreFoundation|dl|z

[borkdude]

@olpaw That sounds promising. But were you able to reproduce it against the released version 20 java8 macOS? I don't know the relation between the master branch and that release.

[olpaw]

You are right 20.0 binaries are a tad slower

paul@pauls-iMac:~/OLabs/bb/babashka-0.0.70> time ./bb_10.0 "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
1000000

real    0m1.610s
user    0m1.456s
sys 0m0.151s
paul@pauls-iMac:~/OLabs/bb/babashka-0.0.70> time ./bb_10.0 "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
1000000

real    0m1.625s
user    0m1.448s
sys 0m0.175s
paul@pauls-iMac:~/OLabs/bb/babashka-0.0.70> time ./bb_10.0 "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
1000000

real    0m1.619s
user    0m1.434s
sys 0m0.182s
paul@pauls-iMac:~/OLabs/bb/babashka-0.0.70> time ./bb_master "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
1000000

real    0m1.576s
user    0m1.419s
sys 0m0.151s
paul@pauls-iMac:~/OLabs/bb/babashka-0.0.70> time ./bb_master "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
1000000

real    0m1.576s
user    0m1.418s
sys 0m0.156s
paul@pauls-iMac:~/OLabs/bb/babashka-0.0.70> time ./bb_master "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
1000000

real    0m1.577s
user    0m1.400s
sys 0m0.172s

Whatever it was I cannot reproduce on master thus it will be fixed in 20.1.

[borkdude]

Thank you! I'll keep an eye on the dev releases here https://github.com/graalvm/graalvm-ce-dev-builds/releases.

[olpaw]

Yup. Wait for the next GraalVM CE 20.1.0-dev release and let me know if you can confirm my test results from my local graalvm build from master.

[borkdude]

@olpaw I just realized that the recipe I gave above with the .jar file also requires a reflection.json. I forgot to give you that. In case that may influence the performance, I'll paste it here anyway. I assume you compiled with an empty reflection.json just to make the build work? Maybe also try this one, if it's not too much to ask. reflection.json.zip.

[borkdude]

@olpaw I'm not able to reproduce the "general performance" problem anymore. The reflection.json doesn't seem to have an impact.

Compiled with "empty" reflection.json: []

$ time ./bb "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
1000000
./bb    1.53s  user 0.08s system 99% cpu 1.614 total

Compiled with full reflection.json:

$ ./bb '(System/getProperty "java.vm.version")'
"GraalVM 20.0.0 CE"

$ time ./bb "(loop [val 0 cnt 1000000] (if (pos? cnt) (recur (inc val) (dec cnt)) val))"
1000000
./bb    1.58s  user 0.09s system 99% cpu 1.677 total

So please ignore my previous message. I don't know what caused the issue at the time of my initial reproduction of the second issue, I might have been making a mistake somewhere. Sorry to waste your time on the second issue. I'm glad everything is sorted out now. Thanks a lot!

[olpaw]

@olpaw I just realized that the recipe I gave above with the .jar file also requires a reflection.json. I forgot to give you that.

No worries, I ran a full build with lein (thus I had reflection.json in place).

BTW, if you put your reflection configuration instead into a file named reflect-config.json somewhere below META-INF/native-image it will automatically get picked up and also become part of the jar itself. Thus the result of your image building will not depend on external files anymore. See https://github.com/graalvm/graalvm-demos/tree/master/native-image-configure-examples/configure-at-runtime-example/src/main/resources/META-INF/native-image/org.graalvm.nativeimage/configure-at-runtime-example for an example.

[eginez]

@borkdude, @olpaw commits a conditional linking for core services https://github.com/oracle/graal/commit/aa9769b5ddbcd906dd326cfcc5b25790f3cc2aa1 which should help with the performance

[borkdude]

Thanks. I'll test this once a new dev release comes out. I'm assuming that will be based on the master branch.

[borkdude]

@eginez @olpaw I tested babashka with the new Darwin dev release from https://github.com/graalvm/graalvm-ce-dev-builds/releases/download/20.1.0-dev-20200304_0848/graalvm-ce-java8-darwin-amd64-20.1.0-dev.tar.gz.

I'm still seeing the same slowdown as compared to 19.3.1.

GraalVM CE 20.1.0-dev-20200304_0848 Darwin java 8:

$ multitime -n100 -s0 ./bb -e 'nil'
===> multitime results
1: ./bb -e nil
            Mean        Std.Dev.    Min         Median      Max
real        0.024       0.011       0.021       0.022       0.133
user        0.010       0.001       0.009       0.010       0.015
sys         0.008       0.003       0.007       0.008       0.033

19.3.1 Darwin java 8:

$ multitime -n100 -s0 /usr/local/bin/bb -e 'nil'
===> multitime results
1: /usr/local/bin/bb -e nil
            Mean        Std.Dev.    Min         Median      Max
real        0.013       0.001       0.013       0.013       0.017
user        0.005       0.000       0.004       0.005       0.006
sys         0.005       0.001       0.004       0.005       0.008

[olpaw]

That can only mean your application uses one of the methods defined in https://github.com/oracle/graal/blob/d3d82d1f23b0d2b584a7d36ea5632dcbe450c6e6/substratevm/src/com.oracle.svm.hosted/src/com/oracle/svm/hosted/jdk/JNIRegistrationJava.java#L152 and therefore depends on CoreServices. Using -H:+PrintAnalysisCallTree should be able to show you what causes one of theses methods to end up in your application. @borkdude can you attach the output of reports/call_tree_native-image_*.txt when you build bb.

[borkdude]

@olpaw This file is +400MB unzipped, 37MB zipped, but too big according to Github to upload here. I am hosting it on my Dropbox now here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hja2zwjtttcnbks/call_tree_bb_20200304_140919.txt.zip?dl=0

[olpaw]

@borkdude there are many places where the static analysis sees potential calls to one of the methods listed in https://github.com/oracle/graal/issues/2136#issuecomment-594474124

A lot of the reachabilities can be blamed on the inaccuracies of our static analysis. Currently the analysis is context insensitive and drags in methods just because they are reachable from some method that is reachable from some Runnable implementation. See e.g. the whole subtree of java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged. The CoreServices triggering DefaultProxySelector.getSystemProxy e.g. gets reachable via this inaccuracy.

I do not have a good idea what to do here other than providing substitutions and @Delete classes/methods that you do not want to have in your image and that you know that you will not need at runtime. @christianwimmer any ideas?

[borkdude]

Maybe another fix would be to opt out of the dynamic loading of the keychain library (at the penalty of a runtime error)?

[christianwimmer]

I don't think we can do much on this issue. The problem is the inefficiency of the Apple dynamic linker/loader.

[borkdude]

Due to impreciseness of the static analyzer the exact same applications become slower by upgrading from 19.3.1 to 20 because the binary ends up dynamically linking a library that isn't even used. Is this acceptable? I think one of the goals of GraalVM native-image is to have the best startup time possible?

[christianwimmer]

Yes, startup time is important, but correctness can of course never be compromised. You are correct that a more precise static analysis could detect that, but our current context insensitive analysis it too limited.

[borkdude]

@christianwimmer @olpaw @eginez @thomaswue

What about having a setting of forcibly opting out of dynamic linking of certain libraries (with the responsibility of any runtime errors being on the person who uses these options) to improve startup time in case the static analyzer is too broad?

[christianwimmer]

I don't think 10 ms startup time (on MacOS only) are worth the risk of strange linking errors later at run time.

[borkdude]

The problem is the inefficiency of the Apple dynamic linker/loader.

Thanks for putting time into this. I hope the Apple people can improve their dynamic linking speed.

[eginez]

No worries thanks for working with us. I am closing this issue for now

[thomaswue]

The suggested manual substitutions to "help" the static analysis until we further improve it should be a possible workaround?

[borkdude]

@thomaswue I'd like to try this idea but I have no idea where to start. Can I find any docs on this and which methods should I mark as @Delete?

[olpaw]

Can I find any docs on this and which methods should I mark as @Delete?

I would start with something like

import org.graalvm.nativeimage.Platform;
import org.graalvm.nativeimage.Platforms;
import com.oracle.svm.core.annotate.TargetClass;
import com.oracle.svm.core.annotate.Delete;

public final class CutOffCoreServicesDependencies {
}

@Platforms(Platform.DARWIN.class)
@TargetClass(className = "sun.net.spi.DefaultProxySelector")
@Delete
final class Target_sun_net_spi_DefaultProxySelector {
}

@Platforms(Platform.DARWIN.class)
@TargetClass(className = "apple.security.KeychainStore")
@Delete
final class Target_apple_security_KeychainStore {
}

If this is too aggressive and breaks building (because reports/call_tree_native-image_*.txt shows situations where the deleted classes are referenced for a reason (i.e. not due to analysis imprecision)) then you have to cut off (or substitute) branches on a more fine granular (@Delete or @Substitute on methods) level. If you grep for these annotations in our repo you will find pleny of examples.

To javac the above snippet you will need to have svm.jar on you classpath (contains com.oracle.svm.core.annotate):

$GRAALVM_HOME/bin/javac -cp $GRAALVM_HOME/lib/svm/builder/svm.jar CutOffCoreServicesDependencies.java
# or on 8:
$GRAALVM_HOME/bin/javac -cp $GRAALVM_HOME/jre/lib/svm/builder/svm.jar CutOffCoreServicesDependencies.java

Caveat emptor, ...

[borkdude]

Follow up:

With the above Java code the startup time was fixed:

$ multitime -n100 -s0 ./bb -e 'nil'
===> multitime results
1: ./bb -e nil
            Mean        Std.Dev.    Min         Median      Max
real        0.013       0.000       0.013       0.013       0.016
user        0.005       0.000       0.005       0.005       0.005
sys         0.006       0.001       0.004       0.006       0.008

I had to add the flag --report-unsupported-elements-at-runtime to get it to compile, but a lot of my unit tests broke with the error message:

Unsupported method sun.net.spi.DefaultProxySelector.select(URI) is reachable

I have a good set of unit tests and additionally I test babashka with a selection of libraries that are supposed to work with them.

Adding the sun.net.spi.DefaultProxySelector back, while only "deleting" apple.security.KeychainStore got me the desired results:

• startup time restored to normal
• unit tests all work
• library tests all work

I still need the flag --report-unsupported-elements-at-runtime probably due to the analyzer ending up discovering that apple.security.KeychainStore is used, while it's probably not used for anything.

Note to self:

I had to add:

["/Users/borkdude/Downloads/graalvm-ce-java8-20.1.0-dev/Contents/Home//jre/lib/boot/graal-sdk.jar"
"/Users/borkdude/Downloads/graalvm-ce-java8-20.1.0-dev/Contents/Home//jre/lib/svm/builder/svm.jar"]

to the classpath to get it to compile.

Thanks for all the help.

[borkdude]

@olpaw Would it be an idea to have an option to turn:

error:com.oracle.svm.hosted.substitute.DeletedElementException: Unsupported type apple.security.KeychainStore is reachable

into a warning so I won't need the --report-unsupported-elements-at-runtime flag? I mean, I already know the KeychainStore is reachable, that's the reason why I added a @Delete annotation, but I would still like to get exceptions for other classes maybe?

[olpaw]

I mean, I already know the KeychainStore is reachable, that's the reason why I added a @Delete annotation

Think about all the other @Delete annotations we have. Usually we want a user to know when a build makes something reachable that we cannot support. What you suggest would be something else. Like @Delete(strict = false). Community contributions are welcome :-) cc @christianwimmer

[borkdude]

@olpaw Alternatively there could be an option --report-unsupported-elements-at-build-time that can be used together with --report-unsupported-elements-at-runtime. If the flag is provided, GraalVM could emit the unsupported classes to a file or stdout, while still not crashing (the name of the flag probably needs some thought).

[borkdude]

@olpaw Despite the fix with substitutions in https://github.com/oracle/graal/issues/2136#issuecomment-595688524 I'm now back to where we started with the dev build https://github.com/graalvm/graalvm-ce-dev-builds/releases/tag/20.2.0-dev-20200423_0149.

When compiling with the new dev-build I'm seeing a startup of around 28ms instead of 13ms and that a lot more dynamic libraries are loaded compared to compiling with 19.3.1:

19.3.1:

$ otool -L /usr/local/bin/bb
/usr/local/bin/bb:
    /usr/lib/libc++.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 307.5.0)
    /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1238.60.2)
    /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation (compatibility version 150.0.0, current version 1349.8.0)
    /usr/lib/libz.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.2.8)

Dev build:

$ otool -L bb
bb:
    /usr/lib/libc++.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 400.9.4)
    /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1252.250.1)
    /System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Versions/C/Foundation (compatibility version 300.0.0, current version 1575.17.0)
    /usr/lib/libz.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.2.11)
    /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation (compatibility version 150.0.0, current version 1575.17.0)
    /usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 228.0.0)

Can I prevent this somehow, if I'm not interested in these libraries, to still get good startup time on macOS?

Another issue I found is that the binary with the new dev build is around 6MB larger. For what reason?

[olpaw]

We figured out that /usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib is needed on OSX. @eginez knows more about that.

[borkdude]

@eginez I'd like to learn more about the reason why this was needed. So far I haven't seen any problems with babashka on 19.3.1 on macOS where the library wasn't loaded. Is it maybe possible to opt out of loading certain dynamic libraries at the cost of errors (on the person who chooses to opt out) to restore startup time in macOS? Adding more dynamic libraries adds tens of milliseconds of startup time, is the end of this in sight?

[eginez]

To be honest I don't recall any previous change bringing in libobjc directly. However we did decide to increate the size of the image in order to properly support time zones. 6Mb though does not sound correct and we would have take a look at why libobjc is getting linked in

[eginez]

Ok I took some time today to analyze some of the variation. I built bb with

• 19.3.1
  • 20.2 commit c55645f8d3ff3695543dcf7dc5fc07fbd090b58f
  • master commit 991e9f43c64b7bf7a9f71d14e2ffb72f926b7433
  • revert a custom build reverting suspicious recent additions: 03d7d0cb244941f1a2835844b9889bb3d06b003a, and 5c5417b7959d82d3b972fca6a1d5c37622b8b532

Below the results

➜  babashka git:(master) ✗ for i in `ls bb-*`
do
multitime -n100 -s0 ./$i -e 'nil'
echo -Size-
bsz=`stat -f "%z" bb-19.3.1`
sz=`stat -f "%z" $i`
diff=$(echo $sz - $bsz|bc)
printf '%s\t\t%s\t%s\n' $i $sz $diff
otool -L $i
done
===> multitime results
1: ./bb-19.3.1 -e nil
            Mean        Std.Dev.    Min         Median      Max
real        0.010       0.005       0.008       0.010       0.061
user        0.004       0.000       0.003       0.004       0.004
sys         0.004       0.001       0.003       0.004       0.009
-Size-
bb-19.3.1       48145656    0
bb-19.3.1:
    /usr/lib/libc++.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 800.7.0)
    /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1281.0.0)
    /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation (compatibility version 150.0.0, current version 1673.126.0)
    /usr/lib/libz.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.2.11)
===> multitime results
1: ./bb-20.2.0 -e nil
            Mean        Std.Dev.    Min         Median      Max
real        0.014       0.000       0.013       0.013       0.015
user        0.006       0.000       0.006       0.006       0.006
sys         0.005       0.000       0.005       0.005       0.006
-Size-
bb-20.2.0       54356548    6210892
bb-20.2.0:
    /usr/lib/libc++.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 800.7.0)
    /System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Versions/C/Foundation (compatibility version 300.0.0, current version 1673.126.0)
    /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1281.0.0)
    /usr/lib/libz.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.2.11)
    /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation (compatibility version 150.0.0, current version 1673.126.0)
    /usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 228.0.0)
===> multitime results
1: ./bb-master -e nil
            Mean        Std.Dev.    Min         Median      Max
real        0.012       0.008       0.011       0.011       0.097
user        0.005       0.000       0.005       0.005       0.006
sys         0.005       0.001       0.004       0.004       0.013
-Size-
bb-master       54356564    6210908
bb-master:
    /usr/lib/libc++.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 800.7.0)
    /System/Library/Frameworks/Foundation.framework/Versions/C/Foundation (compatibility version 300.0.0, current version 1673.126.0)
    /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1281.0.0)
    /usr/lib/libz.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.2.11)
    /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation (compatibility version 150.0.0, current version 1673.126.0)
    /usr/lib/libobjc.A.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 228.0.0)
===> multitime results
1: ./bb-reverts -e nil
            Mean        Std.Dev.    Min         Median      Max
real        0.010       0.000       0.009       0.010       0.013
user        0.004       0.000       0.004       0.004       0.005
sys         0.004       0.000       0.004       0.004       0.005
-Size-
bb-reverts      54160544    6014888
bb-reverts:
    /usr/lib/libc++.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 800.7.0)
    /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Versions/A/CoreFoundation (compatibility version 150.0.0, current version 1673.126.0)
    /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1281.0.0)
    /usr/lib/libz.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.2.11)

Some observations

• I did not witness a 28ms run-time for this particular work load in any of the builds.
• When the Foundation and the objc runtime libraries were removed the runtime did increase(barely).
• The size of the binary has increased as you noticed however at this time is still unclear what is the root cause given that reverting the suspicious commits did not have a impact on that

[eginez]

@loicottet can probably expand on the need for 5c5417b. To investigate the size @borkdude I'd like to run a git bisect to see if I can find a probable cause. On your earlier comment(https://github.com/oracle/graal/issues/2136#issuecomment-595814343) it seems like you successfully created a build that was considered good using an snapshot build of 20.1 would you be able to provide the git hash of such build? (found in $GRAALVM_HOME/Contents/Home/release)

[eginez]

Ok I actually ran git bisect with the range starting with the commit from 19.3.1 and ending in master and I found what seems to be the issue causing the increase: https://github.com/oracle/graal/commit/9d5ce43fbb2093ab2d8d76e38b3266a91c59815d Load classes and resources for 'javax.xml.*'. I confirmed that is actually the problem by disabling this feature https://github.com/oracle/graal/blob/0ee434c01b4fac9403d8c988f13041af8394467c/substratevm/src/com.oracle.svm.hosted/src/com/oracle/svm/hosted/xml/JavaxXmlClassAndResourcesLoaderFeature.java and on that build the size

➜  babashka git:(master) ✗ stat -f "%z" bb
46696340

@arodionov I know you have been working on this feature, is there something we can do minimize the impact on the image size

[olpaw]

@eginez thanks a lot for investigating!