There is a high likelyhood that `rb_obj_fields` is called
consecutively for the same object.
If we keep a cache of the last IMEMO/fields we interacted with,
we can save having to lookup the `gen_fields_tbl`, synchronize
the VM lock, etc.
On yjit-bench's, I instrumented the hit rate of this cache at:
- `shipit`: 38%, with 111k hits.
- `lobsters`: 59%, with 367k hits.
- `rubocop`: 100% with only 300 hits.
I also ran a micro-benchmark which shows that ivar access is:
- 1.25x faster when the cache is hit in single ractor mode.
- 2x faster when the cache is hit in multi ractor mode.
- 1.06x slower when the cache miss in single ractor mode.
- 1.01x slower when the cache miss in multi ractor mode.
```yml
prelude: |
class GenIvar < Array
def initialize(...)
super
@iv = 1
end
attr_reader :iv
end
a = GenIvar.new
b = GenIvar.new
benchmark:
hit: a.iv; a.iv; a.iv; a.iv; a.iv; a.iv; a.iv; a.iv; a.iv; a.iv; a.iv; a.iv; a.iv; a.iv; a.iv; a.iv; a.iv; a.iv; a.iv; a.iv;
miss: a.iv; b.iv; a.iv; b.iv; a.iv; b.iv; a.iv; b.iv; a.iv; b.iv; a.iv; b.iv; a.iv; b.iv; a.iv; b.iv; a.iv; b.iv; a.iv; b.iv;
```
Single ractor:
```
compare-ruby: ruby 3.5.0dev (2025-08-12T02:14:57Z master 428937a536) +YJIT +PRISM [arm64-darwin24]
built-ruby: ruby 3.5.0dev (2025-08-12T09:25:35Z gen-fields-cache 9456c35893) +YJIT +PRISM [arm64-darwin24]
warming up..
| |compare-ruby|built-ruby|
|:-----|-----------:|---------:|
|hit | 4.090M| 5.121M|
| | -| 1.25x|
|miss | 3.756M| 3.534M|
| | 1.06x| -|
```
Multi-ractor:
```
compare-ruby: ruby 3.5.0dev (2025-08-12T02:14:57Z master 428937a536) +YJIT +PRISM [arm64-darwin24]
built-ruby: ruby 3.5.0dev (2025-08-12T09:25:35Z gen-fields-cache 9456c35893) +YJIT +PRISM [arm64-darwin24]
warming up..
| |compare-ruby|built-ruby|
|:-----|-----------:|---------:|
|hit | 2.205M| 4.460M|
| | -| 2.02x|
|miss | 2.117M| 2.094M|
| | 1.01x| -|
```
It is much more convenient than storing the klass, especially
when dealing with `object_id` as it allows to update the id2ref
table without having to dereference the owner, which may be
garbage at that point.
Similar to f3206cc79b but for TypedData.
It's quite common for TypedData objects to have a mix of reference in
their struct and some ivars.
Since we do happen to have 8B free in the RtypedData struct, we could
use it to keep a direct reference to the IMEMO/fields saving having
to synchronize the VM and lookup the `gen_fields_tbl` on every ivar
access.
For old school Data classes however, we don't have free space, but
this API is soft-deprecated and no longer very common.
It's not rare for structs to have additional ivars, hence are one
of the most common, if not the most common type in the `gen_fields_tbl`.
This can cause Ractor contention, but even in single ractor mode
means having to do a hash lookup to access the ivars, and increase
GC work.
Instead, unless the struct is perfectly right sized, we can store
a reference to the associated IMEMO/fields object right after the
last struct member.
```
compare-ruby: ruby 3.5.0dev (2025-08-06T12:50:36Z struct-ivar-fields-2 9a30d141a1) +PRISM [arm64-darwin24]
built-ruby: ruby 3.5.0dev (2025-08-06T12:57:59Z struct-ivar-fields-2 2ff3ec237f) +PRISM [arm64-darwin24]
warming up.....
| |compare-ruby|built-ruby|
|:---------------------|-----------:|---------:|
|member_reader | 590.317k| 579.246k|
| | 1.02x| -|
|member_writer | 543.963k| 527.104k|
| | 1.03x| -|
|member_reader_method | 213.540k| 213.004k|
| | 1.00x| -|
|member_writer_method | 192.657k| 191.491k|
| | 1.01x| -|
|ivar_reader | 403.993k| 569.915k|
| | -| 1.41x|
```
Co-Authored-By: Étienne Barrié <etienne.barrie@gmail.com>
There's a global id_table `rb_global_tbl` that needs a lock (I used VM lock). In the future, we might use a lock-free rb_id_table if we create such a data structure.
Reproduction script that might crash or behave strangely:
```ruby
100.times do
Ractor.new do
1_000_000.times do
$stderr
$stdout
$stdin
$VERBOSE
$stderr
$stdout
$stdin
$VERBOSE
$stderr
$stdout
$stdin
$VERBOSE
end
end
end
$myglobal0 = nil;
$myglobal1 = nil;
# ... vim macros to the rescue
$myglobal100000 = nil;
```
We were creating a new fields object, and then inserting into it without
a write barrier.
OpenSSL::TestSSL#test_tlsext_hostname
WBCHECK ERROR: Missed write barrier detected!
Parent object: 0x7ce8b3a390c0 (wb_protected: true)
rb_obj_info_dump: 0x00007ce8b3a390c0 T_IMEMO/<fields>
Reference counts - snapshot: 1, writebarrier: 1, current: 4, missed: 2
Missing reference to: 0x7c08b4110750
rb_obj_info_dump: 0x00007c08b4110750 OpenSSL/X509/OpenSSL::X509::Certificate OpenSSL/X509
Missing reference to: 0x7c08b4128dd0
rb_obj_info_dump: 0x00007c08b4128dd0 OpenSSL/EVP_PKEY/OpenSSL::PKey::RSA OpenSSL/EVP_PKEY
The `FL_FREEZE` flag is redundant with `SHAPE_ID_FL_FROZEN`, so
ideally it should be eliminated in favor of the later.
Doing so would eliminate the risk of desync between the two, but
also solve the problem of the frozen status being global in namespace
context (See Bug #21330).
Followup: https://github.com/ruby/ruby/pull/13589
This simplify a lot of things, as we no longer need to manually
manage the memory, we can use the Read-Copy-Update pattern and
avoid numerous race conditions.
Co-Authored-By: Étienne Barrié <etienne.barrie@gmail.com>
Previously we were performing a realloc and then inserting the new value
into the table. If the table was flagged as requiring a rebuild, this
could trigger GC work and marking within that GC could access the fields
freed by realloc.
[Bug #21438]
Previously GC could trigger a table rebuild of the generic fields
st_table in the middle of calling the st_update callback. This could
cause entries to be reallocated or rearranged and the update to be for
the wrong entry.
This commit adds an assertion to make that case easier to detect, and
replaces the st_update with a separate st_lookup and st_insert.
Co-authored-by: Aaron Patterson <tenderlove@ruby-lang.org>
Co-authored-by: Jean Boussier <byroot@ruby-lang.org>
The FL_EXIVAR is a bit redundant with the shape_id.
Now that the `shape_id` is embedded in all objects on all archs,
we can cheaply check if an object has any fields with a simple
bitmask.
Now that class fields have been deletated to a T_IMEMO/class_fields
when we're in multi-ractor mode, we can read and write class instance
variable in an atomic way using Read-Copy-Update (RCU).
Note when in multi-ractor mode, we always use RCU. In theory
we don't need to, instead if we ensured the field is written
before the shape is updated it would be safe.
Benchmark:
```ruby
Warning[:experimental] = false
class Foo
@foo = 1
@bar = 2
@baz = 3
@egg = 4
@spam = 5
class << self
attr_reader :foo, :bar, :baz, :egg, :spam
end
end
ractors = 8.times.map do
Ractor.new do
1_000_000.times do
Foo.bar + Foo.baz * Foo.egg - Foo.spam
end
end
end
if Ractor.method_defined?(:value)
ractors.each(&:value)
else
ractors.each(&:take)
end
```
This branch vs Ruby 3.4:
```bash
$ hyperfine -w 1 'ruby --disable-all ../test.rb' './miniruby ../test.rb'
Benchmark 1: ruby --disable-all ../test.rb
Time (mean ± σ): 3.162 s ± 0.071 s [User: 2.783 s, System: 10.809 s]
Range (min … max): 3.093 s … 3.337 s 10 runs
Benchmark 2: ./miniruby ../test.rb
Time (mean ± σ): 208.7 ms ± 4.6 ms [User: 889.7 ms, System: 6.9 ms]
Range (min … max): 202.8 ms … 222.0 ms 14 runs
Summary
./miniruby ../test.rb ran
15.15 ± 0.47 times faster than ruby --disable-all ../test.rb
```
This behave almost exactly as a T_OBJECT, the layout is entirely
compatible.
This aims to solve two problems.
First, it solves the problem of namspaced classes having
a single `shape_id`. Now each namespaced classext
has an object that can hold the namespace specific
shape.
Second, it open the door to later make class instance variable
writes atomics, hence be able to read class variables
without locking the VM.
In the future, in multi-ractor mode, we can do the write
on a copy of the `fields_obj` and then atomically swap it.
Considerations:
- Right now the `RClass` shape_id is always synchronized,
but with namespace we should likely mark classes that have
multiple namespace with a specific shape flag.
The type isn't opaque because Ruby isn't often compiled with LTO,
so for optimization purpose it's better to allow as much inlining
as possible.
However ideally only `shape.c` and `shape.h` should deal with
the actual struct, and everything else should just deal with opaque
`shape_id_t`.
This data is redundant because the shape already contains both the
length and capacity of the object's fields.
So it both waste space and create the possibility of a desync between
the two.
We also do not need to initialize everything to Qundef, this seem
to be a left-over from pre-shape instance variables.
Instead `shape_id_t` higher bits contain flags, and the first one
tells whether the shape is frozen.
This has multiple benefits:
- Can check if a shape is frozen with a single bit check instead of
dereferencing a pointer.
- Guarantees it is always possible to transition to frozen.
- This allow reclaiming `FL_FREEZE` (not done yet).
The downside is you have to be careful to preserve these flags
when transitioning.
