I have modified the test to allow -DusePreciseClock=true to be passed in. When 
I set it to true and run it in JDK 16 the test passes!  However, I tried 3 
versions of JDK 11 and it failed in all of them.

Ralph

> On Apr 2, 2021, at 2:54 PM, Ralph Goers <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> I just tried adding logic to call SystemClock.init() 100,000 times. It made 
> no difference. The GC test still fails.
> 
> Ralph
> 
>> On Apr 2, 2021, at 7:18 AM, Carter Kozak <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>> Escape analysis can take quite a few iterations to take effect, perhaps we 
>> need a few more tens of thousands of warmup cycles? Admittedly I haven't 
>> taken a look at the failures yet and there's a great deal of subtlety around 
>> this. I can try to take a closer look later, unfortunately I've been 
>> overwhelmed lately.
>> 
>> On Fri, Apr 2, 2021, at 03:59, Ralph Goers wrote:
>>> Looking at the source repo I don’t see anything that changed after support 
>>> for the higher precision was added.
>>> 
>>> Ralph
>>> 
>>>> On Apr 2, 2021, at 12:44 AM, Ralph Goers <[email protected] 
>>>> <mailto:ralph.goers%40dslextreme.com>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Yes, I was just thinking that. But if there was a bug fix along the way 
>>>> that added a single line of code that could now be causing the code not to 
>>>> be inlined.
>>>> 
>>>> Ralph
>>>> 
>>>>> On Apr 2, 2021, at 12:38 AM, Remko Popma <[email protected] 
>>>>> <mailto:remko.popma%40gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Fri, Apr 2, 2021 at 4:26 PM Ralph Goers <[email protected] 
>>>>> <mailto:ralph.goers%40dslextreme.com>>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> I will take a look at the link. What you are saying makes sense to a
>>>>>> degree. However, the new is actually performed in Instant.create() which 
>>>>>> is
>>>>>> 2 levels down in the call stack. Without having read the link I would
>>>>>> wonder if that qualifies.
>>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> That is at the code level, yes. But these get inlined when called
>>>>> sufficiently often.
>>>>> So it is difficult to reason about what is eligible for escape analysis
>>>>> just from the code...
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Ralph
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On Apr 2, 2021, at 12:00 AM, Remko Popma <[email protected] 
>>>>>>> <mailto:remko.popma%40gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> My understanding is that PreciseClock is garbage-free because the JVM
>>>>>> does
>>>>>>> escape analysis.
>>>>>>> Here is the relevant code:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> public void init(MutableInstant mutableInstant) {
>>>>>>> Instant instant = java.time.Clock.systemUTC().instant();
>>>>>>> mutableInstant.initFromEpochSecond(instant.getEpochSecond(),
>>>>>>> instant.getNano());
>>>>>>> }
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The code calls the instant() method, which returns an Instant object.
>>>>>>> We would think that this is not garbage-free, but it magically is thanks
>>>>>> to
>>>>>>> escape analysis!
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> This Instant object is only used within the init(MutableInstant) method.
>>>>>>> It is not allowed to "escape": the method accesses fields in Instant, 
>>>>>>> and
>>>>>>> passes these primitive values to the initFromEpochSecond method (and 
>>>>>>> does
>>>>>>> not pass the Instant object itself).
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> In theory, JVM escape analysis is able to detect that the object is not
>>>>>>> referenced outside that method, and stops allocating the object
>>>>>> altogether,
>>>>>>> and instead does something called "scalar replacement", where it just
>>>>>> uses
>>>>>>> the values that are actually being used, without putting them in an
>>>>>> object
>>>>>>> first and then getting them out of the object again to use these values.
>>>>>>> More details here: https://www.beyondjava.net/escape-analysis-java and
>>>>>>> https://shipilev.net/jvm/anatomy-quarks/18-scalar-replacement/
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I think I tested this on Java 9, and the
>>>>>>> Google java-allocation-instrumenter library could not detect 
>>>>>>> allocations.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Has that changed: do the garbage-free tests fail
>>>>>>> for org.apache.logging.log4j.core.util.SystemClock?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Note that when looking at this in a sampling profiler it may show
>>>>>>> allocations. (We actually ran into this in a work project.)
>>>>>>> Profiles tend to disable the optimizations that allow escape analysis, 
>>>>>>> so
>>>>>>> our method may show up as allocating when looked at in a profiler, while
>>>>>> in
>>>>>>> real life it will not (after sufficient warmup).
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On Fri, Apr 2, 2021 at 2:46 PM Ralph Goers <[email protected] 
>>>>>>> <mailto:ralph.goers%40dslextreme.com>>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> On Apr 1, 2021, at 10:38 PM, Ralph Goers <[email protected] 
>>>>>>>>> <mailto:ralph.goers%40dslextreme.com>>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> In thinking about this problem I suspect we never noticed that the
>>>>>>>> PreciseClock version of our SystemClock class is not garbage free is
>>>>>>>> because we previously ran all of our unit tests with Java 8.  Now that
>>>>>> they
>>>>>>>> are using Java 11 that code is being exercised.
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> I’ve looked at java.time.Clock and java.time.Instant. As far as I know
>>>>>>>> those are the only two classes in Java that provide sub-millisecond
>>>>>>>> granularity. Unfortunately there is no way to call them to extract the
>>>>>>>> field data we need to initialize MutableInstant. I considered modifying
>>>>>> our
>>>>>>>> version of SystemClock to perform the same actions as java.time’s
>>>>>>>> SystemClock but the relevant method there calls
>>>>>>>> jdk.internal.misc.VM.getNanoTimeAdjustment() to correct the
>>>>>> sub-millisecond
>>>>>>>> portion. That is implemented as a native method and seems to only be
>>>>>>>> available to be called by an application when something like 
>>>>>>>> --add-opens
>>>>>>>> java.base/jdk.internal.misc=xxx is on the command line.
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> I’ve also considered disabling the PreciseClock when garbage free mode
>>>>>>>> is enabled but as far as I can tell we don’t have a single switch for
>>>>>> that.
>>>>>>>> So I would have to add yet another system property to control it.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> One other option is to modify the documentation to indicate timestamps
>>>>>> are
>>>>>>>> not garbage free. But this seems awful since virtually every log event
>>>>>> has
>>>>>>>> one. It would make more sense to use the property to determine which to
>>>>>> use
>>>>>>>> so user’s who wish to be garbage free can continue with millisecond
>>>>>>>> granularity.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Ralph
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> 


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