ElectricAccelerator and the Case of the Confounding Conflict

A user recently asked me why ElectricAccelerator reports a conflict in this simple build, when executed without a history file from a previous run:

Specifically, if you have at least two agents, emake will report a conflict between symlink_to_foo and foo, indicating that symlink_to_foo somehow read or otherwise accessed foo during execution! But ln does not access the target of a symlink when creating the symlink — in fact, you can even create a symlink to a non-existent file if you like. It seems obvious that there should be no conflict. What’s going on?

To understand why this conflict occurs, you have to wrap your head around two things. First, there’s more going on during a gmake-driven build than just the commands you see gmake invoke. That causes the usage that provokes the conflict. Second, emake considers a serial gmake build the “gold standard” — if a serial gmake build produces a particular result, so too must emake. That’s why the additional usage must result in a conflict.

In this case, the usage that triggers the conflict comes from management of the gmake stat cache. This is a gmake feature that was added to improve performance by avoiding redundant calls to stat() — once you’ve stat()‘d a file once, you don’t need to do it again. Unless the file is changed of course, which happens quite a lot during a build. To keep the stat cache up-to-date as the build progresses, gmake re-stat()‘s each target after it finishes running the commands for the target. So after the commands for symlink_to_foo complete, gmake stat()‘s symlink_to_foo again, using the standard stat() system call, which follows the symlink (in contrast to lstat(), which does not follow the symlink). That means gmake will actually cache the attributes of foo for symlink_to_foo.

To ensure compatibility with gmake, emake has to do the same. In Accelerator parlance, that means we get read usage on symlink_to_foo (because you have to read the symlink itself to determine the target of the symlink), and lookup usage on foo. The lookup on foo causes the conflict, because, of course, you will get a different result if you lookup foo before the job that creates it than you would get if you do the lookup after that job. Before the job, you’ll find that foo does not exist, obviously; after, you’ll find that it does.

But what difference does that make, really? In truth, if there’s no detectable difference in behavior, then it doesn’t matter at all. And in the example build there is no detectable difference — the build output is the same regardless of when exactly you stat() symlink_to_foo relative to when foo is created. But with a small modification to the build, it is suddenly becomes possible to see the impact:

Compare the output when this build is run serially with the output when the build is run in parallel — and note that I’m using gmake, so you can be certain I’m not trying to trick you with some peculiarity of emake’s implementation:

You can plainly see the difference: in the parallel build gmake stat()‘s symlink_to_foo before foo exists, so the stat cache records symlink_to_foo as non-existent. Then when gmake generates the value of $? for reader, symlink_to_foo is excluded, because non-existent files are never considered newer than existing files. In the serial build, gmake stat()‘s symlink_to_foo after foo has been created, so the stat cache indicates that symlink_to_foo exists and is newer than reader, so it is included in $?.

Hopefully you see now both what causes the conflict, and why it is necessary. The conflict occurs because of lookup usage generated when updating the stat cache. The conflict is necessary to ensure that the build output matches that produced by a serial gmake — the “gold standard” for build correctness. If no conflict is declared, there is the possibility for a detectable difference in build output compared to serial gmake.

However, you might be thinking that although it makes sense to treat this as a conflict in the general case, isn’t it possible to do something smarter in this specific case? After all, the orignal example build does not use $?, and without that there isn’t any detectable difference in the build output. So why not skip the conflict?

The answer is simple, if a bit disappointing. In theory it may be possible to elide the conflict by checking to see if the symlink is used by a later job in a manner that would produce a detectable difference (for example, by scanning the commands for subsequent targets for references to $?), but in reality the logistics of that check are daunting, and I’m not confident that we could guarantee correct behavior in all cases.

Fortunately all is not lost. If you wish to avoid this conflict, you have several options:

1. Use a good history file from a previous build. This is the most obvious solution. You’ll only get conflicts if you run without a history file.
2. Add an explicit dependency. If you make foo an explicit prereq of symlink_to_foo, then you will avoid the conflict. Here’s how that would look:

   1	symlink_to_foo: foo

3. Change the serial order. If you reorder the makefile so that symlink_to_foo has an earlier serial order than foo you will avoid the conflict. That just requires a reordering of the prereqs of all:

   1	all: symlink_to_foo foo

Any one of these will eliminate the conflict from your build, and you’ll enjoy fast and correct parallel builds.

Case closed.