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OpenCilk 2.0 released

2022 Jul 20 — By Tao B. Schardl

OpenCilk 2.0 features a new syntax and implementation for reducer hyperobjects, an upgraded compiler, improved support for pedigrees, and more.

newsrelease

OpenCilk 2.0 is now available. See the Install page for instructions on how to download and install.

Major changes

OpenCilk 2.0 features the following major changes from OpenCilk 1.1:

  • [Beta feature] Cilk reducer hyperobjects (a.k.a., reducers) are now supported through a new language syntax and implementation. A local or global variable in C or C++ can be made into a reducer by adding cilk_reducer(I,R) to its type, where I and R designate the identity and reduce functions for the reducer. You can find documentation on the new reducer syntax here. As a simple example, here is how a simple integer-summation reducer can be implemented using the new reducer syntax:
#include <cilk/cilk.h>

void zero(void *v) {
  *(int *)v = 0;
}

void plus(void *l, void *r) {
  *(int *)l += *(int *)r;
}

int foo(int *A, int n) {
  int cilk_reducer(zero, plus) sum = 0;
  cilk_for (int i = 0; i < n; ++i)
    sum += A[i];
  return sum;
}
  • The compiler has been upgraded to be based on LLVM 14.0.6.
  • Support has been improved and optimized for deterministic parallel random-number generators (DPRNGs). Pedigrees — which can be used to implement custom DPRNGs — are now correctly updated at both spawns and syncs. The runtime system also supports a fast built-in DPRNG.
  • Support for DPRNGs (and pedigrees) has been streamlined. To enable this support, simply link the Cilk program with the library, -lopencilk-pedigrees.
  • Many bug fixes and performance improvements have been included compared to the previous version.

Known limitations

  • Reducers must be global variables and local variables. In particular, OpenCilk 2.0 does not support reducers as struct or class members or as heap-allocated objects. See the Reducer documentation for details.
  • Support for the Intel Cilk Plus reducer library has been removed.
  • With the compiler now based on LLVM 14, the default DWARF version is now DWARFv5. If you encounter an error when using a tool such as unhandled dwarf2 abbrev form code 0x25, then the tool does not support DWARFv5. You can opt back into using the old DWARF version by passing either -gdwarf-4 or -fdebug-default-version=4 to clang when you compile the program.
  • The default setting of floating-point contraction is now -ffp-contract=on. As a result, floating-point computation may behave differently with this version of OpenCilk. You can opt back into the old floating-point-contraction behavior by passing the compiler flag -ffp-contract=off. See here for more details.
  • There are some standard library functions and LLVM intrinsic functions that Cilksan does not recognize. When Cilksan fails to recognize such a function, it may produce a link-time error of the form, undefined reference to '__csan_FUNC' for some function name __csan_FUNC.
    • Please report these missing functions as issues on the OpenCilk issue tracker.
    • [Beta feature] You can work around this issue by passing the additional flag -mllvm -cilksan-bc-path=`find /path/to/opencilk/ -name "libcilksan*.bc"` when compiling the Cilk program. (Note that /path/to/opencilk/ should not be the path to the clang executable, but is instead the path to the whole OpenCilk installation, such as /opt/opencilk/.)

Acknowledgments

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the development of OpenCilk 2.0, via code contributions, testing, or in other ways. In particular, we would like to thank the following external contributors:

  • Brian Wheatman
  • Teo Collin
  • William Luo