Deprecate TArray and TRef. (#152)

* deprecate `TArray` and `TRef`.

* remote TArray and TRef

* docs update

* Update Project.toml

Co-authored-by: Hong Ge <[email protected]>

Author: KDr2

Diff for: Project.toml

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ uuid = "6f1fad26-d15e-5dc8-ae53-837a1d7b8c9f"
 license = "MIT"
 desc = "Tape based task copying in Turing"
 repo = "https://github.com/TuringLang/Libtask.jl.git"
-version = "0.7.5"
+version = "0.8"
 
 [deps]
 FunctionWrappers = "069b7b12-0de2-55c6-9aab-29f3d0a68a2e"

Diff for: README.md

@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ a = copy(ttask)
 @show consume(ttask) # 3
 ```
 
-Heap allocated objects are shallow copied:
+Array and Ref objects are deep copied:
 
 ```julia
 using Libtask
@@ -50,46 +50,43 @@ ttask = TapedTask(f)
 @show consume(ttask) # 0
 @show consume(ttask) # 1
 
-a = copy(t)
+a = copy(ttask)
 @show consume(a) # 2
 @show consume(a) # 3
 
-@show consume(ttask) # 4
-@show consume(ttask) # 5
+@show consume(ttask) # 2
+@show consume(ttask) # 3
 ```
 
-In constrast to standard arrays, which are only shallow copied during
-task copying, `TArray`, an array data structure provided by Libtask,
-is deep copied during the copying process of a task:
+Others Heap allocated objects (e.g., `Dict`) are shallow copied:
 
 ```julia
 using Libtask
 
 function f()
-  t = TArray(Int, 1)
-  t[1] = 0
-  for _ in 1:10
+  t = Dict(1=>10, 2=>20)
+  while true
     produce(t[1])
     t[1] = 1 + t[1]
   end
 end
 
 ttask = TapedTask(f)
 
-@show consume(ttask) # 0
-@show consume(ttask) # 1
+@show consume(ttask) # 10
+@show consume(ttask) # 11
 
 a = copy(ttask)
-@show consume(a) # 2
-@show consume(a) # 3
+@show consume(a) # 12
+@show consume(a) # 13
 
-@show consume(ttask) # 2
-@show consume(ttask) # 3
+@show consume(ttask) # 14
+@show consume(ttask) # 15
 ```
 
-Notes: 
+Notes:
 
-- The [Turing](https://github.com/TuringLang/Turing.jl) probabilistic programming 
+- The [Turing](https://github.com/TuringLang/Turing.jl) probabilistic programming
 language uses this task copying feature in
 an efficient implementation of the [particle
 filtering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Particle_filter) sampling

Diff for: src/Libtask.jl

@@ -4,12 +4,10 @@ using FunctionWrappers: FunctionWrapper
 using LRUCache
 
 export TapedTask, consume, produce
-export TArray, tzeros, tfill, TRef
+
+export TArray, tzeros, tfill, TRef # legacy types back compat
 
 include("tapedfunction.jl")
 include("tapedtask.jl")
 
-include("tarray.jl")
-include("tref.jl")
-
 end

Diff for: src/tapedfunction.jl

@@ -1,37 +1,37 @@
 #=
 
-`TapedFunction` converts a Julia function to a friendly tape for user-specified interpreters. 
-With this tape-like abstraction for functions, we gain some control over how the function is 
-executed, like capturing continuations,  caching variables, injecting additional control flows 
-(i.e. produce/consume) between instructions on the tape, etc. 
-
-Under the hood, we firstly used Julia's compiler API to get the IR code of the original function. 
-We use the unoptimised typed code in a non-strict SSA form. Then we convert each IR instruction 
-to a Julia data structure (an object of a subtype of AbstractInstruction). All the operands 
-(i.e., the variables) these instructions use are stored in a data structure called `Bindings`. 
-This conversion/binding process is performed at compile-time / tape-recording time and is only 
-done once for each function. 
-	
+`TapedFunction` converts a Julia function to a friendly tape for user-specified interpreters.
+With this tape-like abstraction for functions, we gain some control over how the function is
+executed, like capturing continuations,  caching variables, injecting additional control flows
+(i.e. produce/consume) between instructions on the tape, etc.
+
+Under the hood, we firstly used Julia's compiler API to get the IR code of the original function.
+We use the unoptimised typed code in a non-strict SSA form. Then we convert each IR instruction
+to a Julia data structure (an object of a subtype of AbstractInstruction). All the operands
+(i.e., the variables) these instructions use are stored in a data structure called `Bindings`.
+This conversion/binding process is performed at compile-time / tape-recording time and is only
+done once for each function.
+
 In a nutshell, there are two types of instructions (or primitives) on a tape:
   - Ordinary function call
   - Control-flow instruction: GotoInstruction and CondGotoInstruction, ReturnInstruction
-	
-Once the tape is recorded, we can run the tape just like calling the original function. 
+
+Once the tape is recorded, we can run the tape just like calling the original function.
 We first plugin the arguments, run each instruction on the tape, and stop after encountering
-a ReturnInstruction. We also provide a mechanism to add a callback after each instruction. 
-This API allowed us to implement the `produce/consume` machanism in TapedTask. And exploiting 
+a ReturnInstruction. We also provide a mechanism to add a callback after each instruction.
+This API allowed us to implement the `produce/consume` machanism in TapedTask. And exploiting
 these features, we implemented a fork mechanism for TapedTask.
-	
+
 Some potentially sharp edges of this implementation:
 
-  1. GlobalRef is evaluated at the tape-recording time (compile-time). Most times, 
-     the value/object associated with a GlobalRef does not change at run time. 
-     So this works well. But, if you do something like `module A v=1 end; make tapedfunction; A.eval(:(v=2)); run tf;`, 
+  1. GlobalRef is evaluated at the tape-recording time (compile-time). Most times,
+     the value/object associated with a GlobalRef does not change at run time.
+     So this works well. But, if you do something like `module A v=1 end; make tapedfunction; A.eval(:(v=2)); run tf;`,
      The assignment won't work.
-  2. QuoteNode is also evaluated at the tape-recording time (compile-time). Primarily 
+  2. QuoteNode is also evaluated at the tape-recording time (compile-time). Primarily
      the result of evaluating a QuoteNode is a Symbol, which works well most of the time.
-  3. Each Instruction execution contains one unnecessary allocation at the moment. 
-     So writing a function with vectorised computation will be more performant, 
+  3. Each Instruction execution contains one unnecessary allocation at the moment.
+     So writing a function with vectorised computation will be more performant,
      for example, using broadcasting instead of a loop.
 =#
 
@@ -58,8 +58,9 @@ mutable struct TapedFunction{F, TapeType}
     binding_values::Bindings
     arg_binding_slots::Vector{Int} # arg indices in binding_values
     retval_binding_slot::Int # 0 indicates the function has not returned
+    deepcopy_types::Vector{Any}
 
-    function TapedFunction{F, T}(f::F, args...; cache=false) where {F, T}
+    function TapedFunction{F, T}(f::F, args...; cache=false, deepcopy_types=[]) where {F, T}
         args_type = _accurate_typeof.(args)
         cache_key = (f, args_type...)
 
@@ -72,17 +73,17 @@ mutable struct TapedFunction{F, TapeType}
         ir = _infer(f, args_type)
         binding_values, slots, tape = translate!(RawTape(), ir)
 
-        tf = new{F, T}(f, length(args), ir, tape, 1, binding_values, slots, 0)
+        tf = new{F, T}(f, length(args), ir, tape, 1, binding_values, slots, 0, deepcopy_types)
         TRCache[cache_key] = tf # set cache
         return tf
     end
 
-    TapedFunction(f, args...; cache=false) =
-        TapedFunction{typeof(f), RawTape}(f, args...; cache=cache)
+    TapedFunction(f, args...; cache=false, deepcopy_types=[]) =
+        TapedFunction{typeof(f), RawTape}(f, args...; cache=cache, deepcopy_types=deepcopy_types)
 
     function TapedFunction{F, T0}(tf::TapedFunction{F, T1}) where {F, T0, T1}
         new{F, T0}(tf.func, tf.arity, tf.ir, tf.tape,
-                   tf.counter, tf.binding_values, tf.arg_binding_slots, 0)
+                   tf.counter, tf.binding_values, tf.arg_binding_slots, 0, tf.deepcopy_types)
     end
 
     TapedFunction(tf::TapedFunction{F, T}) where {F, T} = TapedFunction{F, T}(tf)
@@ -444,31 +445,50 @@ end
 ## copy Bindings, TapedFunction
 
 """
-    tape_copy(x)
+    tape_shallowcopy(x)
+    tape_deepcopy(x)
+
+Function `tape_shallowcopy` and `tape_deepcopy` are used to copy data
+while copying a TapedFunction. A value in the bindings of a
+TapedFunction is either `tape_shallowcopy`ed or `tape_deepcopy`ed. For
+TapedFunction, all types are shallow copied by default, and you can
+specify some types to be deep copied by giving the `deepcopy_types`
+kwyword argument while constructing a TapedFunction.
+
+The default behaviour of `tape_shallowcopy` is, we return its argument
+untouched, like `identity` does, i.e., `tape_copy(x) = x`. The default
+behaviour of `tape_deepcopy` is, we call `deepcopy` on its argument
+and return the result, `tape_deepcopy(x) = deepcopy(x)`. If one wants
+some kinds of data to be copied (shallowly or deeply) in a different
+way, one can overload these functions.
 
-Function `tape_copy` is used to copy data while copying a
-TapedFunction, the default behaviour is: we perform share the data
-between tasks, i.e., `tape_copy(x) = x`. If one wants some kinds of
-data to be copied, or deeply copied, one can overload this function.
 """
-function tape_copy end
-tape_copy(x) = x
+function tape_shallowcopy end, function tape_deepcopy end
+
+tape_shallowcopy(x) = x
+tape_deepcopy(x) = deepcopy(x)
 # Core.Box is used as closure captured variable container, so we should tape_copy its contents
-tape_copy(x::Core.Box) = Core.Box(tape_copy(x.contents))
-# ?? should we deepcopy Array and Dict by default?
-# tape_copy(x::Array) = deepcopy(x)
-# tape_copy(x::Dict) = deepcopy(x)
+tape_shallowcopy(x::Core.Box) = Core.Box(tape_shallowcopy(x.contents))
+tape_deepcopy(x::Core.Box) = Core.Box(tape_deepcopy(x.contents))
+
+function _tape_copy(v, deepcopy_types)
+    if any(t -> isa(v, t), deepcopy_types)
+        tape_deepcopy(v)
+    else
+        tape_shallowcopy(v)
+    end
+end
 
-function copy_bindings(old::Bindings)
+function copy_bindings(old::Bindings, deepcopy_types)
     newb = copy(old)
     for k in 1:length(old)
-        isassigned(old, k) && (newb[k] = tape_copy(old[k]))
+        newb[k] = _tape_copy(old[k], deepcopy_types)
     end
     return newb
 end
 
 function Base.copy(tf::TapedFunction)
     new_tf = TapedFunction(tf)
-    new_tf.binding_values = copy_bindings(tf.binding_values)
+    new_tf.binding_values = copy_bindings(tf.binding_values, tf.deepcopy_types)
     return new_tf
 end

Diff for: src/tapedtask.jl

@@ -65,8 +65,8 @@ end
 
 # NOTE: evaluating model without a trace, see
 # https://github.com/TuringLang/Turing.jl/pull/1757#diff-8d16dd13c316055e55f300cd24294bb2f73f46cbcb5a481f8936ff56939da7ceR329
-function TapedTask(f, args...)
-    tf = TapedFunction(f, args...; cache=true)
+function TapedTask(f, args...; deepcopy_types=[Array, Ref]) # deepcoy Array and Ref by default.
+    tf = TapedFunction(f, args...; cache=true, deepcopy_types=deepcopy_types)
     TapedTask(tf, args...)
 end
 
@@ -178,7 +178,7 @@ function Base.copy(t::TapedTask; args=())
             end
         else
             # the task is not started yet, but no args is given
-            tape_copy.(t.args)
+            map(a -> _tape_copy(a, t.tf.deepcopy_types), t.args)
         end
     end
     new_t = TapedTask(tf, task_args...)
@@ -187,3 +187,19 @@ function Base.copy(t::TapedTask; args=())
     new_t.task.storage[:tapedtask] = new_t
     return new_t
 end
+
+# TArray and TRef back-compat
+function TArray(args...)
+    Base.depwarn("`TArray` is deprecated, please use `Array` instead.", :TArray)
+    Array(args...)
+end
+function TArray(T::Type, dim)
+    Base.depwarn("`TArray` is deprecated, please use `Array` instead.", :TArray)
+    Array{T}(undef, dim)
+end
+tzeros, tfill = zeros, fill
+
+function TRef(x)
+    Base.depwarn("`TRef` is deprecated, please use `Ref` instead.", :TArray)
+    Ref(x)
+end