METHODS AND APPARATUSES FOR A COMPILER SERVER

• US 20100313079A1
• Filed: 06/03/2009
• Published: 12/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/03/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Stahl, Geoffrey Grant, Burns, Nicholas William, Miller, Phillip Kent, Beretta, Robert, Begeman, Nathaniel
• Granted Patent: US 8,677,329 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/48
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/53 by executing in a restricted environment, e.g. sandbox or secure virtual machine
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/509 Offload
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/41 Compilation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44521 Dynamic linking or loading; Link editing at or after load time, e.g. Java class loading
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/5055 considering software capabilities, i.e. software resources associated or available to the machine

Abstract

A method and an apparatus that instructs a compiler server to build or otherwise obtain a compiled code corresponding to a compilation request received from an application are described. The compiler server may be configured to compile source codes for a plurality of independent applications, each running in a separate process, using a plurality of independent compilers, each running in a separate compiler process. A search may be performed in a cache for a compiled code that satisfies a compilation request received from an application. A reply message including the compiled code can be provided for the application, wherein the compiled code is compiled in direct response to the request, or is obtained from the cache if the search identifies in the cache the compiled code that satisfies the compilation request.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method, comprising:

in response to receiving a compilation request from an application to compile a source code, searching a cache for a compiled code that satisfies the compilation request;

instructing a compiler to build the compiled code from the source code if the search does not identify the compiled code in the cache that satisfies the compilation request, wherein the compiler is configured to compile source codes from a plurality of independent client applications; and

providing the application with a reply including the compiled code from the cache if the search identifies the compiled code in the cache that satisfies the compilation request.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

identifying the compiler from a plurality of compilers to build the compiled code, wherein each of the plurality of compilers are loaded in separate processes.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the compilation request is received over a network connection remotely coupled with the application.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the application is to execute the compiled code from the source code and the compilation request is a JIT (Just in time) compilation for the compiled code and wherein a compiler server performs the searching, the instructing, and the providing for the application and the plurality of independent client applications.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the compilation request includes a representation of the source code and wherein the searching comprises:

identifying one or more compiled codes from the cache according to the representation.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the representation is a key hashed from the source code.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the compilation request includes compilation options, wherein each of the identified one or more compiled codes is associated with meta data, the method further comprising:

determining if the meta data is compatible with the compilation options.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the compilation options include a specification of a target processor architecture for the compiled code.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein instructing the compiler comprises:

determining a status for the compiler, the status indicating if the compiler is running in a process; and

invoking the process to load the compiler if the status indicates the compiler is not loaded.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the compiler is associated with a request queue, wherein the compiler retrieves requests from the request queue to perform compilation tasks, the method further comprising:

generating a request to compile the source code according to the compilation request; and

appending the request to the request queue for the compiler to compile the source code.

11. The method of claim 5, wherein providing the application with the reply comprises:

in response to receiving the compiled code from the one or more compilers, storing the compiled code into the cache, wherein the compiled code is indexed in the cache according to the representation.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

generating meta data for the compiled code according to the compilation request; and

storing the meta data associated with the compiled code in the cache.

13. A computer implemented method, comprising:

identifying a compiler to compile a source code for an application according to a JIT compilation request from the application;

determining if the identified compiler is currently loaded in a memory;

invoking the identified compiler into the memory, if the identified compiler is not yet loaded, the identified compiler corresponding to a process created uniquely for the identified compiler; and

sending the JIT compilation request to the process corresponding to the identified compiler to compiled the source code.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

detecting a failure of the identified compiler; and

providing a notification to the application that indicates the identified compiler failed to compile the source code.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the failure indicates the identified compiler has been unloaded from the memory.

16. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

in response to receiving an alternative JIT compilation request from the application to compile the source code subsequent to providing the notification to the application, identifying an alternative compiler to compile the source code according to the alternative JIT compilation request; and

providing the compiled code compiled by the alternative compiler to the application.

17. A computer implemented method, comprising:

requesting a compilation of a source code into an executable code, the requesting being directed to a compiler server;

executing the executable code, if the executable code is available from the compiler server; and

invoking an interpreter to interpret the source code before the executable code is available from the compiler server.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising

generating a compilation request including a representation of the source code;

and

sending the compilation request to the compiler server through an API (application programming interface).

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the compilation request includes compilation options for the executable code, and wherein the compilation options identify one or more libraries to build the executable code.

20. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

in response to receiving a failure notification from the compiler server, determining alternative compilation options;

sending an alternative compilation request to the compiler server to retrieve the executable code, the alternative compilation request including the representation of the source code and the alternative compilation options.

21. The method of claim 17, wherein the executable code is stored in a cache and wherein the retrieval of the executable code is based on a pointer received from the compiler server, the pointer pointing to the executable code stored in the cache.

22. A machine-readable storage medium having instructions, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform a method comprising:

in response to receiving a compilation request from an application to compile a source code, searching a cache for a compiled code that satisfies the compilation request;

instructing a compiler to build the compiled code from the source code if the search does not identify the compiled code in the cache that satisfies the compilation request, wherein the compiler is configured to compile source codes from a plurality of independent client applications; and

providing the application with a reply including the compiled code from the cache if the search identifies the compiled code in the cache that satisfies the compilation request.

23. A machine-readable storage medium having instructions, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform a method, the comprising:

identifying a compiler to compile a source code for an application according to a JIT compilation request from the application;

determining if the identified compiler is currently loaded in a memory;

invoking the identified compiler into the memory, if the identified compiler is not yet loaded, the identified compiler corresponding to a process uniquely created for the identified compiler; and

sending the JIT compilation request to the process corresponding to the identified compiler to compiled the source code.

24. A machine-readable storage medium having instructions, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform a method, the method comprising:

requesting a compilation of a source code into an executable code, the request being directed to a compiler server;

executing the executable code, if the executable code is available from the compiler server; and

invoking an interpreter to interpret the source code before the executable code is available from the compiler server.

25. An apparatus, comprising:

a memory storing executable instructions

a cache storing one or more compiled codes indexed according representations of source codes respectively corresponding to the compiled codes; and

a processor coupled to memory and the cache, the processor being configured to execute the executable instructions from the memory to;

in response to receiving a compilation request from an application to compile a source code, search the cache for a compiled code that satisfies the compilation request;

instruct a compiler to build the compiled code from the source code if the search does not identify the compiled code in the cache that satisfies the compilation request, wherein the compiler is configured to compile source codes from a plurality of independent client applications; and

provide the application with a reply including the compiled code from the cache if the search identifies the compiled code in the cache that satisfies the compilation request.

26. An apparatus, comprising:

a memory storing executable instructions for one or more applications and a compiler server;

a cache storing one or more compiled codes indexed according to representations of source codes respectively corresponding to the compiled codes; and

a processor coupled to memory and the cache, the processor being configured to execute the executable instructions from the memory to;

request a compilation of a source code into an executable code, the requesting being directed to the compiler server;

execute the executable code in a process for the application, if the retrieval from the compiler server is successful, wherein the compiler server and the application are running in separate processes; and

invoke an interpreter to interpret the source code in the process for the application, if the retrieval from the compiler server is not successful.

27. A machine-readable storage medium having instructions, when executed by a machine, cause the machine to perform a method, method comprising:

receiving at a compiler server, a first run time compilation request from a first application which is executing to compile a first source code;

instructing one or more compilers, each loaded in a separate process, to build compiled code from the first source code;

receiving at the compiler server, a second run time compilation request from a second application which is executing to compile a second source code; and

instructing the one or more compilers to build compiled code from the second source code.