JetBrains Day Seoul - Exploring .NET’s memory management – a trip down memory lane
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The .NET Garbage Collector (GC) is really cool. It helps providing our applications with virtually unlimited memory, so we can focus on writing code instead of manually freeing up memory. But how does .NET manage that memory? What are hidden allocations? Are strings evil? It still matters to understand when and where memory is allocated. In this talk, we’ll go over the base concepts of .NET memory management and explore how .NET helps us and how we can help .NET – making our apps better. Expect profiling, Intermediate Language (IL), ClrMD and more!
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JetBrains Day Seoul - Exploring .NET’s memory management – a trip down memory lane
- 1. Exploring .NET memory management A trip down memory lane Maarten Balliauw @maartenballiauw —
- 2. Who am I? Maarten Balliauw Antwerp, Belgium Developer Advocate, JetBrains AZUG Focus on web and .NET ASP.NET MVC, Azure, SignalR, ... Former MVP Azure & ASPInsider https://blog.maartenballiauw.be @maartenballiauw
- 3. .NET runtime Manages execution of programs Just-in-time compilation: Intermediate Language (IL) ->machine code Type safety Exception handling Security Thread management Memory management Garbage collection (GC)
- 5. Memory management and GC “Virtually unlimited memory for our applications” Big chunk of memory pre-allocated Runtime manages allocation in that chunk Garbage Collector (GC) reclaims unused memory, making it available again
- 6. .NET memory management 101 Memory allocation Objects allocated in “managed heap” (big chunk of memory) Allocating memory is fast, it’s just adding a pointer Some unmanaged memory is also consumed (not GC-ed) .NET CLR, Dynamic libraries, Graphics buffer, … Memory release or “Garbage Collection” (GC) Generations Large Object Heap
- 7. .NET memory management 101 Memory allocation Memory release or “Garbage Collection” (GC) GC releases objects no longer in use by examining application roots GC builds a graph of all the objects that are reachable from these roots Object unreachable? Remove object, release memory, compact heap Takes time to scan all objects! Generations Large Object Heap
- 8. .NET memory management 101 Memory allocation Memory release or “Garbage Collection” (GC) Generations Large Object Heap Generation 0 Generation 1 Generation 2 Short-lived objects (e.g. Local variables) In-between objects Long-lived objects (e.g. App’s main form)
- 9. .NET memory management 101 Memory allocation Memory release or “Garbage Collection” (GC) Generations Large Object Heap (LOH) Special segment for large objects (>85KB) Collected only during full garbage collection Not compacted (by default) -> fragmentation! Fragmentation can cause OutOfMemoryException
- 10. The .NET garbage collector Runs very often for gen0 Short-lived objects, few references, fast to clean Local variable, web request/response Higher generation Usually more references, slower to clean GC pauses the running application to do its thing Usually short, except when not… Background GC (enabled by default) Concurrent with application threads May still introduce short locks/pauses, usually just for one thread
- 11. The .NET garbage collector When does it run? Vague… But usually: Out of memory condition – when the system fails to allocate or re-allocate memory After some significant allocation – if X memory is allocated since previous GC Failure of allocating some native resources – internal to .NET Profiler – when triggered from profiler API Forced – when calling methods on System.GC Application moves to background GC is not guaranteed to run http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2010/08/09/10047586.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/abhinaba/archive/2008/04/29/when-does-the-net-compact-framework-garbage-collector-run.aspx
- 12. Helping the GC, avoid pauses Optimize allocations (use struct when it makes sense, Span<T>, object pooling) Don’t allocate when not needed Make use of IDisposable / using statement Clean up references, giving the GC an easy job Weak references Allow the GC to collect these objects, no need for checks Finalizers Beware! Moved to finalizer queue -> always gen++
- 14. Allocations
- 15. When is memory allocated? Not for value types (int, bool, struct, decimal, enum, float, byte, long, …) Allocated on stack, not on heap Not managed by garbage collector For reference types When you new When you load data into a variable, object, property, ...
- 16. Hidden allocations! Boxing! Put an int in a box Take an int out of a box Lambda’s/closures Allocate compiler-generated DisplayClass to capture state Params arrays And more! int i = 42; // boxing - wraps the value type in an "object box" // (allocating a System.Object) object o = i; // unboxing - unpacking the "object box" into an int again // (CPU effort to unwrap) int j = (int)o;
- 17. How to find them? Past experience Intermediate Language (IL) Profiler “Heap allocations viewer” ReSharper Heap Allocations Viewer plugin Roslyn’s Heap Allocation Analyzer
- 18. Hidden allocations DEMO https://github.com/maartenba/memory-demos ReSharper Heap Allocations Viewer plugin Roslyn’s Heap Allocation Analyzer
- 19. Measure! Don’t do premature optimization – measure! Allocations don’t always matter (that much) Measure! How frequently are we allocating? How frequently are we collecting? What generation do we end up on? Are our allocations introducing pauses? www.jetbrains.com/dotmemory (and www.jetbrains.com/dottrace)
- 22. [ { ... }, { "name": "Westmalle Tripel", "brewery": "Brouwerij der Trappisten van Westmalle", "votes": 17658, "rating": 4.7 }, { ... } ]
- 23. Object pools / object re-use Re-use objects / collections (when it makes sense) Fewer allocations, fewer objects for the GC to scan Less memory traffic that can trigger a full GC Object pooling - object pool pattern Create a pool of objects that can be re-used https://www.codeproject.com/articles/20848/c-object-pooling “Optimize ASP.NET Core” - https://github.com/aspnet/AspLabs/issues/3 System.Buffers.ArrayPool
- 24. Garbage Collector summary GC is optimized for high memory traffic in short-lived objects Use that knowledge! Don’t fear allocations! Don’t optimize what should not be optimized… GC is the concept that makes .NET / C# tick – use it! Know when allocations happen GC is awesome Gen2 collection that stop the world not so much… Measure!
- 25. Exploring the heap for fun and profit
- 26. How would you... …build a managed type system, store in memory, CPU/memory friendly Probably: Store type info (what’s in there, what’s the offset of fieldN, …) Store field data (just data) Store method pointers Inheritance information
- 27. Stuff on the Stack
- 28. Stuff on the Managed Heap (scroll down for more...)
- 29. Theory is nice... Microsoft.Diagnostics.Runtime (ClrMD) “ClrMD is a set of advanced APIs for programmatically inspecting a crash dump of a .NET program much in the same way that the SOS Debugging Extensions (SOS) do. This allows you to write automated crash analysis for your applications as well as automate many common debugger tasks. In addition to reading crash dumps ClrMD also allows supports attaching to live processes.” “LINQ-to-heap” Maarten’s definition
- 31. But... Why? Programmatic insight into memory space of a running project Unit test critical paths and assert behavior (did we clean up what we expected?) Capture memory issues in running applications Other (easier) options in this space dotMemory Unit (JetBrains) Benchmark.NET
- 33. Conclusion
- 34. Conclusion Garbage Collector (GC) optimized for high memory traffic + short-lived objects Don’t fear allocations! But beware of gen2 “stop the world” Don’t optimize what should not be optimized… Measure! Using a profiler/memory analysis tool ClrMD to automate inspections dotMemory Unit, Benchmark.NET, … to profile unit tests Blog series: https://blog.maartenballiauw.be
Editor's Notes
- https://pixabay.com/en/memory-computer-component-pcb-1761599/
- https://pixabay.com/en/tires-used-tires-pfu-garbage-1846674/
- Application roots: Typically, these are global and static object pointers, local variables, and CPU registers.
- Application roots: Typically, these are global and static object pointers, local variables, and CPU registers.
- Application roots: Typically, these are global and static object pointers, local variables, and CPU registers.
- Open TripDownMemoryLane.sln Show WeakReferenceDemo (demo “1-1”) Explain weak reference allows GC to collect reference Show Cache object – has weak references to data, we expect these to probably be cleaned up by GC Attach profiler, run demo “1-1”, snapshot, see 20 instances of WeakReference<Data> Snapshot again, compare – see WeakReference<Data> has been regenerated a couple of times Show DisposeObjectsDemo (demo “1-2”) Explain first demo does not dispose and relies on GC + finalizers. This will mean our object remains in memory for two GC cycles! Explain dispose does clean them up and requires only one cycle In SampleDisposable, explain GC.SuppressFinalize -> tell the GC no finalizer queue work is needed here!
- Open TripDownMemoryLane.sln Show Demo02_Random Open IL viewer tool window, show what happens in IL for each code sample Explain IL viewer + hovering statements to see what they do BoxingRing() – show boxing and unboxing statements in IL, explain they consume CPU and allocate an object ParamsArray() – the call to ParamsArrayImpl() actually allocates a new string array! CPU + memory AverageWithinBounds() – temporary class is created to capture state of all variables, then passed around IL_0000: newobj instance void TripDownMemoryLane.Demo02.Demo02_Random/'<>c__DisplayClass3_0'::.ctor() Lambdas() – same thing, temporary class to capture state in the loop IL_001f: newobj instance void Allocatey.Talk.Demo02_Random/'<>c__DisplayClass4_0'::.ctor() Show Demo02_ValidateArgumentsDemo – this one is fun! Explain what we want to do: build a guard function – check a condition, show error First one is the easy one, but it allocates a string and runs string.Format Second one is better – does not allocate the string! But does allocate a function and a state capture... Third one – allocates an array (params) Fourth one – no allocations, yay! Using overloads... Show heap allocations viewer!
- Open TripDownMemoryLane.sln Show BeersDemoUnoptimized (demo “3-1” and “3-2”) Explain we’re building an application that shows all beers in the world and their ratings Stored in beers.json (show document) with beer name, brewery, number of votes For a view in our application, read this file into a multi-dimensional dictionary that contains breweries, beers, and their rating Show BeerLoader and note the dictionary format Show LoadBeersInsane and explain this is BAD BAD BAD because of the high memory usage Show LoadBeersUnoptimized, explain what it does, optimized against the insane version as we’re streaming over our file Load beers a number of times Inspect snapshots GC is very visible Most memory in gen2 (we keep our beers around) Compare two snapshots: high traffic on dictionary items (Lots of string allocations - JSON.NET) Show LoadBeersOptimized, explain what it does, re-using dictionary and updating items as we read the JSON Load beers a number of times Inspect snapshots GC is almost invisible Less allocations happening Compare two snapshots: almost no traffic Less work for GC, less pauses! Measure and make it look good!
- There is an old adage in IT that says “don’t do premature optimization”. In other words: maybe some allocations are okay to have, as the GC will take care of cleaning them up anyway. While some do not agree with this, I believe in the middle ground. The garbage collector is optimized for high memory traffic in short-lived objects, and I think it’s okay to make use of what the .NET runtime has to offer us here. If it’s in a critical path of a production application, fewer allocations are better, but we can’t write software with zero allocations - it’s what our high-level programming language uses to make our developer life easier. It’s not okay to have objects go to gen2 and stay there when in fact they should be gone from memory. Learn where allocations happen, using any of the above methods, and profile your production applications frequently to see if there are large objects in higher generations of the heap that don’t belong there.
- Will print “true” twice.
- Open our demo application in dotPeek Explain PE headers Show #US table Open StringAllocationDemo class. Jump to IL code, show ldstr statement for strings that are in #US table
- Code = trick question, what if we enter same value twice? String equals, reference not equals!
- How many strings are stored
- How many strings are stored
- Open ClrMD.sln Explain: two projects, one target application, one running ClrMD to analyze what we have Open ClrMD.Explorer.Program, show attaching ClrMD Get CLR version – gets info about the current CLR version Get runtime – gets info about the actual runtime hosting our app Show DumpClrInfo – get info, stress DAC data access components location – defines the runtime structures, used by ClrMD and VS Debugger etc to explore runtime while debugging/profiling/... Explore DumpHeapObjects, stress the heap structure Loop object addresses - foreach (var objectAddress in generation) Get type of object at address - var type = heap.GetObjectType(objectAddress.Ptr); Use type info to get value - type.GetValue(objectAddress.Ptr) Explore type autocomplete – structure to get enum, method addresses, ...
- Open TestsWithDMU.sln Explain: similar Clock leak as in previous demo Two unit tests that create the clock, and timer. Then run GC.Collect, then use dMU to check whether instances are left in memory. Easy way to test, after investigation, when a memory leak comes back (or not)
- https://pixabay.com/en/memory-computer-component-pcb-1761599/