Zygote.jl and PackageCompiler.jl

General Usage
1

I have been compiling my package for deployment using PackageCompilerX and now PackageCompiler, but recently I added some dependencies (including Zygote) and now it seems to dislike execution after compilation.

  • Ubuntu 18.04
  • gcc 7.5.0
  • Julia 1.3.1
  • PackageCompiler 1.0.2 and 1.1.0 tested
  • Zygote 0.4.9

A small example that demonstrates this problem is:

  1. ]generate test
  2. ]activate test
  3. ]add Zygote
  4. ]activate
  5. edit test.jl to be:
module test

using Zygote

Base.@ccallable function julia_main()::Cint
    try
        real_main()
    catch
        Base.invokelatest(Base.display_error, Base.catch_stack())
        return 1
    end
    return 0
end

function real_main()
    if ARGS[1] == "test"
	f(x) = 5*x + 3
	println(f(10))
	println(f'(10))
        println("TEST")
    end
end

end # module
  1. using PackageCompiler (v1.02 or v1.1 tested)
  2. create_app("test","test_app")
  3. Get logs like this:
┌ Warning: NNlib has a dependency on Requires.jl, code in `@require` will not be run
└ @ PackageCompiler ~/.julia/packages/PackageCompiler/D8oaG/src/PackageCompiler.jl:510
┌ Warning: Zygote has a dependency on Requires.jl, code in `@require` will not be run
└ @ PackageCompiler ~/.julia/packages/PackageCompiler/D8oaG/src/PackageCompiler.jl:510
┌ Warning: Package NNlib has a build script, this might indicate that it is not relocatable
└ @ PackageCompiler ~/.julia/packages/PackageCompiler/D8oaG/src/PackageCompiler.jl:523
┌ Warning: Package FFTW has a build script, this might indicate that it is not relocatable
└ @ PackageCompiler ~/.julia/packages/PackageCompiler/D8oaG/src/PackageCompiler.jl:523
[ Info: PackageCompiler: creating base system image (incremental=false)...
[ Info: PackageCompiler: creating system image object file, this might take a while...
[ Info: PackageCompiler: creating system image object file, this might take a while...
  1. exit()
  2. test_app/bin/test test
  3. get stack trace like this:
fatal: error thrown and no exception handler available.
#<null>
rec_backtrace at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/src/stackwalk.c:94
record_backtrace at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/src/task.c:224 [inlined]
jl_throw at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/src/task.c:461
require at ./loading.jl:900
_jl_invoke at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/src/gf.c:2135 [inlined]
jl_apply_generic at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/src/gf.c:2305
jl_apply at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/src/julia.h:1631 [inlined]
call_require at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/src/toplevel.c:399 [inlined]
eval_import_path at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/src/toplevel.c:436
jl_toplevel_eval_flex at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/src/toplevel.c:656
jl_parse_eval_all at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/src/ast.c:873
jl_load at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/src/toplevel.c:878
include at ./boot.jl:328 [inlined]
include_relative at ./loading.jl:1105
include at ./Base.jl:31 [inlined]
include at /home/dev/.julia/packages/Zygote/ApBXe/src/Zygote.jl:1 [inlined]
precompile at /home/dev/.julia/packages/Zygote/ApBXe/src/Zygote.jl:46 [inlined]
#1827 at /home/dev/.julia/packages/Requires/qy6zC/src/init.jl:11
unknown function (ip: 0x7f9d6007f68c)
_jl_invoke at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/src/gf.c:2141 [inlined]
jl_apply_generic at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/src/gf.c:2305
__init__ at /home/dev/.julia/packages/Requires/qy6zC/src/init.jl:18
jfptr___init___15723 at /home/dev/projects/testcompiled/bin/test.so (unknown line)
_jl_invoke at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/src/gf.c:2135 [inlined]
jl_apply_generic at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/src/gf.c:2305
jl_apply at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/src/julia.h:1631 [inlined]
jl_module_run_initializer at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/src/toplevel.c:74
_julia_init at /buildworker/worker/package_linux64/build/src/init.c:821
main at ./test (unknown line)
__libc_start_main at /build/glibc-OTsEL5/glibc-2.27/csu/../csu/libc-start.c:310
_start at ./test (unknown line)

Line 46 in Zygote.jl is:
precompile() = include(joinpath(@__DIR__, "precompile.jl"))

This is kind of a generic “where is the error / how do I fix it?” question.

2

Packages that use certain dynamic features like including source files at runtime are pretty much impossible to compile into apps.

3

I guess my solution in this case is to branch Zygote.jl and set it to whichever version of its conditional load settings that I want?

4

That could maybe work, yeah.

For conditional dependencies to work well with PackageCompiler we need a conditional dependencies system that works together with the package precompilation system (https://github.com/JuliaLang/Pkg.jl/issues/1285). It is not super easy to come up with a good design though.

5

Yeah. I did it and it worked. Thanks

I see the complexity there. One potential solution would be a riff on Stefan’s proposal. We could just have MyPkg/glue/A/ be a directory with its own environment definition (Project.toml and perhaps Manifest.toml). A could depend on MyPkg and whatever other packages it wants. When the compat/dependency requirements of the glue conditions were met, the package glue/A would be loaded. This would mean that:

  1. glue/A could be precompiled independently, no?
  2. every new package added to an environment would require a scan of existing, un-loaded glue packages in its Manifest.toml
  3. we get to leverage exactly the existing dependency system
  4. The definition of a “Project” would have to be changed a little, because MyPkg/glue/A/ would not itself be a git repo