StackOverflowError when adding an structure inside DEDataVector in a Module

[ronisbr]

Hi! With the following code:

module MyTest2

using ArrayInterface

export A
struct A{T}
    a::T
end

ArrayInterface.ismutable(::Type{<:A}) = true

using RecursiveArrayTools
using OrdinaryDiffEq
using DiffEqBase

export Workspace
mutable struct Workspace{T} <: DEDataVector{T}
    x::Vector{T}
    a::A{T}
end

export test
function test()
    w1 = Workspace(zeros(3), A(0.0))
    w2 = Workspace(zeros(3), A(0.0))
    return RecursiveArrayTools.recursivecopy!(w1,w2)
end

end

I am getting the following error when calling the function test():

julia> test()
ERROR: StackOverflowError:
Stacktrace:
 [1] ismutable(::Type{T} where T) at /Users/ronan.arraes/.julia/packages/ArrayInterface/YFV07/src/ArrayInterface.jl:19 (repeats 79978 times)

I think it is related to the @generated function recursivecopy!. Because, this code works outside a module:

using ArrayInterface

struct A{T}
    a::T
end

ArrayInterface.ismutable(::Type{<:A}) = false

using RecursiveArrayTools
using OrdinaryDiffEq
using DiffEqBase

mutable struct Workspace{T} <: DEDataVector{T}
    x::Vector{T}
    a::A{T}
end

function test()
    w1 = Workspace(zeros(3), A(0.0))
    w2 = Workspace(zeros(3), A(0.0))
    return RecursiveArrayTools.recursivecopy!(w1,w2)
end

julia> test()
3-element Workspace{Float64}:
 0.0
 0.0
 0.0

[ronisbr]

In fact, this is a strange behavior related to precompilation. Starting Julia with julia --compiled-modules=no does not show the problem. Is there any workaround?

[ronisbr]

The workaround is to create a generated function inside MyTest2 more specialized than the one in DiffEqBase:

@generated function RecursiveArrayTools.recursivecopy!(dest::Workspace{T}, src::Workspace{T}) where T
    fields = fieldnames(src)

    expressions = Vector{Expr}(undef, length(fields))

    @inbounds for i = 1:length(fields)
        f  = fields[i]
        Tf = src.types[i]
        qf = Meta.quot(f)

        if ArrayInterface.ismutable(Tf)
            expressions[i] = :( dest.$f = getfield( src, $qf ) )
        elseif Tf <: AbstractArray
            expressions[i] = :( recursivecopy!(dest.$f, getfield( src, $qf ) ) )
        else
            expressions[i] = :( dest.$f = deepcopy( getfield( src, $qf ) ) )
        end
    end

    :($(expressions...); dest)
end

EDIT: For the general case, the same must be done for DiffEqBase.copy_fields.

EDIT2: After thinking for a while, I have absolutely no idea how this can be fix. In fact, I think it cannot be fixed given the way Julia handles generated functions. If I am right, we need to document that, inside a module, we must have those definitions.

EDIT3: Sorry for the long comments and many edits, I am in a middle of a brainstorm here :D @ChrisRackauckas what do you think to have a macro like @DataArrayStruct or something that will make a structure compatible to the data array interface. This macro will make the structure a subtype of DEDataVector and will declare the required generated function. Hence, the definitions of recursivecopy! and copy_fields! will move to the user code. This will eliminate the problem described here and the ArrayInterface can still be used as is.

[devmotion]

I'm wondering, couldn't we just define recursivecopy! as a regular function by just looping over the fields? Intuitively it shouldn't affect the performance too drastically but maybe I'm wrong. One could even add a function barrier if that would help the compiler.

[ronisbr]

Well, that will certainly solve everything in the most easy way! In fact, if anyone wants more performance, they can always overload those methods with a more specialize signature.

[ChrisRackauckas]

Looping over the fields won't be type stable. For small arrays that could be pretty bad for performance. For large DEDataArrays, sure it's fine, but smaller ones is an issue.

[devmotion]

Wouldn't it help if we add a function barrier and replace the if branches with a function call?

[YingboMa]

I cannot reproduce the stack overflow error.

[ronisbr]

I cannot reproduce the stack overflow error.

Did you paste the code inside a module? I tried here with a clean env and I reproduce it every time.

[ronisbr]

Hi!

Did anyone think about a better workaround than that one I posted?