gh-117139: Garbage collector support for deferred refcounting (#122956)

The free-threaded GC now visits interpreter stacks to keep objects
that use deferred reference counting alive.

Interpreter frames are zero initialized in the free-threaded GC so
that the GC doesn't see garbage data. This is a temporary measure
until stack spilling around escaping calls is implemented.

Co-authored-by: Ken Jin <kenjin@python.org>

Include/internal/pycore_frame.h

@@ -128,6 +128,13 @@ static inline void _PyFrame_Copy(_PyInterpreterFrame *src, _PyInterpreterFrame *
     // Don't leave a dangling pointer to the old frame when creating generators
     // and coroutines:
     dest->previous = NULL;
+
+#ifdef Py_GIL_DISABLED
+    PyCodeObject *co = (PyCodeObject *)dest->f_executable;
+    for (int i = stacktop; i < co->co_nlocalsplus + co->co_stacksize; i++) {
+        dest->localsplus[i] = PyStackRef_NULL;
+    }
+#endif
 }
 
 /* Consumes reference to func and locals.
@@ -153,6 +160,16 @@ _PyFrame_Initialize(
     for (int i = null_locals_from; i < code->co_nlocalsplus; i++) {
         frame->localsplus[i] = PyStackRef_NULL;
     }
+
+#ifdef Py_GIL_DISABLED
+    // On GIL disabled, we walk the entire stack in GC. Since stacktop
+    // is not always in sync with the real stack pointer, we have
+    // no choice but to traverse the entire stack.
+    // This just makes sure we don't pass the GC invalid stack values.
+    for (int i = code->co_nlocalsplus; i < code->co_nlocalsplus + code->co_stacksize; i++) {
+        frame->localsplus[i] = PyStackRef_NULL;
+    }
+#endif
 }
 
 /* Gets the pointer to the locals array
@@ -314,6 +331,13 @@ _PyFrame_PushTrampolineUnchecked(PyThreadState *tstate, PyCodeObject *code, int
     frame->instr_ptr = _PyCode_CODE(code);
     frame->owner = FRAME_OWNED_BY_THREAD;
     frame->return_offset = 0;
+
+#ifdef Py_GIL_DISABLED
+    assert(code->co_nlocalsplus == 0);
+    for (int i = 0; i < code->co_stacksize; i++) {
+        frame->localsplus[i] = PyStackRef_NULL;
+    }
+#endif
     return frame;
 }
 

Include/internal/pycore_gc.h

@@ -381,6 +381,8 @@ extern void _PyGC_ClearAllFreeLists(PyInterpreterState *interp);
 extern void _Py_ScheduleGC(PyThreadState *tstate);
 extern void _Py_RunGC(PyThreadState *tstate);
 
+// GC visit callback for tracked interpreter frames
+extern int _PyGC_VisitFrameStack(struct _PyInterpreterFrame *frame, visitproc visit, void *arg);
 
 #ifdef __cplusplus
 }

Include/internal/pycore_stackref.h

@@ -150,8 +150,7 @@ PyStackRef_FromPyObjectNew(PyObject *obj)
     // Make sure we don't take an already tagged value.
     assert(((uintptr_t)obj & Py_TAG_BITS) == 0);
     assert(obj != NULL);
-    // TODO (gh-117139): Add deferred objects later.
+    if (_Py_IsImmortal(obj) || _PyObject_HasDeferredRefcount(obj)) {
-    if (_Py_IsImmortal(obj)) {
         return (_PyStackRef){ .bits = (uintptr_t)obj | Py_TAG_DEFERRED };
     }
     else {
@@ -220,7 +219,8 @@ PyStackRef_DUP(_PyStackRef stackref)
 {
     if (PyStackRef_IsDeferred(stackref)) {
         assert(PyStackRef_IsNull(stackref) ||
-            _Py_IsImmortal(PyStackRef_AsPyObjectBorrow(stackref)));
+            _Py_IsImmortal(PyStackRef_AsPyObjectBorrow(stackref)) ||
+            _PyObject_HasDeferredRefcount(PyStackRef_AsPyObjectBorrow(stackref)));
         return stackref;
     }
     Py_INCREF(PyStackRef_AsPyObjectBorrow(stackref));

Python/frame.c

@@ -15,15 +15,7 @@ _PyFrame_Traverse(_PyInterpreterFrame *frame, visitproc visit, void *arg)
     Py_VISIT(frame->f_locals);
     Py_VISIT(frame->f_funcobj);
     Py_VISIT(_PyFrame_GetCode(frame));
-   /* locals */
+    return _PyGC_VisitFrameStack(frame, visit, arg);
-    _PyStackRef *locals = _PyFrame_GetLocalsArray(frame);
-    _PyStackRef *sp = frame->stackpointer;
-    /* locals and stack */
-    while (sp > locals) {
-        sp--;
-        Py_VISIT(PyStackRef_AsPyObjectBorrow(*sp));
-    }
-    return 0;
 }
 
 PyFrameObject *

Python/gc.c

@@ -534,6 +534,17 @@ visit_decref(PyObject *op, void *parent)
     return 0;
 }
 
+int
+_PyGC_VisitFrameStack(_PyInterpreterFrame *frame, visitproc visit, void *arg)
+{
+    _PyStackRef *ref = _PyFrame_GetLocalsArray(frame);
+    /* locals and stack */
+    for (; ref < frame->stackpointer; ref++) {
+        Py_VISIT(PyStackRef_AsPyObjectBorrow(*ref));
+    }
+    return 0;
+}
+
 /* Subtract internal references from gc_refs.  After this, gc_refs is >= 0
  * for all objects in containers, and is GC_REACHABLE for all tracked gc
  * objects not in containers.  The ones with gc_refs > 0 are directly

Python/gc_free_threading.c

@@ -164,7 +164,10 @@ gc_decref(PyObject *op)
 static void
 disable_deferred_refcounting(PyObject *op)
 {
-    if (_PyObject_HasDeferredRefcount(op)) {
+    if (!_PyObject_HasDeferredRefcount(op)) {
+        return;
+    }
+
     op->ob_gc_bits &= ~_PyGC_BITS_DEFERRED;
     op->ob_ref_shared -= _Py_REF_SHARED(_Py_REF_DEFERRED, 0);
 
@@ -175,6 +178,19 @@ disable_deferred_refcounting(PyObject *op)
             _PyType_ReleaseId((PyHeapTypeObject *)op);
         }
     }
+    else if (PyGen_CheckExact(op) || PyCoro_CheckExact(op) || PyAsyncGen_CheckExact(op)) {
+        // Ensure any non-refcounted pointers in locals are converted to
+        // strong references.  This ensures that the generator/coroutine is not
+        // freed before its locals.
+        PyGenObject *gen = (PyGenObject *)op;
+        struct _PyInterpreterFrame *frame = &gen->gi_iframe;
+        assert(frame->stackpointer != NULL);
+        for (_PyStackRef *ref = frame->localsplus; ref < frame->stackpointer; ref++) {
+            if (!PyStackRef_IsNull(*ref) && PyStackRef_IsDeferred(*ref)) {
+                // Convert a deferred reference to a strong reference.
+                *ref = PyStackRef_FromPyObjectSteal(PyStackRef_AsPyObjectSteal(*ref));
+            }
+        }
     }
 }
 
@@ -313,6 +329,41 @@ gc_visit_heaps(PyInterpreterState *interp, mi_block_visit_fun *visitor,
     return err;
 }
 
+static inline void
+gc_visit_stackref(_PyStackRef stackref)
+{
+    // Note: we MUST check that it is deferred before checking the rest.
+    // Otherwise we might read into invalid memory due to non-deferred references
+    // being dead already.
+    if (PyStackRef_IsDeferred(stackref) && !PyStackRef_IsNull(stackref)) {
+        PyObject *obj = PyStackRef_AsPyObjectBorrow(stackref);
+        if (_PyObject_GC_IS_TRACKED(obj)) {
+            gc_add_refs(obj, 1);
+        }
+    }
+}
+
+// Add 1 to the gc_refs for every deferred reference on each thread's stack.
+static void
+gc_visit_thread_stacks(PyInterpreterState *interp)
+{
+    HEAD_LOCK(&_PyRuntime);
+    for (PyThreadState *p = interp->threads.head; p != NULL; p = p->next) {
+        _PyInterpreterFrame *f = p->current_frame;
+        while (f != NULL) {
+            if (f->f_executable != NULL && PyCode_Check(f->f_executable)) {
+                PyCodeObject *co = (PyCodeObject *)f->f_executable;
+                int max_stack = co->co_nlocalsplus + co->co_stacksize;
+                for (int i = 0; i < max_stack; i++) {
+                    gc_visit_stackref(f->localsplus[i]);
+                }
+            }
+            f = f->previous;
+        }
+    }
+    HEAD_UNLOCK(&_PyRuntime);
+}
+
 static void
 merge_queued_objects(_PyThreadStateImpl *tstate, struct collection_state *state)
 {
@@ -617,6 +668,9 @@ deduce_unreachable_heap(PyInterpreterState *interp,
     gc_visit_heaps(interp, &validate_gc_objects, &state->base);
 #endif
 
+    // Visit the thread stacks to account for any deferred references.
+    gc_visit_thread_stacks(interp);
+
     // Transitively mark reachable objects by clearing the
     // _PyGC_BITS_UNREACHABLE flag.
     if (gc_visit_heaps(interp, &mark_heap_visitor, &state->base) < 0) {
@@ -897,6 +951,24 @@ visit_decref_unreachable(PyObject *op, void *data)
     return 0;
 }
 
+int
+_PyGC_VisitFrameStack(_PyInterpreterFrame *frame, visitproc visit, void *arg)
+{
+    _PyStackRef *ref = _PyFrame_GetLocalsArray(frame);
+    /* locals and stack */
+    for (; ref < frame->stackpointer; ref++) {
+        // This is a bit tricky! We want to ignore deferred references when
+        // computing the incoming references, but otherwise treat them like
+        // regular references.
+        if (PyStackRef_IsDeferred(*ref) &&
+            (visit == visit_decref || visit == visit_decref_unreachable)) {
+            continue;
+        }
+        Py_VISIT(PyStackRef_AsPyObjectBorrow(*ref));
+    }
+    return 0;
+}
+
 // Handle objects that may have resurrected after a call to 'finalize_garbage'.
 static int
 handle_resurrected_objects(struct collection_state *state)