Skip to content

Word foldl' isn't optimized as well as Int foldl'

import Data.List

test :: Int -> Int
test n = foldl' (+) 0 [1..n]

main :: IO ()
main = do
  print $ test $ 10^8

GHC optimizes the above code to the point that the garbage collector doesn't even have to do anything:

$ ghc -rtsopts -O2 testInt && ./testInt +RTS -s
[1 of 1] Compiling Main             ( testInt.hs, testInt.o )
Linking testInt ...
5000000050000000
          51,752 bytes allocated in the heap
           3,480 bytes copied during GC
          44,384 bytes maximum residency (1 sample(s))
          17,056 bytes maximum slop
               1 MB total memory in use (0 MB lost due to fragmentation)

                                     Tot time (elapsed)  Avg pause  Max pause
  Gen  0         0 colls,     0 par    0.000s   0.000s     0.0000s    0.0000s
  Gen  1         1 colls,     0 par    0.000s   0.000s     0.0001s    0.0001s

  INIT    time    0.000s  (  0.000s elapsed)
  MUT     time    0.101s  (  0.101s elapsed)
  GC      time    0.000s  (  0.000s elapsed)
  EXIT    time    0.000s  (  0.000s elapsed)
  Total   time    0.103s  (  0.102s elapsed)

  %GC     time       0.1%  (0.1% elapsed)

  Alloc rate    511,162 bytes per MUT second

  Productivity  99.8% of total user, 100.9% of total elapsed

However, if I change the type of test to test :: Word -> Word, then a lot of garbage is produced and the code runs 40x slower:

ghc -rtsopts -O2 testWord && ./testWord +RTS -s
[1 of 1] Compiling Main             ( testWord.hs, testWord.o )
Linking testWord ...
5000000050000000
  11,200,051,784 bytes allocated in the heap
       1,055,520 bytes copied during GC
          44,384 bytes maximum residency (2 sample(s))
          21,152 bytes maximum slop
               1 MB total memory in use (0 MB lost due to fragmentation)

                                     Tot time (elapsed)  Avg pause  Max pause
  Gen  0     21700 colls,     0 par    0.077s   0.073s     0.0000s    0.0000s
  Gen  1         2 colls,     0 par    0.000s   0.000s     0.0001s    0.0001s

  INIT    time    0.000s  (  0.000s elapsed)
  MUT     time    4.551s  (  4.556s elapsed)
  GC      time    0.077s  (  0.073s elapsed)
  EXIT    time    0.000s  (  0.000s elapsed)
  Total   time    4.630s  (  4.630s elapsed)

  %GC     time       1.7%  (1.6% elapsed)

  Alloc rate    2,460,957,186 bytes per MUT second

  Productivity  98.3% of total user, 98.3% of total elapsed

I expected the performance to be nearly identical. I'm using GHC version 8.0.1 on x86_64 Arch Linux.

I asked about this on stackoverflow, and the issue appears to be related to rewrite rules: http://stackoverflow.com/a/38113639/6531137

Trac metadata
Trac field Value
Version 8.0.1
Type Bug
TypeOfFailure OtherFailure
Priority normal
Resolution Unresolved
Component Compiler
Test case
Differential revisions
BlockedBy
Related
Blocking
CC
Operating system
Architecture
To upload designs, you'll need to enable LFS and have an admin enable hashed storage. More information