[Buildroot] [PATCH 1/2] package/openblas: allow disabling multithreading

Thomas De Schampheleire patrickdepinguin at gmail.com
Fri Feb 12 09:15:09 UTC 2021


From: Thomas De Schampheleire <thomas.de_schampheleire at nokia.com>

Buildroot would automatically enable multithreading in OpenBLAS if the
architecture supports it. However, one may want to avoid OpenBLAS creating
threads itself and configure single-threaded operation. To accommodate this
use case, add a config option for multithreading.

When multithreading is disabled but OpenBLAS functions are called in the
same application by multiple threads, then locking is mandatory. The
USE_LOCKING flag was added in version 0.3.7 with following release note:

    a new option USE_LOCKING was added to ensure thread safety when OpenBLAS
    itself is built without multithreading but will be called from multiple
    threads.

However, if one knows that OpenBLAS will only be called from single-threaded
applications, then passing USE_LOCKING is not necessary, so make it a config
option too.

When multithreading is enabled, locking is implicitly enabled inside
openblas, so only provide the locking option when multithreading is
disabled.

Signed-off-by: Thomas De Schampheleire <thomas.de_schampheleire at nokia.com>
---

This is a resend of v2, addressing comments of Thomas Petazzoni:
- let USE_LOCKING depend on !USE_THREAD
- don't pass USE_LOCKING=0 to avoid confusion

 package/openblas/Config.in   | 21 +++++++++++++++++++++
 package/openblas/openblas.mk |  9 ++++++++-
 2 files changed, 29 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/package/openblas/Config.in b/package/openblas/Config.in
index 3f658c862a..0144e93a3f 100644
--- a/package/openblas/Config.in
+++ b/package/openblas/Config.in
@@ -73,4 +73,25 @@ config BR2_PACKAGE_OPENBLAS_TARGET
 	string "OpenBLAS target CPU"
 	default BR2_PACKAGE_OPENBLAS_DEFAULT_TARGET
 
+config BR2_PACKAGE_OPENBLAS_USE_THREAD
+	bool "use multithreading"
+	default y
+	depends on BR2_TOOLCHAIN_HAS_THREADS
+	depends on !BR2_STATIC_LIBS
+	help
+	  Tell OpenBLAS to use multithreading, by passing USE_THREAD=1.
+
+config BR2_PACKAGE_OPENBLAS_USE_LOCKING
+	bool "use locking"
+	default y
+	depends on BR2_TOOLCHAIN_HAS_THREADS
+	depends on !BR2_PACKAGE_OPENBLAS_USE_THREAD
+	help
+	  Tell OpenBLAS to use locking, by passing USE_LOCKING=1.
+	  Locking is implicitly enabled when USE_THREAD=1.
+	  However, if USE_THREAD=0 (i.e. OpenBLAS itself will run in
+	  single-threaded mode) but an application makes OpenBLAS
+	  function calls from multiple threads, then locking is
+	  mandatory for correct operation.
+
 endif
diff --git a/package/openblas/openblas.mk b/package/openblas/openblas.mk
index 9701df9148..21d05cf30d 100644
--- a/package/openblas/openblas.mk
+++ b/package/openblas/openblas.mk
@@ -25,12 +25,19 @@ OPENBLAS_MAKE_OPTS += ONLY_CBLAS=1
 endif
 
 # Enable/Disable multi-threading (not for static-only since it uses dlfcn.h)
-ifeq ($(BR2_TOOLCHAIN_HAS_THREADS):$(BR2_STATIC_LIBS),y:)
+ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_OPENBLAS_USE_THREAD),y)
 OPENBLAS_MAKE_OPTS += USE_THREAD=1
 else
 OPENBLAS_MAKE_OPTS += USE_THREAD=0
 endif
 
+ifeq ($(BR2_PACKAGE_OPENBLAS_USE_LOCKING),y)
+OPENBLAS_MAKE_OPTS += USE_LOCKING=1
+else
+# not passing USE_LOCKING=0 as this could be confusing: its effect is implicit
+# in case of USE_THREAD=1.
+endif
+
 # We don't know if OpenMP is available or not, so disable
 OPENBLAS_MAKE_OPTS += USE_OPENMP=0
 
-- 
2.26.2



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