leonardorame

leonardorame

Hi, I built a NIF out of a well known C++ Dicom library called DCMTK. The purpouse of this NIF is to stay loaded for the whole life of my Elixir/Phoenix application, where it’s functions are called many times.

The module that loads this NIF is called from an Agent and I thought it stay there forever, but as it is segfaulting after using it for a while I’m starting to think it is removed from memory after some time…

Let me show my code:

defmodule Prueba3.ImageCache do                                                                                                                                                                                                              
  use Agent                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
  def start_link(_opts) do                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
    Dcmtknif.initialize()                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
    Agent.start_link(fn -> %{} end, name: :imagecache)                                                                                                                                                                                       
  end                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
  def get(key) do                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
    Agent.get(:imagecache, &Map.get(&1, key))                                                                                                                                                                                                
  end                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
  def put(key, value) do                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
    Agent.update(:imagecache, &Map.put(&1, key, value))                                                                                                                                                                                      
  end                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
end
defmodule Dcmtknif do                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
  @on_load :load_nifs                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
  def load_nifs do                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
    :erlang.load_nif('./ssr/libssr', 0)                                                                                                                                                                                                      
  end                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
  def _loadDicomFile(_dicomfile) do                                                                                                                                                                                                          
    raise "NIF _loadDicomFile/1 not implemented"                                                                                                                                                                                             
  end                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
  def _getTagValue(_dcmff, _group, _element) do                                                                                                                                                                                              
    raise "NIF getTagValue/1 not implemented"                                                                                                                                                                                                
  end                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
  def _getHeader(_dcmff) do                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
    raise "NIF getHeader/1 not implemented"                                                                                                                                                                                                  
  end                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
  def _getPNG(_dcmff) do                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
    raise "NIF getPNG/1 not implemented"                                                                                                                                                                                                     
  end                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
  def _setMinMaxWindow(_dcmff) do                                                                                                                                                                                                            
    raise "NIF setMinMaxWindow/1 not implemented"                                                                                                                                                                                            
  end                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
  def _createScaledImage(_dcmff, _width, _height, _interpolate, _aspect) do                                                                                                                                                                  
    raise "NIF createScaledImage/5 not implemented"                                                                                                                                                                                          
  end;                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
  def _initialize() do                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
    IO.puts("Dcmtknif.initialize()")                                                                                                                                                                                                         
    raise "NIF initialize/0 not implemented"                                                                                                                                                                                                 
  end                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
  def _finalize() do                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
    raise "NIF finalize/0 not implemented"                                                                                                                                                                                                   
  end   
  ... more functions
end

Do you see something wrong?

Most Liked

whatyouhide

whatyouhide

Elixir Core Team

I’m not an expert in NIFs, but in general the VM yields execution to the NIF when you call it, so you’re really not supposed to have “long-running NIFs”. When you enter a NIF, the VM cannot do GC, context, switching, and so on anymore.

I think a common solution in a case like yours, where you have essentially an external program that needs to run continuously, is to use ports. You spawn the program you want to run and you let your Elixir application manage its lifetime. Then, you communicate with the spawned program through stdout.

Does that make sense?

leonardorame

leonardorame OP

Hi @whatyouhide, I think I wrongly explained what this NIF does. With “long-running” I mean it has state (internal variables pointing to data structures that can be accessed from the parent Elixir process), please don’t confuse with long loops or heavy processes inside it.

Regarding your ports suggestion, I can do that, but it adds complexity on the C++ side and I’m trying to maintain that part as small as possible.

jhogberg

jhogberg

Erlang Core Team

I can assure you that the NIF hasn’t been unloaded. You would need to do that manually, and even then the VM takes great care not to pull the rug while anything references it.

I think I can see why it crashes though. What’s preventing image/2 from being called concurrently?

Last Post!

leonardorame

leonardorame OP

Thanks!!!, now the the segfault has dissapeared.

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