Tag: Helib

Be cautious of discriminating “Ctxt::multiplyBy()” and “Ctxt::*=”

In the past 2 Days, I was frustrated by an issue, which will cause program crashed at HElib‘s Ctxt::reLinearize() function:

assert(W.toKeyID>=0);       // verify that a switching matrix exists

After tough debugging, the root cause is found: I should use Ctxt::multiplyBy() instead of Ctxt::*=. From Ctxt::multiplyBy()‘s implementation:

void Ctxt::multiplyBy(const Ctxt& other)
{
  // Special case: if *this is empty then do nothing
  if (this->isEmpty()) return;

  *this *= other;  // perform the multiplication
  reLinearize();   // re-linearize
}

We can see besides it calls Ctxt::*=, it also invokes reLinearize(), and that’s point!

Clang may be a better choice than gcc in developing OpenMP program

As referred in The first gcc bug I ever meet, I upgraded gcc to the newest 7.1.0 version to conquer building OpenMP errors. But unfortunately, when using taskloop clause, weird issue happened again. My application utilizes HElib, and I just added following statement in a source file:

#pragma omp taskloop

Then the strange link error reported:

In function `EncryptedArray::EncryptedArray(EncryptedArray const&)':
/root/Project/../../HElib/src/EncryptedArray.h:539: undefined reference to `cloned_ptr<EncryptedArrayBase, deep_clone<EncryptedArrayBase> >::cloned_ptr(cloned_ptr<EncryptedArrayBase, deep_clone<EncryptedArrayBase> > const&)'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status

I tried to debug it, nevertheless, nothing valuable was found.

So I attempted to use clang. Install it on ArchLinux like this:

# pacman -S clang
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (2) llvm-libs-4.0.0-3  clang-4.0.0-3

Total Download Size:53.24 MiB
Total Installed Size:  275.24 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] y
......
checking available disk space  [#########################################] 100%
:: Processing package changes...
(1/2) installing llvm-libs   [#########################################] 100%
(2/2) installing clang   [#########################################] 100%
Optional dependencies for clang
openmp: OpenMP support in clang with -fopenmp
python2: for scan-view and git-clang-format [installed]
:: Running post-transaction hooks...
(1/1) Arming ConditionNeedsUpdate...

Unlike gcc, to enable OpenMP feature in clang, we need to install an additional openmp package:

# pacman -S openmp

Write a simple program:

# cat parallel.cpp
#include <stdio.h>
#include <omp.h>

int main(void) {
    omp_set_num_threads(5);

    #pragma omp parallel for
    for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) {

        #pragma omp taskloop
        for (int j = 0; j < 3; j++) {
            printf("%d\n", omp_get_thread_num());
        }

    }   
}

Compile and run it:

# clang++ -fopenmp parallel.cpp
# ./a.out
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
2
4
4
4
4
3
0
1

Clang OpenMP works as I expected. Build my project again, no eccentric errors! Work like a charm!

So according to my testing experience, clang may be a better choice than gcc in developing OpenMP program, especially for some new OpenMP features.