Moving gRPC core to C++

Originally written by ctiller, markdroth, and vjpai in October 2017

Revised by veblush in October 2019

Background and Goal

gRPC core was originally written in C89 for several reasons (possibility of kernel integration, ease of wrapping, compiler support, etc). Over time, this was changed to C99 as all relevant compilers in active use came to support C99 effectively.

gRPC started allowing to use C++ with a couple of exceptions not to have C++ library linked such as libstdc++.so. (For more detail, see the proposal)

Finally gRPC became ready to use full C++11 with the standard library by the proposal.

Throughout all of these transitions, the public header files are committed to remain in C89.

The goal now is to make the gRPC core implementation true idiomatic C++ compatible with Google's C++ style guide.

Constraints

• Most of features available in C++11 are allowed to use but there are some exceptions because gRPC should support old systems.
  • Should be built with gcc 4.8, clang 3.3, and Visual C++ 2015.
  • Should be run on Linux system with libstdc++ 6.0.9 to support manylinux1.
• This would limit us not to use modern C++11 standard library such as filesystem. You can easily see whether PR is free from this issue by checking the result of Artifact Build Linux test.
• thread_local is not allowed to use on Apple's products because their old OSes (e.g. ios < 9.0) don't support thread_local. Please use GPR_TLS_DECL instead.
• gRPC main libraries (grpc, grpc+++, and plugins) cannot use following C++ libraries: (Test and example codes are relatively free from this constraints)
  • <thread>. Use grpc_core::Thread.
  • <condition_variable>. Use grpc_core::CondVar.
  • <mutex>. Use grpc_core::Mutex, grpc_core::MutexLock, and grpc_core::ReleasableMutexLock.
  • <future>
  • <ratio>
  • <system_error>
  • <filesystem>

Roadmap

• What should be the phases of getting code converted to idiomatic C++
  • Opportunistically do leaf code that other parts don't depend on
  • Spend a little time deciding how to do non-leaf stuff that isn't central or polymorphic (e.g., timer, call combiner)
  • For big central or polymorphic interfaces, actually do an API review (for things like transport, filter API, endpoint, closure, exec_ctx, ...) .
    • Core internal changes don't need a gRFC, but core surface changes do
    • But an API review should include at least a PR with the header change and tests to use it before it gets used more broadly
  • iomgr polling for POSIX is a gray area whether it's a leaf or central
• What is the schedule?
  • In Q4 2017, if some stuff happens opportunistically, great; otherwise ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  • More updates as team time becomes available and committed to this project

Implications for C++ API and wrapped languages

• For C++ structs, switch to using when possible (e.g., Slice, ByteBuffer, ...)
• The C++ API implementation might directly start using grpc_transport_stream_op_batch rather than the core surface grpc_op.