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Paddle/doc/design/register_grad_op.md

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# Design Doc: Gradient Operators Registration
## The Problem Posed
Currently, for each C++ operator class definition, a *gradient operator creator* function is registered, which takes as input a C++ operator instance and returns the corresponding gradient operator instance.
However, we noticed two problems with the current design:
1. As we decided to separate the *compilation* and the *execution* phases, we need to change the creator to take an `OpDesc` protobuf message in a `ProgramDesc` and inserts corresponding `OpDesc` messages into the `ProgramDesc` message.
1. For some operators, the gradient computation can be written in terms of existing operators. For example, the gradient of *minus* operator consists of two operators -- an *identity* operator followed by a *scale* operator. Hence the registration mechanism needs to support mapping from an operator to a set of operators for the gradient computation.
## The Current Implementation
Instances of the C++ class `OpInfo` are stored an associative map whose key is the operator type. The `grad_op_type` indicates the associated gradient operator type. An operator can create the gradient operator by invoking `OpInfo::creator_` of the gradient operator. The pseudo code is as follows
```cpp
struct OpInfo {
std::function<OperatorBase*(...)> creator_;
std::string grad_op_type_;
...
};
map<string, OpInfo> OpInfoMap;
OperatorBase* CreateGradientOperator(const OperatorBase& op) {
return OpInfoMap.at(op.Type()).creator_(...);
}
```
## Proposed Solution
The mapping relationship between an operator and its gradient operators is a function. The interface of this function is:
```cpp
// (OpDesc) --> vector<OpDesc>
std::function<std::vector<OpDescBind>(const OpDescBind&)>;
```
The function takes an `OpDescBind` of the forward operator and returns one or many gradient operator descriptions. `OpDescBind` is a C++ wrapper for the protobuf message `OpDesc` for rapid manipulation of `OpDesc`.
The `GradOpDescMaker` will be registered in `OpInfo` and will replace the `grad_op_type_` field. The `OpInfo` should look like
```cpp
struct OpInfo {
std::function<std::vector<std::unique_ptr<OpDescBind>>(const OpDescBind&)> grad_op_maker_;
...
};
```
The `grad_op_maker_ ` is a `nullptr` if the operator does not have any associated gradient operators.
We propose a base class called `GradOpDescMakerBase` to let operator developers generate `Gradient Operators` easily. The public interface of that class is
```cpp
class GradOpDescMakerBase {
public:
GradOpDescMakerBase(const OpDescBind& );
virtual std::vector<std::unique_ptr<OpDescBind>> operator()()const = 0;
};
```
We can convert `GradOpDescMakerBase` to `std::function<std::vector<std::unique_ptr<OpDescBind>>(const OpDescBind&)>` by
```cpp
using GradOpMaker = ...;
std::function<std::vector<OpDescBind>(const OpDescBind&)> func;
func = [] (const OpDescBind& fwd_op) {
GradOpMaker maker(fwd_op);
return maker();
};
```
We can write many helper functions since the `GradOpDescMakerBase` is a class now. The basic helper functions get the variables of `Input`, `Output`, `InputGradient` and `OutputGradient` in the forwarding operator.
We should change register macros at the same time. In the current solution, there is no difference between forwarding operators and backward operators. So `REGISTER_OP` just register one operator. If the `REGISTER_OPERATOR ` contains `OpProtoAndCheckerMaker` and `GradOpDescMaker`, we just list them in the same macro. It can be done by a macro contains `__VA_ARGS__`.
The user interface should be
```cpp
vector<OpDesc> MinusOpGradMaker(OpDesc) {...}
REGISTER_OPERATOR(minus, MinusOp, MinusOpProtoAndCheckerMaker, SumOpGradMaker);
// Developers can still manually implement gradient operator.
REGISTER_OPERATOR(minus_grad, MinusGradOp);
```
The interface of current `REGISTER_OP` macro could not be changed. In `REGISTER_OP`, it will invoke `REGISTER_OPERATOR` two times and generate GradOpDescMaker inside.
```cpp
REGISTER_OP(minus, MinusOp, MinusOpProtoAndCheckerMaker, minus_grad, MinusGradOp);
```