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Fix RNG segfaults when given size-0 input - #3389

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WardBrian merged 3 commits into
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fix/rng-size-zeros
Sep 7, 2026
Merged

Fix RNG segfaults when given size-0 input#3389
WardBrian merged 3 commits into
developfrom
fix/rng-size-zeros

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@WardBrian

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Summary

Closes #3388. I believe a lot of our RNGs behave poorly with size-0 inputs, so this PR adds some code to the vectorized rng test harness to test all of them that use that. My plan is then to fix each one that pops up before merging.

Tests

Updated rng test framework accordingly.

Side Effects

None

Release notes

RNGs now behave properly when given a size-0 input.

Checklist

  • Copyright holder: Simons Foundation

    The copyright holder is typically you or your assignee, such as a university or company. By submitting this pull request, the copyright holder is agreeing to the license the submitted work under the following licenses:
    - Code: BSD 3-clause (https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause)
    - Documentation: CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

  • the basic tests are passing

    • unit tests pass (to run, use: ./runTests.py test/unit)
    • header checks pass, (make test-headers)
    • dependencies checks pass, (make test-math-dependencies)
    • docs build, (make doxygen)
    • code passes the built in C++ standards checks (make cpplint)
  • the code is written in idiomatic C++ and changes are documented in the doxygen

  • the new changes are tested

@WardBrian
WardBrian marked this pull request as ready for review September 6, 2026 16:57
@WardBrian
WardBrian requested a review from andrjohns September 6, 2026 16:58
@stan-buildbot

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Name Old Result New Result Ratio Performance change( 1 - new / old )
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/gp_regr/gp_regr.stan 0.23 0.23 0.99 -0.53% slower
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/gp_regr/gen_gp_data.stan 0.06 0.06 1.0 0.44% faster
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/low_dim_gauss_mix/low_dim_gauss_mix.stan 6.44 6.48 0.99 -0.74% slower
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/low_dim_corr_gauss/low_dim_corr_gauss.stan 0.02 0.02 1.0 0.15% faster
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/irt_2pl/irt_2pl.stan 9.19 9.05 1.02 1.49% faster
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/gp_pois_regr/gp_pois_regr.stan 4.49 4.54 0.99 -1.19% slower
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/sir/sir.stan 168.0 167.36 1.0 0.38% faster
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/garch/garch.stan 0.89 0.9 0.99 -0.62% slower
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/arma/arma.stan 0.7 0.7 1.0 0.01% faster
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/pkpd/one_comp_mm_elim_abs.stan 42.72 42.77 1.0 -0.11% slower
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/pkpd/sim_one_comp_mm_elim_abs.stan 0.59 0.61 0.98 -2.47% slower
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/low_dim_gauss_mix_collapse/low_dim_gauss_mix_collapse.stan 20.95 21.05 1.0 -0.47% slower
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/eight_schools/eight_schools.stan 0.11 0.11 0.97 -2.64% slower
stat_comp_benchmarks/benchmarks/arK/arK.stan 3.18 3.21 0.99 -0.81% slower
performance.compilation 382.6 390.58 0.98 -2.08% slower
Mean result: 0.9940120797706997

Jenkins Console Log
Jenkins Build Stages
Commit hash: d04d4d98d98e4f20ef42144427690b525ed1523f

Machine information
Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
Description:	Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS
Release:	20.04
Codename:	focal

CPU:

Architecture:                            x86_64
CPU op-mode(s):                          32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order:                              Little Endian
Address sizes:                           43 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
CPU(s):                                  256
On-line CPU(s) list:                     0-255
Thread(s) per core:                      2
Core(s) per socket:                      64
Socket(s):                               2
NUMA node(s):                            2
Vendor ID:                               AuthenticAMD
CPU family:                              23
Model:                                   49
Model name:                              AMD EPYC 7742 64-Core Processor
Stepping:                                0
Frequency boost:                         enabled
CPU MHz:                                 1496.474
CPU max MHz:                             3416.0681
CPU min MHz:                             1500.0000
BogoMIPS:                                4491.55
Virtualization:                          AMD-V
L1d cache:                               4 MiB
L1i cache:                               4 MiB
L2 cache:                                64 MiB
L3 cache:                                512 MiB
NUMA node0 CPU(s):                       0-63,128-191
NUMA node1 CPU(s):                       64-127,192-255
Vulnerability Gather data sampling:      Not affected
Vulnerability Indirect target selection: Not affected
Vulnerability Itlb multihit:             Not affected
Vulnerability L1tf:                      Not affected
Vulnerability Mds:                       Not affected
Vulnerability Meltdown:                  Not affected
Vulnerability Mmio stale data:           Not affected
Vulnerability Reg file data sampling:    Not affected
Vulnerability Retbleed:                  Mitigation; untrained return thunk; SMT enabled with STIBP protection
Vulnerability Spec rstack overflow:      Mitigation; Safe RET
Vulnerability Spec store bypass:         Mitigation; Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
Vulnerability Spectre v1:                Mitigation; usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Vulnerability Spectre v2:                Mitigation; Retpolines; IBPB conditional; STIBP always-on; RSB filling; PBRSB-eIBRS Not affected; BHI Not affected
Vulnerability Srbds:                     Not affected
Vulnerability Tsa:                       Not affected
Vulnerability Tsx async abort:           Not affected
Vulnerability Vmscape:                   Mitigation; IBPB before exit to userspace
Flags:                                   fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid extd_apicid aperfmperf rapl pni pclmulqdq monitor ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw ibs skinit wdt tce topoext perfctr_core perfctr_nb bpext perfctr_llc mwaitx cpb cat_l3 cdp_l3 hw_pstate ssbd mba ibrs ibpb stibp vmmcall fsgsbase bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 cqm rdt_a rdseed adx smap clflushopt clwb sha_ni xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves cqm_llc cqm_occup_llc cqm_mbm_total cqm_mbm_local clzero irperf xsaveerptr rdpru wbnoinvd amd_ppin arat npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save tsc_scale vmcb_clean flushbyasid decodeassists pausefilter pfthreshold avic v_vmsave_vmload vgif v_spec_ctrl umip rdpid overflow_recov succor smca sev sev_es

G++:

g++ (Ubuntu 9.4.0-1ubuntu1~20.04) 9.4.0
Copyright (C) 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Clang:

clang version 10.0.0-4ubuntu1 
Target: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Thread model: posix
InstalledDir: /usr/bin

@andrjohns andrjohns left a comment

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Should this throw (or return nan) instead? If the default-constructed-type is returned (I'm guessing an uninitialised vector) a user might not realise that the output isn't valid (depending on how the value shows in the output)

@WardBrian

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The result in all these cases will just be a size-0 vector, which is consistent. If the user tries to access it, then it will throw, but the advantage of not throwing “early” is especially seen in generic models like rstanarm-type projects where they use 0 sizes to turn certain items “off”.

Any of the vectorized RNGS that only accept one argument already do this, it’s just that these multi-arg ones that take the max size of their argument for the internal for loop end up segfaulting.

@andrjohns

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The result in all these cases will just be a size-0 vector, which is consistent. If the user tries to access it, then it will throw, but the advantage of not throwing “early” is especially seen in generic models like rstanarm-type projects where they use 0 sizes to turn certain items “off”.

Any of the vectorized RNGS that only accept one argument already do this, it’s just that these multi-arg ones that take the max size of their argument for the internal for loop end up segfaulting.

Ahhh true

@WardBrian
WardBrian merged commit 2be4d77 into develop Sep 7, 2026
34 checks passed
@WardBrian
WardBrian deleted the fix/rng-size-zeros branch September 7, 2026 13:32
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normal_rng crashes when provided zero-length vector for mu and scalar for sigma

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