Refactoring of Buffers (last step towards unifying COW and Spilling)

docs/cudf/source/developer_guide/library_design.md

@@ -325,26 +325,26 @@ This section describes the internal implementation details of the copy-on-write
 It is recommended that developers familiarize themselves with [the user-facing documentation](copy-on-write-user-doc) of this functionality before reading through the internals
 below.
 
-The core copy-on-write implementation relies on the factory function `as_exposure_tracked_buffer` and the two classes `ExposureTrackedBuffer` and `BufferSlice`.
+The core copy-on-write implementation relies on `ExposureTrackedBuffer` and the tracking features of `BufferOwner`.
 
-An `ExposureTrackedBuffer` is a subclass of the regular `Buffer` that tracks internal and external references to its underlying memory. Internal references are tracked by maintaining [weak references](https://docs.python.org/3/library/weakref.html) to every `BufferSlice` of the underlying memory. External references are tracked through "exposure" status of the underlying memory. A buffer is considered exposed if the device pointer (integer or void*) has been handed out to a library outside of cudf. In this case, we have no way of knowing if the data are being modified by a third party.
+`BufferOwner` tracks internal and external references to its underlying memory. Internal references are tracked by maintaining [weak references](https://docs.python.org/3/library/weakref.html) to every `ExposureTrackedBuffer` of the underlying memory. External references are tracked through "exposure" status of the underlying memory. A buffer is considered exposed if the device pointer (integer or void*) has been handed out to a library outside of cudf. In this case, we have no way of knowing if the data are being modified by a third party.
 
-`BufferSlice` is a subclass of `ExposureTrackedBuffer` that represents a _slice_ of the memory underlying a exposure tracked buffer.
+`ExposureTrackedBuffer` is a subclass of `Buffer` that represents a _slice_ of the memory underlying an exposure tracked buffer.
 
-When the cudf option `"copy_on_write"` is `True`, `as_buffer` calls `as_exposure_tracked_buffer`, which always returns a `BufferSlice`. It is then the slices that determine whether or not to make a copy when a write operation is performed on a `Column` (see below). If multiple slices point to the same underlying memory, then a copy must be made whenever a modification is attempted.
+When the cudf option `"copy_on_write"` is `True`, `as_buffer` returns a `ExposureTrackedBuffer`. It is this class that determines whether or not to make a copy when a write operation is performed on a `Column` (see below). If multiple slices point to the same underlying memory, then a copy must be made whenever a modification is attempted.
 
 
 ### Eager copies when exposing to third-party libraries
 
-If a `Column`/`BufferSlice` is exposed to a third-party library via `__cuda_array_interface__`, we are no longer able to track whether or not modification of the buffer has occurred. Hence whenever
+If a `Column`/`ExposureTrackedBuffer` is exposed to a third-party library via `__cuda_array_interface__`, we are no longer able to track whether or not modification of the buffer has occurred. Hence whenever
 someone accesses data through the `__cuda_array_interface__`, we eagerly trigger the copy by calling
-`.make_single_owner_inplace` which ensures a true copy of underlying data is made and that the slice is the sole owner. Any future copy requests must also trigger a true physical copy (since we cannot track the lifetime of the third-party object). To handle this we also mark the `Column`/`BufferSlice` as exposed thus indicating that any future shallow-copy requests will trigger a true physical copy rather than a copy-on-write shallow copy.
+`.make_single_owner_inplace` which ensures a true copy of underlying data is made and that the slice is the sole owner. Any future copy requests must also trigger a true physical copy (since we cannot track the lifetime of the third-party object). To handle this we also mark the `Column`/`ExposureTrackedBuffer` as exposed thus indicating that any future shallow-copy requests will trigger a true physical copy rather than a copy-on-write shallow copy.
 
 ### Obtaining a read-only object
 
 A read-only object can be quite useful for operations that will not
 mutate the data. This can be achieved by calling `.get_ptr(mode="read")`, and using `cuda_array_interface_wrapper` to wrap a `__cuda_array_interface__` object around it.
-This will not trigger a deep copy even if multiple `BufferSlice` points to the same `ExposureTrackedBuffer`. This API should only be used when the lifetime of the proxy object is restricted to cudf's internal code execution. Handing this out to external libraries or user-facing APIs will lead to untracked references and undefined copy-on-write behavior. We currently use this API for device to host
+This will not trigger a deep copy even if multiple `ExposureTrackedBuffer`s point to the same `ExposureTrackedBufferOwner`. This API should only be used when the lifetime of the proxy object is restricted to cudf's internal code execution. Handing this out to external libraries or user-facing APIs will lead to untracked references and undefined copy-on-write behavior. We currently use this API for device to host
 copies like in `ColumnBase.data_array_view(mode="read")` which is used for `Column.values_host`.
 
 

python/cudf/cudf/core/abc.py

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# Copyright (c) 2020-2022, NVIDIA CORPORATION.
+# Copyright (c) 2020-2024, NVIDIA CORPORATION.
 """Common abstract base classes for cudf."""
 
 import pickle
@@ -89,7 +89,13 @@ def device_serialize(self):
         """
         header, frames = self.serialize()
         assert all(
-            isinstance(f, (cudf.core.buffer.Buffer, memoryview))
+            isinstance(
+                f,
+                (
+                    cudf.core.buffer.Buffer,
+                    memoryview,
+                ),
+            )
             for f in frames
         )
         header["type-serialized"] = pickle.dumps(type(self))

python/cudf/cudf/core/buffer/__init__.py

@@ -1,6 +1,10 @@
-# Copyright (c) 2022-2023, NVIDIA CORPORATION.
+# Copyright (c) 2022-2024, NVIDIA CORPORATION.
 
-from cudf.core.buffer.buffer import Buffer, cuda_array_interface_wrapper
+from cudf.core.buffer.buffer import (
+    Buffer,
+    BufferOwner,
+    cuda_array_interface_wrapper,
+)
 from cudf.core.buffer.exposure_tracked_buffer import ExposureTrackedBuffer
 from cudf.core.buffer.spillable_buffer import SpillableBuffer, SpillLock
 from cudf.core.buffer.utils import (