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From: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte•hu>
To: Dmitry Potapov <dpotapov@gmail•com>
Cc: git@vger•kernel.org, "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor•com>,
	"Thomas Gleixner" <tglx@linutronix•de>,
	"Peter Zijlstra" <a.p.zijlstra@chello•nl>,
	"Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo" <acme@redhat•com>,
	"Frédéric Weisbecker" <fweisbec@gmail•com>,
	"Pekka Enberg" <penberg@cs•helsinki.fi>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] git gc: Speed it up by 18% via faster hash comparisons
Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 11:44:59 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20110428094459.GA15952@elte.hu> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <BANLkTikWd8=1RbY78tPFMVhuV05eKVzjkg@mail.gmail.com>


* Dmitry Potapov <dpotapov@gmail•com> wrote:

> 2011/4/28 Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte•hu>:
> >
> > * Dmitry Potapov <dpotapov@gmail•com> wrote:
> >
> >> 2011/4/28 Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte•hu>:
> >> > +static inline int hashcmp(const unsigned char *sha1, const unsigned char *sha2)
> >> >  {
> >> > -       return !memcmp(sha1, null_sha1, 20);
> >> > +       int i;
> >> > +
> >> > +       for (i = 0; i < 20; i++, sha1++, sha2++) {
> >> > +               if (*sha1 != *sha2) {
> >>
> >> At the very least, you may want to put 'likely' in this 'if'
> >> condition, otherwise the compiler may optimize this loop in
> >> the same way as with memcmp. So, it may work well now, but
> >> it may not work much slower with future versions or different
> >> level of optimization. (AFAIK, -O3 is far more aggressive in
> >> optimizing of loops).
> >
> > the main difference is between the string assembly instructions and the loop.
> > Modern CPUs will hardly notice this loop being emitted with slight variations
> > by the compiler. So i do not share this concern.
> 
> Here you make an assumption what kind of optimization the compiler
> can do. [...]

I make no assumption there because rule #1 is that the compiler can pretty well 
do what it wants and we have little control over that.

> [...] As Jonathan noticed above, theoretically a smart compiler can turn this 
> loop into memcmp (or code very similar to memcmp).

Yes, and in practice it does not, and in practice we can speed up git gc 
measurably.

> The reason why memcmp does not work well is that it is optimized
> for the worst case scenario (where beginning of two strings is
> the same), while _we_ know that with a hash it very unlikely,
> and we want to conduct this knowledge to the compiler in some
> way. Just re-writing memcmp as explicit loop does not conduct
> this knowledge.
> 
> Therefore, I believe it makes sense to add 'likely'. I have not
> tested this code, but in the past, I had a very similar code
> which was compiled with -O3, and just putting likely turned out
> to 40% speed-up for that comparison function.

You guys can certainly add the 'likely()' if you want to (it likely wont hurt) 
- but note that the compiler can *still* turn it into a memcpy() - see rule #1 
above.

Note that Git does not have a likely() facility at the moment and 
__builtin_expect() is a GNU extension. Should be a separate patch.

Thanks,

	Ingo

  reply	other threads:[~2011-04-28  9:45 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 45+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2011-04-27 22:51 [PATCH] git gc: Speed it up by 18% via faster hash comparisons Ingo Molnar
2011-04-27 23:10 ` Ingo Molnar
2011-04-27 23:18 ` Jonathan Nieder
2011-04-28  6:36   ` Ingo Molnar
2011-04-28  9:31     ` Jonathan Nieder
2011-04-28 10:36     ` Ingo Molnar
2011-04-28  9:32   ` Dmitry Potapov
2011-04-27 23:32 ` Junio C Hamano
2011-04-28  0:35   ` Ralf Baechle
2011-04-28  8:18     ` Bernhard R. Link
2011-04-28  9:42       ` Andreas Ericsson
2011-04-28  9:55         ` Erik Faye-Lund
2011-04-28 20:19           ` H. Peter Anvin
2011-04-28  6:27   ` Ingo Molnar
2011-04-28  9:17     ` Erik Faye-Lund
2011-04-28  9:33       ` Ingo Molnar
2011-04-28  9:37       ` Ingo Molnar
2011-04-28  9:50         ` Erik Faye-Lund
2011-04-28 10:10           ` Pekka Enberg
2011-04-28 10:19             ` Erik Faye-Lund
2011-04-28 10:30               ` Pekka Enberg
2011-04-28 11:59                 ` Erik Faye-Lund
2011-04-28 12:12                   ` Pekka Enberg
2011-04-28 12:36                   ` Jonathan Nieder
2011-04-28 12:40                     ` Erik Faye-Lund
2011-04-28 13:37                     ` Ingo Molnar
2011-04-28 15:14                       ` Ingo Molnar
2011-04-28 16:00                         ` Erik Faye-Lund
2011-04-28 20:32                           ` Ingo Molnar
2011-04-29  7:05                   ` Alex Riesen
2011-04-29 16:24                     ` H. Peter Anvin
2011-04-28 12:16                 ` Tor Arntsen
2011-04-28 20:23                   ` H. Peter Anvin
2011-04-28 12:17                 ` Andreas Ericsson
2011-04-28 12:28                   ` Erik Faye-Lund
2011-04-28 10:19           ` Ingo Molnar
2011-04-28 12:02             ` Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy
2011-04-28 12:18             ` Erik Faye-Lund
2011-04-28 20:20             ` Junio C Hamano
2011-04-28 16:36         ` Dmitry Potapov
2011-04-28  8:52 ` Dmitry Potapov
2011-04-28  9:11   ` Ingo Molnar
2011-04-28  9:31     ` Dmitry Potapov
2011-04-28  9:44       ` Ingo Molnar [this message]
2011-04-28  9:38     ` Ingo Molnar

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