Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/8] packfile: move the MRU list into the packfile store

From: Taylor Blau <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2025 18:39:32 -0400

On Tue, Oct 28, 2025 at 12:08:32PM +0100, Patrick Steinhardt wrote:
> Packfiles have two lists associated to them:
>
>   - A list that keeps track of packfiles in the order that they were
>     added to a packfile store.
>
>   - A list that keeps track of packfiles in most-recently-used order so
>     that packfiles that are more likely to contain a specific object are
>     ordered towards the front.
>
> Both of these lists are hosted by `struct packed_git` itself, So to
> identify all packfiles in a repository you simply need to grab the first
> packfile and then iterate the `->next` pointers or the MRU list. This
> pattern has the problem that all packfiles are part of the same list,
> regardless of whether or not they belong to the same object source.
>
> With the upcoming pluggable object database effort this needs to change:
> packfiles should be contained by a single object source, and reading an
> object from any such packfile should use that source to look up the
> object. Consequently, we need to break up the global lists of packfiles

s/lists/list/

> into per-object-source lists.

How does this work for alternates? My understanding is that each
alternate now has its own object source. So to perform an object lookup
in a repository with alternate(s), I am assuming that at some layer we
need to iterate over those sources to then enumerate the packs in that
source looking for some object.

I would have imagined that packfile.c::find_pack_entry() would have to
be adjusted in a similar way as above, but I couldn't find the changes
in this series, so I feel like I must be missing something in my
understanding of how this all works together :-).

Are packs from different sources still connected somehow such that
iterating over the list of packs from one source will enumerate the list
of packs from all sources?

> A first step towards this goal is to move those lists ouf of `struct

s/ouf/out/

> packed_git` and into the packfile store. While the packfile store is
> currently sitting on the `struct object_database` level, the intent is
> to push it down one level into the `struct odb_source` in a subsequent
> patch series.

Before sending, I was confused by "Consequently, we need to break up the
global lists of packfiles [...]", since it wasn't clear whether or not
this series realizes that goal, or pushes us in the direction towards
it.

But this clarifies things, and I think is the reason that we do not see
more invasive changes like needing to enumerate the MRU cache of each
store in order to find an object like I mentioned above.

> Introduce a new `struct packfile_list` that is used to manage lists of
> packfiles and use it to store the list of most-recently-used packfiles
> in `struct packfile_store`. For now, the new list type is only used in a
> single spot, but we'll expand its usage in subsequent patches.

I am a little curious why we need a new list type and implementation
here. Is it to avoid exposing the list as part of struct packed_git like
we are forced to do with list_head?

I could imagine that you might want to avoid exposing the "struct
list_head mru" part of packed_git to avoid the suggestion that all
packfiles (including those from different sources) are part of the same
list. But if that's the case, I wonder if we couldn't have kept the same
mru list and clarified via comment that it is per-store, not global.

I suppose that is a bit of a foot-gun, and perhaps that is what you are
trying to do here, but after reading the patch message a few times I
wasn't clear on what the motivation for the new type was.

Thanks,
Taylor