From: Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail•com>
To: Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget <gitgitgadget@gmail•com>,
git@vger•kernel.org
Cc: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail•com>,
Ezekiel Newren <ezekielnewren@gmail•com>,
Edward Thomson <ethomson@edwardthomson•com>,
"brian m. carlson" <sandals@crustytoothpaste•net>,
Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr•com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/7] RFC: Accelerate xdiff and begin its rustification
Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2025 14:34:34 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <f439958d-64ce-417f-8175-720f69387d48@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <pull.1980.git.git.1752784344.gitgitgadget@gmail.com>
Hi Ezekiel
Thanks for working on this
On 17/07/2025 21:32, Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget wrote:
> This series accelerates xdiff by 5-19%.
>
> It also introduces Rust as a hard dependency.
>
> …and it doesn’t yet pass a couple of the github workflows; hints from
> Windows experts, and opinions on ambiguous primitives would be appreciated
> (see below).
>
> This is just the beginning of many patches that I have to convert portions
> of, maybe eventually all of, xdiff to Rust. While working on that
> conversion, I found several ways to clarify the code, along with some
> optimizations.
>
> So...
>
> This obviously raises the question of whether we are ready to accept a hard
> dependency on Rust. Previous discussions on the mailing list and at Git
> Merge 2024 have not answered that question. If not now, will we be willing
> to accept such a hard dependency later? And what route do we want to take to
> get there?
As far as git goes I think introducing a hard dependency on rust is
fine. It is widely supported, the only issue I'm aware of is the lack of
support on NonStop and I don't think it is reasonable for such a
minority platform to hold the rest of the project to ransom. There is a
question about the other users of the xdiff code though. libgit2 carries
a copy as do other projects like neovim. I've cc'd the libgit2
maintainer and posted a link to this thread in neovim github [1]
I've left a few comments on the patches
Thanks
Phillip
[1] https://github.com/neovim/neovim/discussions/34987
> About the optimizations in this series:
>
> 1. xdiff currently uses DJB2a for hashing (even though it is not explicitly named as such). This is an older hashing algorithm, and modern alternatives are superior. I chose xxhash because it’s faster, more collision resistant, and designed to be a standard. Other hash algorithms like aHash, MurMurHash, SipHash, and Fnv1a were considered, but my local testing made me feel like xxhash was the best choice for usage in xdiff.
>
> 2. In support of switching to xxhash, parsing and hashing were split into separate steps. And it turns out that memchr() is faster for parsing than character-by-character iteration.
>
>
> About the workflow builds/tests that aren’t working with this series:
>
> 1. Windows fails to build. I don’t know which rust toolchain is even correct for this or if multiple are needed. Example failed build: https://github.com/git/git/actions/runs/16353209191
>
> 2. I386/ubuntu:focal will build, but fails the tests. The kernel reports the bitness as 64 despite the container being 32. I believe the issue is that C uses ambiguous primitives (which differ in size between platforms). The new code should use unambiguous primitives from Rust (u32, u64, etc.) rather than perpetuating ambiguous primitive types. Since the current xdiff API hardcodes the ambiguous types, though, those places will need to be migrated to unambiguous primitives. Much of the C code needs a slight refactor to be compatible with the Rust FFI and usually requires converting ambiguous to unambiguous types. What does this community think of this approach?
>
>
> My brother (Elijah, cc’ed) has been guiding and reviewing my work here.
>
> Ezekiel Newren (7):
> xdiff: introduce rust
> xdiff/xprepare: remove superfluous forward declarations
> xdiff: delete unnecessary fields from xrecord_t and xdfile_t
> xdiff: make fields of xrecord_t Rust friendly
> xdiff: separate parsing lines from hashing them
> xdiff: conditionally use Rust's implementation of xxhash
> github_workflows: install rust
>
> .github/workflows/main.yml | 1 +
> .gitignore | 1 +
> Makefile | 60 +++++++---
> build_rust.sh | 59 ++++++++++
> ci/install-dependencies.sh | 14 +--
> ci/install-rust.sh | 33 ++++++
> ci/lib.sh | 8 ++
> ci/make-test-artifacts.sh | 7 ++
> ci/run-build-and-tests.sh | 10 ++
> git-compat-util.h | 17 +++
> meson.build | 40 +++++--
> rust/Cargo.lock | 21 ++++
> rust/Cargo.toml | 6 +
> rust/interop/Cargo.toml | 14 +++
> rust/interop/src/lib.rs | 0
> rust/xdiff/Cargo.toml | 16 +++
> rust/xdiff/src/lib.rs | 7 ++
> xdiff/xdiffi.c | 8 +-
> xdiff/xemit.c | 2 +-
> xdiff/xmerge.c | 14 +--
> xdiff/xpatience.c | 2 +-
> xdiff/xprepare.c | 226 ++++++++++++++++++-------------------
> xdiff/xtypes.h | 9 +-
> xdiff/xutils.c | 4 +-
> 24 files changed, 414 insertions(+), 165 deletions(-)
> create mode 100755 build_rust.sh
> create mode 100644 ci/install-rust.sh
> create mode 100644 rust/Cargo.lock
> create mode 100644 rust/Cargo.toml
> create mode 100644 rust/interop/Cargo.toml
> create mode 100644 rust/interop/src/lib.rs
> create mode 100644 rust/xdiff/Cargo.toml
> create mode 100644 rust/xdiff/src/lib.rs
>
>
> base-commit: 16bd9f20a403117f2e0d9bcda6c6e621d3763e77
> Published-As: https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git/releases/tag/pr-git-1980%2Fezekielnewren%2Fxdiff_rust_speedup-v1
> Fetch-It-Via: git fetch https://github.com/gitgitgadget/git pr-git-1980/ezekielnewren/xdiff_rust_speedup-v1
> Pull-Request: https://github.com/git/git/pull/1980
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2025-07-18 13:34 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 206+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2025-07-17 20:32 [PATCH 0/7] RFC: Accelerate xdiff and begin its rustification Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-07-17 20:32 ` [PATCH 1/7] xdiff: introduce rust Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-07-17 21:30 ` brian m. carlson
2025-07-17 21:54 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-07-17 22:39 ` Taylor Blau
2025-07-18 23:15 ` Ezekiel Newren
2025-07-23 21:57 ` brian m. carlson
2025-07-23 22:26 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-07-28 19:11 ` Ezekiel Newren
2025-07-31 22:37 ` brian m. carlson
2025-07-22 22:02 ` Mike Hommey
2025-07-22 23:52 ` brian m. carlson
2025-07-17 22:38 ` Taylor Blau
2025-07-17 20:32 ` [PATCH 2/7] xdiff/xprepare: remove superfluous forward declarations Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-07-17 22:41 ` Taylor Blau
2025-07-17 20:32 ` [PATCH 3/7] xdiff: delete unnecessary fields from xrecord_t and xdfile_t Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-07-17 20:32 ` [PATCH 4/7] xdiff: make fields of xrecord_t Rust friendly Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-07-17 22:46 ` Taylor Blau
2025-07-17 23:13 ` brian m. carlson
2025-07-17 23:37 ` Elijah Newren
2025-07-18 0:23 ` Taylor Blau
2025-07-18 0:21 ` Taylor Blau
2025-07-18 13:35 ` Phillip Wood
2025-07-28 19:34 ` Ezekiel Newren
2025-07-28 19:52 ` Phillip Wood
2025-07-28 20:14 ` Ezekiel Newren
2025-07-31 14:20 ` Phillip Wood
2025-07-31 20:58 ` Ezekiel Newren
2025-08-01 9:14 ` Phillip Wood
2025-07-28 20:53 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-07-28 20:00 ` Collin Funk
2025-07-20 1:39 ` Johannes Schindelin
2025-07-17 20:32 ` [PATCH 5/7] xdiff: separate parsing lines from hashing them Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-07-17 22:59 ` Taylor Blau
2025-07-18 13:34 ` Phillip Wood
2025-07-17 20:32 ` [PATCH 6/7] xdiff: conditionally use Rust's implementation of xxhash Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-07-17 23:29 ` Taylor Blau
2025-07-18 19:00 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-07-31 21:13 ` Ezekiel Newren
2025-08-02 7:53 ` Matthias Aßhauer
2025-07-19 21:53 ` Johannes Schindelin
2025-07-20 10:14 ` Phillip Wood
2025-09-23 9:57 ` gitoxide-compatible licensing of Git's Rust code, was " Johannes Schindelin
2025-09-23 17:48 ` Jeff King
2025-09-24 13:48 ` Phillip Wood
2025-09-25 2:25 ` Jeff King
2025-09-25 5:42 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-09-26 10:06 ` Phillip Wood
2025-10-03 3:18 ` Jeff King
2025-10-03 9:51 ` Phillip Wood
2025-10-07 9:11 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-11-17 13:37 ` Johannes Schindelin
2025-10-05 5:32 ` Yee Cheng Chin
2025-07-17 20:32 ` [PATCH 7/7] github_workflows: install rust Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-07-17 21:23 ` brian m. carlson
2025-07-18 23:01 ` Ezekiel Newren
2025-07-25 23:56 ` Ben Knoble
2025-07-19 21:54 ` Johannes Schindelin
2025-07-17 21:51 ` [PATCH 0/7] RFC: Accelerate xdiff and begin its rustification brian m. carlson
2025-07-17 22:25 ` Taylor Blau
2025-07-18 0:29 ` brian m. carlson
2025-07-22 12:21 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-07-22 15:56 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-07-22 16:03 ` Sam James
2025-07-22 21:37 ` Elijah Newren
2025-07-22 21:55 ` Sam James
2025-07-22 22:08 ` Collin Funk
2025-07-18 9:23 ` Christian Brabandt
2025-07-18 16:26 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-07-19 0:32 ` Elijah Newren
2025-07-18 13:34 ` Phillip Wood [this message]
2025-07-18 21:25 ` Eli Schwartz
2025-07-19 0:48 ` Haelwenn (lanodan) Monnier
2025-07-22 12:21 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-07-22 14:24 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-07-22 15:14 ` Eli Schwartz
2025-07-22 15:56 ` Sam James
2025-07-23 4:32 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-07-24 9:01 ` Pierre-Emmanuel Patry
2025-07-24 10:00 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-07-28 9:06 ` Pierre-Emmanuel Patry
2025-07-18 14:38 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-07-18 21:56 ` Ezekiel Newren
2025-07-21 10:14 ` Phillip Wood
2025-07-21 18:33 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-07-19 21:53 ` Johannes Schindelin
2025-07-20 8:45 ` Matthias Aßhauer
2025-08-15 1:22 ` [PATCH v2 00/17] " Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-15 1:22 ` [PATCH v2 01/17] doc: add a policy for using Rust brian m. carlson via GitGitGadget
2025-08-15 17:03 ` Matthias Aßhauer
2025-08-15 21:31 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-08-16 8:06 ` Matthias Aßhauer
2025-08-19 2:06 ` Ezekiel Newren
2025-08-15 1:22 ` [PATCH v2 02/17] xdiff: introduce rust Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-15 1:22 ` [PATCH v2 03/17] xdiff/xprepare: remove superfluous forward declarations Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-15 1:22 ` [PATCH v2 04/17] xdiff: delete unnecessary fields from xrecord_t and xdfile_t Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-15 1:22 ` [PATCH v2 05/17] xdiff: make fields of xrecord_t Rust friendly Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-15 1:22 ` [PATCH v2 06/17] xdiff: separate parsing lines from hashing them Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-15 1:22 ` [PATCH v2 07/17] xdiff: conditionally use Rust's implementation of xxhash Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-15 1:22 ` [PATCH v2 08/17] github workflows: install rust Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-15 1:22 ` [PATCH v2 09/17] Do support Windows again after requiring Rust Johannes Schindelin via GitGitGadget
2025-08-15 17:12 ` Matthias Aßhauer
2025-08-15 21:48 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-08-15 22:11 ` Johannes Schindelin
2025-08-15 23:37 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-08-15 23:37 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-08-16 8:53 ` Matthias Aßhauer
2025-08-17 15:57 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-08-19 2:22 ` Ezekiel Newren
2025-08-15 1:22 ` [PATCH v2 10/17] win+Meson: allow for xdiff to be compiled with MSVC Johannes Schindelin via GitGitGadget
2025-08-15 1:22 ` [PATCH v2 11/17] win+Meson: do allow linking with the Rust-built xdiff Johannes Schindelin via GitGitGadget
2025-08-15 1:22 ` [PATCH v2 12/17] github workflows: define rust versions and targets in the same place Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-15 1:22 ` [PATCH v2 13/17] github workflows: upload Cargo.lock Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-15 1:22 ` [PATCH v2 14/17] xdiff: implement a white space iterator in Rust Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-15 1:22 ` [PATCH v2 15/17] xdiff: create line_hash() and line_equal() Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-15 1:22 ` [PATCH v2 16/17] xdiff: optimize case where --ignore-cr-at-eol is the only whitespace flag Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-15 1:22 ` [PATCH v2 17/17] xdiff: use rust's version of whitespace processing Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-15 15:07 ` [-SPAM-] [PATCH v2 00/17] RFC: Accelerate xdiff and begin its rustification Ramsay Jones
2025-08-19 2:00 ` Elijah Newren
2025-08-24 16:52 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-08-18 22:31 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-08-18 23:52 ` Ben Knoble
2025-08-19 1:52 ` Elijah Newren
2025-08-19 9:47 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-08-23 3:55 ` [PATCH v3 00/15] RFC: Cleanup " Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-23 3:55 ` [PATCH v3 01/15] doc: add a policy for using Rust brian m. carlson via GitGitGadget
2025-08-23 3:55 ` [PATCH v3 02/15] xdiff: introduce rust Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-23 13:43 ` rsbecker
2025-08-23 14:26 ` Kristoffer Haugsbakk
2025-08-23 15:06 ` rsbecker
2025-08-23 18:30 ` Elijah Newren
2025-08-23 19:24 ` brian m. carlson
2025-08-23 20:04 ` rsbecker
2025-08-23 20:36 ` Sam James
2025-08-23 21:17 ` Haelwenn (lanodan) Monnier
2025-08-27 1:57 ` Taylor Blau
2025-08-27 14:39 ` rsbecker
2025-08-27 17:06 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-08-27 17:15 ` rsbecker
2025-08-27 20:12 ` Taylor Blau
2025-08-27 20:22 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-09-02 11:16 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-09-02 11:30 ` Sam James
2025-09-02 17:27 ` brian m. carlson
2025-09-02 18:47 ` Sam James
2025-09-03 18:22 ` Collin Funk
2025-09-03 5:40 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-09-03 16:22 ` Ramsay Jones
2025-09-03 22:10 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-09-03 22:48 ` Josh Steadmon
2025-09-04 11:10 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-09-04 15:45 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-09-05 8:23 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-09-04 0:57 ` brian m. carlson
2025-09-04 11:39 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-09-04 13:53 ` Sam James
2025-09-05 3:55 ` Elijah Newren
2025-09-04 23:17 ` Ezekiel Newren
2025-09-05 3:54 ` Elijah Newren
2025-09-05 6:50 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-09-07 4:10 ` Elijah Newren
2025-09-07 16:09 ` rsbecker
2025-09-08 10:12 ` Phillip Wood
2025-09-08 15:32 ` rsbecker
2025-09-08 15:10 ` Ezekiel Newren
2025-09-08 15:41 ` rsbecker
2025-09-08 15:31 ` Elijah Newren
2025-09-08 15:36 ` rsbecker
2025-09-08 16:13 ` Elijah Newren
2025-09-08 17:01 ` rsbecker
2025-09-08 6:40 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-09-05 10:31 ` Phillip Wood
2025-09-05 11:32 ` Sam James
2025-09-05 13:14 ` Phillip Wood
2025-09-05 13:23 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-09-05 15:37 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-09-08 6:40 ` Patrick Steinhardt
2025-08-23 14:29 ` Ezekiel Newren
2025-08-23 3:55 ` [PATCH v3 03/15] github workflows: install rust Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-23 3:55 ` [PATCH v3 04/15] win+Meson: do allow linking with the Rust-built xdiff Johannes Schindelin via GitGitGadget
2025-08-23 3:55 ` [PATCH v3 05/15] github workflows: upload Cargo.lock Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-23 3:55 ` [PATCH v3 06/15] ivec: create a vector type that is interoperable between C and Rust Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-23 8:12 ` Kristoffer Haugsbakk
2025-08-23 9:29 ` Ezekiel Newren
2025-08-23 16:14 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-08-23 16:37 ` Ezekiel Newren
2025-08-23 18:05 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-08-23 20:29 ` Ezekiel Newren
2025-08-25 19:16 ` Elijah Newren
2025-08-26 5:40 ` Junio C Hamano
2025-08-24 13:31 ` Ben Knoble
2025-08-25 20:40 ` Ezekiel Newren
2025-08-26 13:30 ` D. Ben Knoble
2025-08-26 18:47 ` Ezekiel Newren
2025-08-26 22:01 ` brian m. carlson
2025-08-23 3:55 ` [PATCH v3 07/15] xdiff/xprepare: remove superfluous forward declarations Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-23 3:55 ` [PATCH v3 08/15] xdiff: delete unnecessary fields from xrecord_t and xdfile_t Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-23 3:55 ` [PATCH v3 09/15] xdiff: make fields of xrecord_t Rust friendly Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-23 3:55 ` [PATCH v3 10/15] xdiff: use one definition for freeing xdfile_t Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-23 3:55 ` [PATCH v3 11/15] xdiff: replace chastore with an ivec in xdfile_t Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-23 3:55 ` [PATCH v3 12/15] xdiff: delete nrec field from xdfile_t Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-23 3:55 ` [PATCH v3 13/15] xdiff: delete recs " Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-23 3:55 ` [PATCH v3 14/15] xdiff: make xdfile_t more rust friendly Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
2025-08-23 3:55 ` [PATCH v3 15/15] xdiff: implement xdl_trim_ends() in Rust Ezekiel Newren via GitGitGadget
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2025-07-25 23:53 [PATCH 0/7] RFC: Accelerate xdiff and begin its rustification Ben Knoble
2025-07-25 23:53 Ben Knoble
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