Re: Strange code in diff-delta.c

[Nicolas Pitre <nico@cam.org>]

On Thu, 23 Aug 2007, David Kastrup wrote:

> 
> I am currently looking what can be done to speed up deltaing.  The
> following code can be found here:
> 
> 	for (i = 0; i < hsize; i++) {
> 		if (hash_count[i] < HASH_LIMIT)
> 			continue;
> 		entry = hash[i];
> 		do {
> 			struct index_entry *keep = entry;
> 			int skip = hash_count[i] / HASH_LIMIT / 2;
> 			do {
> 				entry = entry->next;
> 			} while(--skip && entry);
> 			keep->next = entry;
> 		} while(entry);
> 	}
> 
> If I analyze what happens for various values of hash_count[i], I get
> the following (the first case is by far the worst):
> 
> HASH_LIMIT <= hash_count[i] < 2*HASH_LIMIT:
>   skip = 0;
>   do .. while terminates with negative skip and entry == 0, keep->next
>   is set to 0 -> all hashes except the first one get dropped.
>   Result is new_hash_count = 1.  Ugh, ugh, ugh.
> 
> 2*HASH_LIMIT <= hash_count[i] < 4*HASH_LIMIT
>   skip = 1;
>   do .. while does one iteration, every second value is skipped,
>   result is that HASH_LIMIT <= new_hash_count < 2*HASH_LIMIT
> 
> 4*HASH_LIMIT <= hash_limit[i] < 6*HASH_LIMIT
>   skip = 2;
>   do .. while does two iterations, two of three values are skipped,
>   result is that 4*HASH_LIMIT/3 <= new_hash_count < 2*HASH_LIMIT
> 
> And so on.  It would appear that if HASH_LIMIT is supposed to do what
> it is seemingly intended for, the skip calculation has to be just
> 
> 			int skip = hash_count[i] / HASH_LIMIT;
> 
> Otherwise, there is completely broken behavior for values between
> HASH_LIMIT and 2*HASH_LIMIT (where only a single hash survives), and
> for larger values, the limit will be 2*HASH_LIMIT rather than
> HASH_LIMIT as was probably intended.

You're absolutely right.

I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote that code, but the /2 is 
bogus.

Please send a patch to Junio with my ACK.


Nicolas