Curious about corner case in btrfs code

[xerofoify@gmail.com (Nick)]

On 08/26/2014 08:37 PM, Tobias Boege wrote:
> On Tue, 26 Aug 2014, Nick wrote:
>> On 08/26/2014 08:05 PM, Tobias Boege wrote:
>>> On Tue, 26 Aug 2014, Nick wrote:
>>>> On 08/26/2014 06:58 PM, Mandeep Sandhu wrote:
>>>>> If it's a corner case, it won't be hit often enough right? And if it
>>>>> was hit often enough, it wouldn't be corner case!? :)
>>>>>
>>>>> These 2 are mutually exclusive!
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 3:47 PM, Nick <xerofoify@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> After reading through the code in inode.c today , I am curious about the comment and the following code I will paste
>>>>>> below. I am curious if this corner case is hit often enough for me to write a patch to improve the speed of this
>>>>>> corner case. Furthermore , compress_file_range is the function name, in case you can't guess by the pasted code.
>>>>>> Regards Nick
>>>>>> 411     /*
>>>>>> 412      * we don't want to send crud past the end of i_size through
>>>>>> 413      * compression, that's just a waste of CPU time.  So, if the
>>>>>> 414      * end of the file is before the start of our current
>>>>>> 415      * requested range of bytes, we bail out to the uncompressed
>>>>>> 416      * cleanup code that can deal with all of this.
>>>>>> 417      *
>>>>>> 418      * It isn't really the fastest way to fix things, but this is a
>>>>>> 419      * very uncommon corner.
>>>>>> 420      */
>>>>>> 421     if (actual_end <= start)
>>>>>> 422             goto cleanup_and_bail_uncompressed;
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Kernelnewbies mailing list
>>>>>> Kernelnewbies at kernelnewbies.org
>>>>>> http://lists.kernelnewbies.org/mailman/listinfo/kernelnewbies
>>>> I get that my question is if this corner case is hit, enough for me to write a patch to optimize it.
>>>> In addition the comment states it isn't but want to known for standard compression workloads in btrfs 
>>>> if it's hit enough for me to work on this and how much speed degradation are me we doing my not writing
>>>> it better.
>>>> Nick 
>>>>
>>>
>>> Here's how I would go about it:
>>>
>>>  1. Understand when the case is met (in theory).
>>>  2. Try to trigger it on a real system multiple times.
>>>  3. Try to explore systematically under what circumstances the case is met
>>>     and rank them by plausibility (if the notion of plausibility makes any
>>>     sense in a real world scenario -- I don't know).
>>>  4. Estimate cost vs. benefit.
>>>
>>> I don't know if this is a good way but notice how you can do all this on
>>> yourself which I think is a plus for everyone. And if you decide in step 4
>>> to write a patch:
>>>
>>>  5. Use your results from step 3 to create an environment that benefits
>>>     from your patch (notice how 4 guarantees that there exists such a
>>>     system with reasonable connection to real needs). Note the numbers.
>>>  6. Test your patch on as many regular configurations as possible. Note
>>>     the numbers. If it degrades performance on any of those, abort.
>>>  7. Do *NOT* send the patch out.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Tobi
>>>
>>
>> Thanks Tobi,
>> >From reading the code off the bat, seems to not need to be written as this case is rarely meet for large files
>> or files that are huge and take a lot of time to write.
>>
> 
> Thanks for letting me compose my mail before you take a closer look at your
> matter and decide it's not worth it.
> 
>> Was more curious about how to test things like this if 
>> I need to :).
> 
> Then you need to phrase that -- in the *first* mail of a thread. There is no
> need to hide your real questions behind different ones.
> 
> I think the steps 1 and 2 above can still be used to answer your question.
> Basically, to test something you set up and run your system and then you do
> things. What your "system" is constituted of and what "things" are depends
> upon the subject and 1 and 2 might help you clear that up.
> 
> Regards,
> Tobi
> 
Sorry , thought it was a stupid question. Will note for next time.
Regards Nick