This commit extends more the functionality of `pack-objects` by allowing
it to write out a `.bitmap` index next to any written packs, together
with the `.idx` index that currently gets written.
If bitmap writing is enabled for a given repository (either by calling
`pack-objects` with the `--write-bitmap-index` flag or by having
`pack.writebitmaps` set to `true` in the config) and pack-objects is
writing a packfile that would normally be indexed (i.e. not piping to
stdout), we will attempt to write the corresponding bitmap index for the
packfile.
Bitmap index writing happens after the packfile and its index has been
successfully written to disk (`finish_tmp_packfile`). The process is
performed in several steps:
1. `bitmap_writer_set_checksum`: this call stores the partial
checksum for the packfile being written; the checksum will be
written in the resulting bitmap index to verify its integrity
2. `bitmap_writer_build_type_index`: this call uses the array of
`struct object_entry` that has just been sorted when writing out
the actual packfile index to disk to generate 4 type-index bitmaps
(one for each object type).
These bitmaps have their nth bit set if the given object is of
the bitmap's type. E.g. the nth bit of the Commits bitmap will be
1 if the nth object in the packfile index is a commit.
This is a very cheap operation because the bitmap writing code has
access to the metadata stored in the `struct object_entry` array,
and hence the real type for each object in the packfile.
3. `bitmap_writer_reuse_bitmaps`: if there exists an existing bitmap
index for one of the packfiles we're trying to repack, this call
will efficiently rebuild the existing bitmaps so they can be
reused on the new index. All the existing bitmaps will be stored
in a `reuse` hash table, and the commit selection phase will
prioritize these when selecting, as they can be written directly
to the new index without having to perform a revision walk to
fill the bitmap. This can greatly speed up the repack of a
repository that already has bitmaps.
4. `bitmap_writer_select_commits`: if bitmap writing is enabled for
a given `pack-objects` run, the sequence of commits generated
during the Counting Objects phase will be stored in an array.
We then use that array to build up the list of selected commits.
Writing a bitmap in the index for each object in the repository
would be cost-prohibitive, so we use a simple heuristic to pick
the commits that will be indexed with bitmaps.
The current heuristics are a simplified version of JGit's
original implementation. We select a higher density of commits
depending on their age: the 100 most recent commits are always
selected, after that we pick 1 commit of each 100, and the gap
increases as the commits grow older. On top of that, we make sure
that every single branch that has not been merged (all the tips
that would be required from a clone) gets their own bitmap, and
when selecting commits between a gap, we tend to prioritize the
commit with the most parents.
Do note that there is no right/wrong way to perform commit
selection; different selection algorithms will result in
different commits being selected, but there's no such thing as
"missing a commit". The bitmap walker algorithm implemented in
`prepare_bitmap_walk` is able to adapt to missing bitmaps by
performing manual walks that complete the bitmap: the ideal
selection algorithm, however, would select the commits that are
more likely to be used as roots for a walk in the future (e.g.
the tips of each branch, and so on) to ensure a bitmap for them
is always available.
5. `bitmap_writer_build`: this is the computationally expensive part
of bitmap generation. Based on the list of commits that were
selected in the previous step, we perform several incremental
walks to generate the bitmap for each commit.
The walks begin from the oldest commit, and are built up
incrementally for each branch. E.g. consider this dag where A, B,
C, D, E, F are the selected commits, and a, b, c, e are a chunk
of simplified history that will not receive bitmaps.
A---a---B--b--C--c--D
\
E--e--F
We start by building the bitmap for A, using A as the root for a
revision walk and marking all the objects that are reachable
until the walk is over. Once this bitmap is stored, we reuse the
bitmap walker to perform the walk for B, assuming that once we
reach A again, the walk will be terminated because A has already
been SEEN on the previous walk.
This process is repeated for C, and D, but when we try to
generate the bitmaps for E, we can reuse neither the current walk
nor the bitmap we have generated so far.
What we do now is resetting both the walk and clearing the
bitmap, and performing the walk from scratch using E as the
origin. This new walk, however, does not need to be completed.
Once we hit B, we can lookup the bitmap we have already stored
for that commit and OR it with the existing bitmap we've composed
so far, allowing us to limit the walk early.
After all the bitmaps have been generated, another iteration
through the list of commits is performed to find the best XOR
offsets for compression before writing them to disk. Because of
the incremental nature of these bitmaps, XORing one of them with
its predecesor results in a minimal "bitmap delta" most of the
time. We can write this delta to the on-disk bitmap index, and
then re-compose the original bitmaps by XORing them again when
loaded.
This is a phase very similar to pack-object's `find_delta` (using
bitmaps instead of objects, of course), except the heuristics
have been greatly simplified: we only check the 10 bitmaps before
any given one to find best compressing one. This gives good
results in practice, because there is locality in the ordering of
the objects (and therefore bitmaps) in the packfile.
6. `bitmap_writer_finish`: the last step in the process is
serializing to disk all the bitmap data that has been generated
in the two previous steps.
The bitmap is written to a tmp file and then moved atomically to
its final destination, using the same process as
`pack-write.c:write_idx_file`.
Signed-off-by: Vicent Marti <tanoku@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
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