Re: array/HashTable filling optimization

Looks like a good optimization to me. On 5-Nov-06, at 7:30 AM, Matt Wilmas wrote:

Hi Nuno, Late reply, but I'm glad the idea was able to be used. :-) To the other hash people: While checking how Ilia made implode() faster in 5.2, I think I found another optimization that can be done. In zend_hash_copy/merge, it seems the zend_hash_quick_* functions can be used instead for associative entries, thus saving the key from being hashed again, right? I just checked, and it's definitely faster, how much so being dependent on the key length of course... Patches for this simple additional optimization (hopefully): http://realplain.com/php/hash_quick_copy.diff http://realplain.com/php/hash_quick_copy_5_2.diff Thanks, Matt ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nuno Lopes" Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Aaahh nice catch ;)

From a quick lookup in PHP sources I also found these functions were the

same optimization can be applied: zend_default_exception_new_ex() - trivial convert_to_array() - not as easy as others zend_object_std_init() - possibly clone_wrapper_hash() - trivial (php-src/main/streams/streams.c) compiler_globals_ctor() ... Nuno ----- Original Message -----

Hi all, I noticed awhile ago how most every use of zend[_u]_hash_init has nSize

as

0. Of course it isn't always known how many elements will be added to

the

array (nTableSize), but there are places where an accurate value could

be

used instead of getting the minimum default (8). For anyone who doesn't know, HashTable sizes are a power of 2, and when there are more than

that

many elements, zend_hash_do_resize realloc's more memory to double the table size, and then zend_hash_rehash basically goes through and "reinserts"

all

the elements again. I ran some tests to see the speed improvement from specifying the

*actual*

number of elements in hash_init, thus saving that extra work (_rehash mostly). The "n+1" is with one more element (9, 17, 33...) that

triggers

another rehash when the actual number wasn't specified (most extreme).

(I

used add_next_index_zval, so the direct zend_hash* functions would give slightly higher % I guess, being less overhead, right?) Results with 5.2.0-RC4:

         Elements
 n   |   n      n+1

---------------------

8     |    0%   14.2%
16    | 11.0%   20.9%
32    | 13.5%   22.1%
64    | 12.6%   21.3%

128 | 11.7% 18.5% 256 | 9.3% 16.4% 512 | 8.6% 17.0% 1024 | 7.9% 15.8% 2048 | 4.8% 33.3% 4096 | 7.8% 28.3% 8192 | 10.2% 58.4% 16384 | 24.1% 70.5% 32768 | 34.5% 80.4% 65536 | 34.8% 68.6% I haven't looked thoroughly, but the only place I've seen that uses an non-zero nSize in hash_init (besides some in the core engine) is the unserialize() function. :-/ It seems the most simple and obvious place that could be changed is in Zend/zend_variables.c:_zval_copy_ctor_func? Just replace zend[_u]_hash_init(tmp_ht, 0, ... with zend[_u]_hash_init(tmp_ht, original_ht->nNumOfElements, ... Other than that, some of PHP's array functions and array-returning functions (database fetch row functions, etc.) are ones I thought of that could be optimized like this. Maybe create an array_init_size() macro to be used in places where the number of elements can be easily determined? Thoughts? I'd volunteer to look for places that could be updated and modify them. :-) Thanks, Matt P.S. I guess the array stuff applies for objects also? But I don't

know

much about their internals...

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Ilia Alshanetsky