Long ago in 628522ec14 (sha1-lookup: more memory efficient
search in sorted list of SHA-1, 2007-12-29) we added
sha1_entry_pos(), a binary search that uses the uniform
distribution of sha1s to scale the selection of mid-points.
As this was a performance experiment, we tied it to the
GIT_USE_LOOKUP environment variable and never enabled it by
default.
This code was successful in reducing the number of steps in
each search. But the overhead of the scaling ends up making
it slower when the cache is warm. Here are best-of-five
timings for running rev-list on linux.git, which will have
to look up every object:
$ time git rev-list --objects --all >/dev/null
real 0m35.357s
user 0m35.016s
sys 0m0.340s
$ time GIT_USE_LOOKUP=1 git rev-list --objects --all >/dev/null
real 0m37.364s
user 0m37.045s
sys 0m0.316s
The USE_LOOKUP version might have more benefit on a cold
cache, as the time to fault in each page would dominate. But
that would be for a single lookup. In practice, most
operations tend to look up many objects, and the whole pack
.idx will end up warm.
It's possible that the code could be better optimized to
compete with a naive binary search for the warm-cache case,
and we could have the best of both worlds. But over the
years nobody has done so, and this is largely dead code that
is rarely run outside of the test suite. Let's drop it in
the name of simplicity.
This lets us remove sha1_entry_pos() entirely, as the .idx
lookup code was the only caller. Note that sha1-lookup.c
still contains sha1_pos(), which differs from
sha1_entry_pos() in two ways:
- it has a different interface; it uses a function pointer
to access sha1 entries rather than a size/offset pair
describing the table's memory layout
- it only scales the initial selection of "mi", rather
than each iteration of the search
We can't get rid of this function, as it's called from
several places. It may be that we could replace it with a
simple binary search, but that's out of scope for this patch
(and would need benchmarking).
Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Git - fast, scalable, distributed revision control system
Git is a fast, scalable, distributed revision control system with an unusually rich command set that provides both high-level operations and full access to internals.
Git is an Open Source project covered by the GNU General Public License version 2 (some parts of it are under different licenses, compatible with the GPLv2). It was originally written by Linus Torvalds with help of a group of hackers around the net.
Please read the file INSTALL for installation instructions.
Many Git online resources are accessible from https://git-scm.com/ including full documentation and Git related tools.
See Documentation/gittutorial.txt to get started, then see
Documentation/giteveryday.txt for a useful minimum set of commands, and
Documentation/git-.txt for documentation of each command.
If git has been correctly installed, then the tutorial can also be
read with man gittutorial or git help tutorial, and the
documentation of each command with man git-<commandname> or git help <commandname>.
CVS users may also want to read Documentation/gitcvs-migration.txt
(man gitcvs-migration or git help cvs-migration if git is
installed).
The user discussion and development of Git take place on the Git mailing list -- everyone is welcome to post bug reports, feature requests, comments and patches to git@vger.kernel.org (read Documentation/SubmittingPatches for instructions on patch submission). To subscribe to the list, send an email with just "subscribe git" in the body to majordomo@vger.kernel.org. The mailing list archives are available at https://public-inbox.org/git/, http://marc.info/?l=git and other archival sites.
The maintainer frequently sends the "What's cooking" reports that list the current status of various development topics to the mailing list. The discussion following them give a good reference for project status, development direction and remaining tasks.
The name "git" was given by Linus Torvalds when he wrote the very first version. He described the tool as "the stupid content tracker" and the name as (depending on your mood):
- random three-letter combination that is pronounceable, and not actually used by any common UNIX command. The fact that it is a mispronunciation of "get" may or may not be relevant.
- stupid. contemptible and despicable. simple. Take your pick from the dictionary of slang.
- "global information tracker": you're in a good mood, and it actually works for you. Angels sing, and a light suddenly fills the room.
- "goddamn idiotic truckload of sh*t": when it breaks