On Tue,  5 Feb 2019 21:24:13 +0300 Andrey Abramov <st5...@yandex.ru> wrote:

> Replaced heap sort algorithm with faster introspective sort algorithm.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Andrey Abramov <st5...@yandex.ru>
> ---
> v1: The introspective sort algorithm is faster the heap sort (for example on 
> my machine on a 100MB of random data it was consistently almost twice faster) 
> and it doesn't have the worst case, unlike qsort.

I guess faster is always better, but are there any known parts of the
kernel which actually care about the performance of sort()?

>
> ...
>
> --- a/lib/sort.c
> +++ b/lib/sort.c
> @@ -1,8 +1,9 @@
>  // SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
>  /*
> - * A fast, small, non-recursive O(nlog n) sort for the Linux kernel
> + * A fast, recursive O(nlog n) sort for the Linux kernel

oops.  A good analysis of the maximum stack utilization is needed,
please.

>   * Jan 23 2005  Matt Mackall <m...@selenic.com>
> + * Feb 5  2019  Andrey Abramov <st5...@yandex.ru> (introspective sort)
>   */
>  
>  #define pr_fmt(fmt) KBUILD_MODNAME ": " fmt
> @@ -48,33 +49,22 @@ static void generic_swap(void *a, void *b, int size)
>   * @num: number of elements
>   * @size: size of each element
>   * @cmp_func: pointer to comparison function
> - * @swap_func: pointer to swap function or NULL
> + * @swap_func: pointer to swap function
>   *
> - * This function does a heapsort on the given array. You may provide a
> - * swap_func function optimized to your element type.
> + * This function does a heapsort on the given array.
>   *
>   * Sorting time is O(n log n) both on average and worst-case. While
>   * qsort is about 20% faster on average, it suffers from exploitable
>   * O(n*n) worst-case behavior and extra memory requirements that make
>   * it less suitable for kernel use.
>   */
> -
> -void sort(void *base, size_t num, size_t size,
> +void heapsort(void *base, size_t num, size_t size,

static?

>         int (*cmp_func)(const void *, const void *),
>         void (*swap_func)(void *, void *, int size))
>  {
>       /* pre-scale counters for performance */
>       int i = (num/2 - 1) * size, n = num * size, c, r;
>  
> -     if (!swap_func) {
> -             if (size == 4 && alignment_ok(base, 4))
> -                     swap_func = u32_swap;
> -             else if (size == 8 && alignment_ok(base, 8))
> -                     swap_func = u64_swap;
> -             else
> -                     swap_func = generic_swap;
> -     }
> -
>       /* heapify */
>       for ( ; i >= 0; i -= size) {
>               for (r = i; r * 2 + size < n; r  = c) {
> @@ -103,4 +93,111 @@ void sort(void *base, size_t num, size_t size,
>       }
>  }
>  
> +void introsort(void *base, size_t num, size_t size,

static?

> +       int (*cmp_func)(const void *, const void *),
> +       void (*swap_func)(void *, void *, int size),
> +       unsigned int max_depth, unsigned int depth)
> +{
> +
> +     void *last = base + (num - 1) * size;
> +     void *pivot = base + ((num - 1) / 2) * size;
> +     void *i = base;
> +     void *j = last;

That's about 100 bytes per invokation.

> +     if (num <= 1)
> +             return;
> +
> +     /* switching to heapsort */

Please explain the reason for this in the comment.

> +     if (depth >= max_depth) {
> +             heapsort(base, num, size, cmp_func, swap_func);

Ditto.

> +             return;
> +     }
> +
> +     /* making pivot be the median of middle, first and last elements */

"Make"

(and why?)

> +     if ((cmp_func(pivot, base) >= 0 && cmp_func(base, last) >= 0)
> +             || (cmp_func(last, base) >= 0 && cmp_func(base, pivot) >= 0)) {
> +             pivot = base;
> +     } else if ((cmp_func(pivot, last) >= 0 && cmp_func(last, base) >= 0)
> +             || (cmp_func(base, last) >= 0 && cmp_func(last, pivot) >= 0)) {
> +             pivot = last;
> +     }
> +
> +     /* split array */
> +     while (true) {
> +             while (cmp_func(i, pivot) < 0 && i < last)
> +                     i += size;
> +             while (cmp_func(j, pivot) > 0 && j > base)
> +                     j -= size;
> +
> +             if (i >= j)
> +                     break;
> +
> +             swap_func(i, j, size);
> +
> +             if (i == pivot)
> +                     pivot = j;
> +             else if (j == pivot)
> +                     pivot = i;
> +
> +             j -= size;
> +             i += size;
> +     }
> +
> +     /* continue for smaller parts */
> +     if (i < last)
> +             introsort(i, ((size_t)last - (size_t)i) / size + 1,
> +                     size, cmp_func, swap_func, max_depth, depth + 1);
> +     if (base < j)
> +             introsort(base, ((size_t)j - (size_t)base) / size + 1,
> +                     size, cmp_func, swap_func, max_depth, depth + 1);
> +}
> +
> +unsigned int log2_up(size_t val)

static?

> +{
> +     unsigned int log = 0;
> +     size_t current = 1;
> +
> +     unsigned int max_reachable_log = sizeof(val) * 8 - 1;
> +
> +     while (current < val) {
> +             current <<= 1;
> +             log++;
> +             if (log == max_reachable_log && current < val)
> +                     return max_reachable_log + 1;
> +     }
> +
> +     return log;
> +}

Please add a comment explaining what this does.  Partly so that readers
(such as I) can understand why it can't utilize the existing log2().

> +
> +/**
> + * sort - sort an array of elements
> + * @base: pointer to data to sort
> + * @num: number of elements
> + * @size: size of each element
> + * @cmp_func: pointer to comparison function
> + * @swap_func: pointer to swap function or NULL
> + *
> + * This function does a introspective sort on the given array. You may 
> provide a
> + * swap_func function optimized to your element type.
> + *
> + * The introspective sort use both qsort and heapsort,
> + * so it is faster than heapsortĀ on average,

There's a non-ascii character after "heapsort".

> + * but it doesn't have the worst case unlike qsort

Unclear.  "like qsort"?

> + */
> +void sort(void *base, size_t num, size_t size,
> +       int (*cmp_func)(const void *, const void *),
> +       void (*swap_func)(void *, void *, int size))
> +{
> +     if (!swap_func) {
> +             if (size == 4 && alignment_ok(base, 4))
> +                     swap_func = u32_swap;
> +             else if (size == 8 && alignment_ok(base, 8))
> +                     swap_func = u64_swap;
> +             else
> +                     swap_func = generic_swap;
> +     }
> +
> +     introsort(base, num, size, cmp_func, swap_func, log2_up(num) * 2, 1);
> +}
>  EXPORT_SYMBOL(sort);

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