On Friday 02 March 2007 09:52, Evgeniy Polyakov wrote:

> Ok, I've ran an analysis of linked lists and trie traversals and found
> that (at least on x86) optimized one list traversal is about 4 (!)
> times faster than one bit lookup in trie traversal (or actually one
> lookup in binary tree-like structure) - that is because of the fact
> that trie traversal needs to have more instructions per lookup, and at
> least one additional branch which can not be predicted.
>
> Tests with rdtsc shows that one bit lookup in trie (actually it is any
> lookup in binary tree structures) is about 3-4 times slower than one
> lookup in linked list.
>
> Since hash table usually has upto 4 elements in each hash entry,
> competing binary tree/trie stucture must get an entry in one lookup,
> which is essentially impossible with usual tree/trie implementations.
>
> Things dramatically change when linked list became too long, but it
> should not happend with proper resizing of the hash table, wildcards
> implementation also introduce additional requirements, which can not be
> easily solved in hash tables.
>
> So I get my words about tree/trie implementation instead of hash table
> for socket lookup back.
>
> Interested reader can find more details on tests, asm outputs and
> conclusions at:
> http://tservice.net.ru/~s0mbre/blog/2007/03/01#2007_03_01

Thank you for this report. (Still avoiding cache misses studies, while they 
obviously are the limiting factor)

Anyqay, if data is in cache and you want optimum performance from your cpu,
you may try to use an algorithm without conditional branches :
(well 4 in this case for the whole 32 bits tests)

gcc -O2 -S -march=i686 test1.c

struct node {
        struct node *left;
        struct node *right;
        int value;
        };
struct node *head;
int v1;

#define PASS2(bit) \
        n2 = n1->left; \
        right = n1->right; \
    if (value & (1<<bit)) \
        n2 = right; \
        n1 = n2->left; \
        right = n2->right; \
        if (value & (2<<bit)) \
                n1 = right;

main()
{
int j;
unsigned int value = v1;
struct node *n1 = head, *n2, *right;
for (j=0; j<4; ++j) {
        PASS2(0)
        PASS2(2)
        PASS2(4)
        PASS2(6)
        value >>= 8;
        }
printf("result=%p\n", n1);
}
        .file   "test1.c"
        .section        .rodata.str1.1,"aMS",@progbits,1
.LC0:
        .string "result=%p\n"
        .text
        .p2align 4,,15
.globl main
        .type   main, @function
main:
        leal    4(%esp), %ecx
        andl    $-16, %esp
        pushl   -4(%ecx)
        pushl   %ebp
        movl    %esp, %ebp
        pushl   %ebx
        xorl    %ebx, %ebx
        pushl   %ecx
        subl    $16, %esp
        movl    v1, %ecx
        movl    head, %edx
        .p2align 4,,7
.L2:
        movl    4(%edx), %eax
        testb   $1, %cl
        cmove   (%edx), %eax
        testb   $2, %cl
        movl    4(%eax), %edx
        cmove   (%eax), %edx
        testb   $4, %cl
        movl    4(%edx), %eax
        cmove   (%edx), %eax
        testb   $8, %cl
        movl    4(%eax), %edx
        cmove   (%eax), %edx
        testb   $16, %cl
        movl    4(%edx), %eax
        cmove   (%edx), %eax
        testb   $32, %cl
        movl    4(%eax), %edx
        cmove   (%eax), %edx
        testb   $64, %cl
        movl    4(%edx), %eax
        cmove   (%edx), %eax
        testb   %cl, %cl
        movl    4(%eax), %edx
        cmovns  (%eax), %edx
        addl    $1, %ebx
        cmpl    $4, %ebx
        je      .L19
        shrl    $8, %ecx
        jmp     .L2
        .p2align 4,,7
.L19:
        movl    %edx, 4(%esp)
        movl    $.LC0, (%esp)
        call    printf
        addl    $16, %esp
        popl    %ecx
        popl    %ebx
        popl    %ebp
        leal    -4(%ecx), %esp
        ret
        .size   main, .-main
        .comm   head,4,4
        .comm   v1,4,4
        .ident  "GCC: (GNU) 4.1.2 20060928 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 
4.1.1-13ubuntu5)"
        .section        .note.GNU-stack,"",@progbits

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