buffers: speed up swap16/32, add swap64

[zbjornson]

Checklist

• tests and code linting passes
• a test and/or benchmark is included
• documentation is changed or added
• the commit message follows commit guidelines

Affected core subsystem(s)

Buffer (swap16 and swap32 methods)

Description of change

• Speed up buffer.swap16 and swap32 by using builtins. Up to ~6x gain. Drop transition point between JS and C++ implementations accordingly.
• Fix tests: the existing C++ impl tests were testing 0-filled buffers so were always passing.
• Add similar buffer.swap64 method. (Use case: working with Float64Arrays, which I do routinely.)

Tested with gcc/g++ 4.8.3, clang 3.4 and MSVC 2015 (i.e. something like #4284 shouldn't happen here). Also tested the macro definitions for the #else and __linux__ cases on Ubuntu. I don't know if there's a non-gcc, non-clang linux compiler we need to support; if not, then the __linux__ case could be removed.

If/when this goes in, I plan to try using the new macros to speed up the buffer.read/write* methods.

Benchmark Results

16 bit types

buf len	New Native	JS	Old Native	New:Old Native
4	5,353,146	9,898,898	5,141,171	1.04
64	5,426,600	6,910,656	4,822,427	1.13
128	5,315,212	5,492,487	3,941,947	1.35
256	5,520,805	3,756,889	3,841,683	1.44
512	5,017,195	2,386,928	3,006,634	1.67
768	4,766,404	1,721,131	2,483,660	1.92
1024	4,603,591	1,352,982	2,103,924	2.19
1536	4,061,022	955,204	1,648,238	2.46
2056	3,968,697	728,929	1,331,039	2.98
4096	3,338,060	378,810	765,637	4.36
8192	2,476,686	195,892	413,136	5.99

32 bit types

buf len	New Native	JS	Old Native	New:Old Native
4	5,464,417	9,933,574	5,348,619	1.02
64	5,427,788	7,693,327	4,972,264	1.09
128	5,408,238	5,794,946	4,546,107	1.19
256	5,188,293	4,276,777	3,777,760	1.37
512	5,022,584	2,792,160	3,068,184	1.64
768	4,872,416	2,096,890	2,518,356	1.93
1024	4,694,551	1,668,602	2,125,038	2.21
1536	4,262,433	1,177,335	1,647,717	2.59
2056	4,116,525	914,801	1,338,082	3.08
4096	3,283,537	483,214	770,439	4.26
8192	2,533,520	248,052	412,817	6.14

64 bit types

buf len	New Native	JS
8	5,640,873	10,097,787
64	5,486,161	7,891,069
128	5,403,555	6,619,267
256	5,296,904	4,673,973
512	5,124,202	3,098,105
768	4,522,887	2,334,265
1024	4,605,491	1,867,182
1536	4,290,413	1,356,988
2056	3,972,674	1,054,184
4096	3,370,964	562,251
8192	2,478,062	288,762

[addaleax]

Is commenting these out intentional?

[zbjornson]

Yep, see comment a few lines down. The commented-out ones are only for picking the crossover point between the JS and C++ implementations, and make the benchmarks super slow.

[mscdex]

/cc @nodejs/buffer

[addaleax]

Could you wrap the xes in the macros in parentheses, like (x)? I don’t think it makes a difference right now, it’s just a good practice to do that.

[addaleax]

Using added: REPLACEME will lead the person doing the release that contains this feature to fill in the correct version.

[zbjornson]

Made all changes suggested so far, thanks. (@trevnorris I also added CHECK_EQ(ts_obj_length % 2) for the Swap16 method -- these should be redundant with what's in lib/buffer.js but no harm having both.)

[thefourtheye]

Probably a TODO?

[zbjornson]

Not sure what the TODO would indicate. The JS methods are copy/pastes of what's in lib/buffer.js and are only for evaluating where to set the crossover point between JS and native implementations. LMK if you had something else in mind...

[jasnell]

LGTM with a couple nits. Would like to make sure @trevnorris, @addaleax and @bnoordhuis are happy with it also

[trevnorris]

nit: check alignment of \ at the end.

[zbjornson]

(Safe impls and tests for unaligned buffers added. Pending new benchmarks for aligned v. unaligned, and benchmarking std::swap vs the macro that was there previously.)

[trevnorris]

missed this on the original swap pr. no need to use .apply(). just pass this as an argument and access it via args[0] in c++. rest of the code does this.

[trevnorris]

Mind applying this patch to the PR?

diff --git a/benchmark/buffers/buffer-swap.js b/benchmark/buffers/buffer-swap.js
index 0be334d..dfc2158 100644
--- a/benchmark/buffers/buffer-swap.js
+++ b/benchmark/buffers/buffer-swap.js
@@ -1,8 +1,10 @@
 'use strict';

 const common = require('../common.js');
+const v8 = require('v8');

 const bench = common.createBenchmark(main, {
+  aligned: ['true'],
   method: ['swap16', 'swap32', 'swap64'/*, 'htons', 'htonl', 'htonll'*/],
   len: [8, 64, 128, 256, 512, 768, 1024, 1536, 2056, 4096, 8192],
   n: [5e7]
@@ -54,24 +56,35 @@ Buffer.prototype.htonll = function htonl() {
   return this;
 };

-function createBuffer(len) {
+function createBuffer(len, aligned) {
+  len += aligned ? 0 : 1;
   const buf = Buffer.allocUnsafe(len);
   for (var i = 1; i <= len; i++)
     buf[i - 1] = i;
-  return buf;
+  return aligned ? buf : buf.slice(1);
 }

-function bufferSwap(n, buf, method) {
-  for (var i = 1; i <= n; i++)
-    buf[method]();
+function genMethod(method) {
+  const fnString =
+      'return function ' + method + '(n, buf) {' +
+      '  for (var i = 0; i <= n; i++)' +
+      '    buf.' + method + '();' +
+      '}';
+  return (new Function(fnString))();
 }

 function main(conf) {
   const method = conf.method;
   const len = conf.len | 0;
   const n = conf.n | 0;
-  const buf = createBuffer(len);
+  const aligned = conf.aligned | 'true';
+  const buf = createBuffer(len, aligned === 'true');
+  const bufferSwap = genMethod(method);
+
+  v8.setFlagsFromString('--allow_natives_syntax');
+  eval('%OptimizeFunctionOnNextCall(bufferSwap)');
+
   bench.start();
-  bufferSwap(n, buf, method);
+  bufferSwap(n, buf);
   bench.end(n);
 }

First thing is the optimization of the actual function call. Here's the before and after:

buffers/buffer-swap.js method="swap16" len="8" n="50000000":  6450503.12454
buffers/buffer-swap.js method="swap16" len="8" n="50000000": 86301409.68934

Second thing is adding "aligned" option. Here's the difference when set to true vs false:

buffers/buffer-swap.js aligned="true" method="swap32" len="4096" n="50000000": 1335738.09986
buffers/buffer-swap.js aligned="false" method="swap32" len="4096" n="50000000": 477541.25475

[zbjornson]

Done, thanks.

Somehow I'm no longer seeing the performance gain for aligned buffers... 6.2.0 and this are comparable. 😕 Need to dig to see what's going on.

[trevnorris]

I get the following lint errors:

node/benchmark/buffers/buffer-swap.js
  29:19  error  'n' is defined but never used  no-unused-vars
  38:19  error  'n' is defined but never used  no-unused-vars
  48:19  error  'n' is defined but never used  no-unused-vars

✖ 3 problems (3 errors, 0 warnings)

[00:03|% 58|+   394|-     1]: test     
node/test/parallel/test-buffer-swap.js
  11:1  error  Line 11 exceeds the maximum line length of 80  max-len
  12:1  error  Line 12 exceeds the maximum line length of 80  max-len
  17:1  error  Line 17 exceeds the maximum line length of 80  max-len
  18:1  error  Line 18 exceeds the maximum line length of 80  max-len
  23:1  error  Line 23 exceeds the maximum line length of 80  max-len
  24:1  error  Line 24 exceeds the maximum line length of 80  max-len
  35:1  error  Line 35 exceeds the maximum line length of 80  max-len
  36:1  error  Line 36 exceeds the maximum line length of 80  max-len
  37:1  error  Line 37 exceeds the maximum line length of 80  max-len

✖ 9 problems (9 errors, 0 warnings)

Looking at the performance part now.

[trevnorris]

FYI, updating cpplint. it's requiring the wrong header to be used.

[zbjornson]

<algorithm> vs <utility>?

[trevnorris]

@zbjornson std::swap() used to be in <algorithm> but is now in <utility> (http://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/algorithm/swap). though our cpplint.py is ancient and doesn't know this, so gives a warning.

[trevnorris]

Thanks much for the hard work. Landed in a1059af with minor adjustments and lint fixes.

[addaleax]

This is semver-minor, right?

[jasnell]

Yep. Semver minor
On Jun 27, 2016 1:42 PM, "Anna Henningsen" notifications@github.com wrote:

This is semver-minor, right?

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[Fishrock123]

Does not cleanly apply on v6.

I think this depends on #7082? (or at least I think the conflict comes from there)

[addaleax]

I think this depends on #7082? (or at least I think the conflict comes from there)

The conflict comes from there, although it’s only because of neighbouring lines being changed. There should be no logical dependency here; if it helps, I can do a quick backport PR.

[Fishrock123]

@addaleax If you can post what the patch should look like on v6 I can probably do the resolution.

[Fishrock123]

Or a PR may be easier, idk. Either or.