Re: [PATCH 02/13] refs: introduce `.ref` field for the base iterator

> On Tue, Oct 07, 2025 at 07:24:01AM -0700, Karthik Nayak wrote:
> > Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im> writes:
> > 
> > > The base iterator has a couple of fields that tracks the name, target,
> > > object ID and flags for the current reference. Due do this design we
> > > have to create a new `struct reference` whenever we want to hand over
> > > that reference to the callback function, which is tedious and not very
> > > efficient.
> > >
> > > Convert the structure to instead contain a `stuct reference` as member.
> > 
> > s/stuct/struct
> > 
> > > This member is expected to be populated by the implementations of the
> > > iterator and is handed over to the callback directly.
> > >
> > 
> > Wouldn't this also add the burden on each backend to ensure we don't
> > serve stale data for each '_advance()' call?
> > 
> > Would it make sense to reset this data in `ref_iterator_advance()`?
> 
> Yeah, that's true indeed. I was a bit hesitant to do such a change
> though because the ref iterator is part of a bunch of hot loops. I'll do
> some benchmarking here to figure out whether a memset(3p) would have a
> negative impact on performance.