Re: [PATCH] wt-status: avoid quadratic insertion for untracked paths
- From
Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
- Date
- Jul 17, 2026, 06:27 UTC
- Message-ID
- <alnLPSnOt_Sf7cA5@pks.im>
- In-Reply-To
- <20260716185045.229320-1-sahityajb@gmail.com>
On Fri, Jul 17, 2026 at 12:20:45AM +0530, Sahitya Chandra wrote:
Show 21 quoted lines
> wt_status_collect_untracked() copies entries from dir.entries and > dir.ignored into string_lists using string_list_insert(). That keeps the > destination lists sorted and deduplicated, but each insertion may shift > the backing array, making construction O(n^2) in the number of paths. > > Collect the entries with string_list_append() instead, then sort and > deduplicate each list once. This preserves the sorted, duplicate-free > result while reducing the construction cost to O(n log n). > > Signed-off-by: Sahitya Chandra <sahityajb@gmail.com> > --- > Notes for reviewers: > > fill_directory() currently sorts dir.entries and dir.ignored > before returning, so another possible approach would be to append the > entries directly and rely on that order, reducing this copy step to O(n). > That would require relying on these arrays not containing duplicate > entries, though, which I have not been able to verify yet. This patch > takes the safer approach of preserving the existing duplicate-removal > behavior from `string_list_insert()` by sorting and deduplicating once > after appending.
Out of curiosity: is this something that you have encountered in the real world as inefficient, or is this rather a theoretical inefficiency? If the former it would be great to add a small benchmark to the commit message.
Show 13 quoted lines
> diff --git a/wt-status.c b/wt-status.c
> index 58461e02f8..13a7cf7946 100644
> --- a/wt-status.c
> +++ b/wt-status.c
> @@ -832,14 +832,18 @@ static void wt_status_collect_untracked(struct wt_status *s)
> for (i = 0; i < dir.nr; i++) {
> struct dir_entry *ent = dir.entries[i];
> if (index_name_is_other(istate, ent->name, ent->len))
> - string_list_insert(&s->untracked, ent->name);
> + string_list_append(&s->untracked, ent->name);
> }
> + string_list_sort(&s->untracked);
> + string_list_remove_duplicates(&s->untracked, 0);Instead of sorting and then deduplicating you can call `string_list_sort_u()`. It does the exact same thing as you do here, but I guess it makes sense to use that interface anyway.
Show 8 quoted lines
> for (i = 0; i < dir.ignored_nr; i++) {
> struct dir_entry *ent = dir.ignored[i];
> if (index_name_is_other(istate, ent->name, ent->len))
> - string_list_insert(&s->ignored, ent->name);
> + string_list_append(&s->ignored, ent->name);
> }
> + string_list_sort(&s->ignored);
> + string_list_remove_duplicates(&s->ignored, 0);Likewise.
Overall this looks like a sensible thing to do though. Thanks!
Patrick