+/* A bcache is a data structure for factoring out duplication in
+ read-only structures. You give the bcache some string of bytes S.
+ If the bcache already contains a copy of S, it hands you back a
+ pointer to its copy. Otherwise, it makes a fresh copy of S, and
+ hands you back a pointer to that. In either case, you can throw
+ away your copy of S, and use the bcache's.
+
+ The "strings" in question are arbitrary strings of bytes --- they
+ can contain zero bytes. You pass in the length explicitly when you
+ call the bcache function.
+
+ This means that you can put ordinary C objects in a bcache.
+ However, if you do this, remember that structs can contain `holes'
+ between members, added for alignment. These bytes usually contain
+ garbage. If you try to bcache two objects which are identical from
+ your code's point of view, but have different garbage values in the
+ structure's holes, then the bcache will treat them as separate
+ strings, and you won't get the nice elimination of duplicates you
+ were hoping for. So, remember to memset your structures full of
+ zeros before bcaching them!
+
+ You shouldn't modify the strings you get from a bcache, because:
+
+ - You don't necessarily know who you're sharing space with. If I
+ stick eight bytes of text in a bcache, and then stick an eight-byte
+ structure in the same bcache, there's no guarantee those two
+ objects don't actually comprise the same sequence of bytes. If
+ they happen to, the bcache will use a single byte string for both
+ of them. Then, modifying the structure will change the string. In
+ bizarre ways.
+
+ - Even if you know for some other reason that all that's okay,
+ there's another problem. A bcache stores all its strings in a hash
+ table. If you modify a string's contents, you will probably change
+ its hash value. This means that the modified string is now in the
+ wrong place in the hash table, and future bcache probes will never
+ find it. So by mutating a string, you give up any chance of
+ sharing its space with future duplicates.
+
+
+ Size of bcache VS hashtab:
+
+ For bcache, the most critical cost is size (or more exactly the
+ overhead added by the bcache). It turns out that the bcache is
+ remarkably efficient.
+
+ Assuming a 32-bit system (the hash table slots are 4 bytes),
+ ignoring alignment, and limit strings to 255 bytes (1 byte length)
+ we get ...
+
+ bcache: This uses a separate linked list to track the hash chain.
+ The numbers show roughly 100% occupancy of the hash table and an
+ average chain length of 4. Spreading the slot cost over the 4
+ chain elements:
+
+ 4 (slot) / 4 (chain length) + 1 (length) + 4 (chain) = 6 bytes
+
+ hashtab: This uses a more traditional re-hash algorithm where the
+ chain is maintained within the hash table. The table occupancy is
+ kept below 75% but we'll assume its perfect:
+
+ 4 (slot) x 4/3 (occupancy) + 1 (length) = 6 1/3 bytes
+
+ So a perfect hashtab has just slightly larger than an average
+ bcache.
+
+ It turns out that an average hashtab is far worse. Two things
+ hurt:
+
+ - Hashtab's occupancy is more like 50% (it ranges between 38% and
+ 75%) giving a per slot cost of 4x2 vs 4x4/3.
+
+ - the string structure needs to be aligned to 8 bytes which for
+ hashtab wastes 7 bytes, while for bcache wastes only 3.
+
+ This gives:
+
+ hashtab: 4 x 2 + 1 + 7 = 16 bytes
+
+ bcache 4 / 4 + 1 + 4 + 3 = 9 bytes
+
+ The numbers of GDB debugging GDB support this. ~40% vs ~70% overhead.
+
+
+ Speed of bcache VS hashtab (the half hash hack):
+
+ While hashtab has a typical chain length of 1, bcache has a chain
+ length of round 4. This means that the bcache will require
+ something like double the number of compares after that initial
+ hash. In both cases the comparison takes the form:
+
+ a.length == b.length && memcmp (a.data, b.data, a.length) == 0
+
+ That is lengths are checked before doing the memcmp.
+
+ For GDB debugging GDB, it turned out that all lengths were 24 bytes
+ (no C++ so only psymbols were cached) and hence, all compares
+ required a call to memcmp. As a hack, two bytes of padding
+ (mentioned above) are used to store the upper 16 bits of the
+ string's hash value and then that is used in the comparison vis: