parallel-checkout: make it truly parallel

Use multiple worker processes to distribute the queued entries and call
write_pc_item() in parallel for them. The items are distributed
uniformly in contiguous chunks. This minimizes the chances of two
workers writing to the same directory simultaneously, which could affect
performance due to lock contention in the kernel. Work stealing (or any
other format of re-distribution) is not implemented yet.

The protocol between the main process and the workers is quite simple.
They exchange binary messages packed in pkt-line format, and use
PKT-FLUSH to mark the end of input (from both sides). The main process
starts the communication by sending N pkt-lines, each corresponding to
an item that needs to be written. These packets contain all the
necessary information to load, smudge, and write the blob associated
with each item. Then it waits for the worker to send back N pkt-lines
containing the results for each item. The resulting packet must contain:
the identification number of the item that it refers to, the status of
the operation, and the lstat() data gathered after writing the file (iff
the operation was successful).

For now, checkout always uses a hardcoded value of 2 workers, only to
demonstrate that the parallel checkout framework correctly divides and
writes the queued entries. The next patch will add user configurations
and define a more reasonable default, based on tests with the said
settings.

Co-authored-by: Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Jeff Hostetler <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Matheus Tavares <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <[email protected]>

Author: 3 people

.gitignore

@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@
 /git-check-mailmap
 /git-check-ref-format
 /git-checkout
+/git-checkout--worker
 /git-checkout-index
 /git-cherry
 /git-cherry-pick

Makefile

@@ -1062,6 +1062,7 @@ BUILTIN_OBJS += builtin/check-attr.o
 BUILTIN_OBJS += builtin/check-ignore.o
 BUILTIN_OBJS += builtin/check-mailmap.o
 BUILTIN_OBJS += builtin/check-ref-format.o
+BUILTIN_OBJS += builtin/checkout--worker.o
 BUILTIN_OBJS += builtin/checkout-index.o
 BUILTIN_OBJS += builtin/checkout.o
 BUILTIN_OBJS += builtin/clean.o

builtin.h

@@ -123,6 +123,7 @@ int cmd_bugreport(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix);
 int cmd_bundle(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix);
 int cmd_cat_file(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix);
 int cmd_checkout(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix);
+int cmd_checkout__worker(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix);
 int cmd_checkout_index(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix);
 int cmd_check_attr(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix);
 int cmd_check_ignore(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix);

builtin/checkout--worker.c

@@ -0,0 +1,145 @@
+#include "builtin.h"
+#include "config.h"
+#include "entry.h"
+#include "parallel-checkout.h"
+#include "parse-options.h"
+#include "pkt-line.h"
+
+static void packet_to_pc_item(const char *buffer, int len,
+			      struct parallel_checkout_item *pc_item)
+{
+	const struct pc_item_fixed_portion *fixed_portion;
+	const char *variant;
+	char *encoding;
+
+	if (len < sizeof(struct pc_item_fixed_portion))
+		BUG("checkout worker received too short item (got %dB, exp %dB)",
+		    len, (int)sizeof(struct pc_item_fixed_portion));
+
+	fixed_portion = (struct pc_item_fixed_portion *)buffer;
+
+	if (len - sizeof(struct pc_item_fixed_portion) !=
+		fixed_portion->name_len + fixed_portion->working_tree_encoding_len)
+		BUG("checkout worker received corrupted item");
+
+	variant = buffer + sizeof(struct pc_item_fixed_portion);
+
+	/*
+	 * Note: the main process uses zero length to communicate that the
+	 * encoding is NULL. There is no use case that requires sending an
+	 * actual empty string, since convert_attrs() never sets
+	 * ca.working_tree_enconding to "".
+	 */
+	if (fixed_portion->working_tree_encoding_len) {
+		encoding = xmemdupz(variant,
+				    fixed_portion->working_tree_encoding_len);
+		variant += fixed_portion->working_tree_encoding_len;
+	} else {
+		encoding = NULL;
+	}
+
+	memset(pc_item, 0, sizeof(*pc_item));
+	pc_item->ce = make_empty_transient_cache_entry(fixed_portion->name_len);
+	pc_item->ce->ce_namelen = fixed_portion->name_len;
+	pc_item->ce->ce_mode = fixed_portion->ce_mode;
+	memcpy(pc_item->ce->name, variant, pc_item->ce->ce_namelen);
+	oidcpy(&pc_item->ce->oid, &fixed_portion->oid);
+
+	pc_item->id = fixed_portion->id;
+	pc_item->ca.crlf_action = fixed_portion->crlf_action;
+	pc_item->ca.ident = fixed_portion->ident;
+	pc_item->ca.working_tree_encoding = encoding;
+}
+
+static void report_result(struct parallel_checkout_item *pc_item)
+{
+	struct pc_item_result res;
+	size_t size;
+
+	res.id = pc_item->id;
+	res.status = pc_item->status;
+
+	if (pc_item->status == PC_ITEM_WRITTEN) {
+		res.st = pc_item->st;
+		size = sizeof(res);
+	} else {
+		size = PC_ITEM_RESULT_BASE_SIZE;
+	}
+
+	packet_write(1, (const char *)&res, size);
+}
+
+/* Free the worker-side malloced data, but not pc_item itself. */
+static void release_pc_item_data(struct parallel_checkout_item *pc_item)
+{
+	free((char *)pc_item->ca.working_tree_encoding);
+	discard_cache_entry(pc_item->ce);
+}
+
+static void worker_loop(struct checkout *state)
+{
+	struct parallel_checkout_item *items = NULL;
+	size_t i, nr = 0, alloc = 0;
+
+	while (1) {
+		int len = packet_read(0, NULL, NULL, packet_buffer,
+				      sizeof(packet_buffer), 0);
+
+		if (len < 0)
+			BUG("packet_read() returned negative value");
+		else if (!len)
+			break;
+
+		ALLOC_GROW(items, nr + 1, alloc);
+		packet_to_pc_item(packet_buffer, len, &items[nr++]);
+	}
+
+	for (i = 0; i < nr; i++) {
+		struct parallel_checkout_item *pc_item = &items[i];
+		write_pc_item(pc_item, state);
+		report_result(pc_item);
+		release_pc_item_data(pc_item);
+	}
+
+	packet_flush(1);
+
+	free(items);
+}
+
+static const char * const checkout_worker_usage[] = {
+	N_("git checkout--worker [<options>]"),
+	NULL
+};
+
+int cmd_checkout__worker(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
+{
+	struct checkout state = CHECKOUT_INIT;
+	struct option checkout_worker_options[] = {
+		OPT_STRING(0, "prefix", &state.base_dir, N_("string"),
+			N_("when creating files, prepend <string>")),
+		OPT_END()
+	};
+
+	if (argc == 2 && !strcmp(argv[1], "-h"))
+		usage_with_options(checkout_worker_usage,
+				   checkout_worker_options);
+
+	git_config(git_default_config, NULL);
+	argc = parse_options(argc, argv, prefix, checkout_worker_options,
+			     checkout_worker_usage, 0);
+	if (argc > 0)
+		usage_with_options(checkout_worker_usage, checkout_worker_options);
+
+	if (state.base_dir)
+		state.base_dir_len = strlen(state.base_dir);
+
+	/*
+	 * Setting this on a worker won't actually update the index. We just
+	 * need to tell the checkout machinery to lstat() the written entries,
+	 * so that we can send this data back to the main process.
+	 */
+	state.refresh_cache = 1;
+
+	worker_loop(&state);
+	return 0;
+}

git.c

@@ -490,6 +490,8 @@ static struct cmd_struct commands[] = {
 	{ "check-mailmap", cmd_check_mailmap, RUN_SETUP },
 	{ "check-ref-format", cmd_check_ref_format, NO_PARSEOPT  },
 	{ "checkout", cmd_checkout, RUN_SETUP | NEED_WORK_TREE },
+	{ "checkout--worker", cmd_checkout__worker,
+		RUN_SETUP | NEED_WORK_TREE | SUPPORT_SUPER_PREFIX },
 	{ "checkout-index", cmd_checkout_index,
 		RUN_SETUP | NEED_WORK_TREE},
 	{ "cherry", cmd_cherry, RUN_SETUP },