On 04/26/2013 05:11 PM, Pádraig Brady wrote: > This separate patch to simplify the print_kth() function > by removing the comparison from it, is simple and > has a significant perf advantage. Tests pass so I'll apply. > > I'll adjust the commit log to summarise the perf change, > but I notice the change isn't as great as yours on my sandybridge i3 system. > Benchmark results for both the rebased memory rework and > the simple print_kth() optimization attached.
So looking in detail, this central print_kth function is of most importance to performance. I thought that your simplification of it might allow it to be auto inlined. but I confirmed that gcc 4.6.0 -O2 does not do this at present by doing: objdump -d src/cut.o | grep -q '<print_kth>:' && echo called || echo inlined Marking it as inlined gives another gain as shown below. Testing these combinations, we have: orig = bit array implementation split = ditto + simplified print_kth split-inline = ditto + inlined print_kth mem = no bit array mem-split = ditto + simplified print_kth mem-inline = ditto + inlined print_kth $ yes abcdfeg | head -n1MB > big-file $ for c in orig split split-inline mem mem-split mem-split-inline; do src/cut-$c 2>/dev/null echo -ne "\n== $c ==" time src/cut-$c -b1,3 big-file > /dev/null done == orig == real 0m0.084s user 0m0.078s sys 0m0.006s == split == real 0m0.077s user 0m0.070s sys 0m0.006s == split-inline == real 0m0.055s user 0m0.049s sys 0m0.006s == mem == real 0m0.111s user 0m0.108s sys 0m0.002s == mem-split == real 0m0.088s user 0m0.081s sys 0m0.007s == mem-split-inline == real 0m0.070s user 0m0.060s sys 0m0.009s So in summary, removing the bit array does slow things down, but with the advantage of disassociating mem usage from range width. I'll split the patch into two for the mem change and the cpu change, and might follow up with a subsequent patch to reinstate the bit array for the common case of small -[bcf] and no --output-delim. That's a common trend in these mem adjustment patches. I.E. Find a point to switch from the more CPU efficient method, to one which is more memory efficient. thanks, Pádraig.