now selected for levels 13, 14 and 15.
Also : dropped the requirement for monotonic memory budget increase of compression levels,,
which was required for ZSTD_estimateCCtxSize()
in order to ensure that a memory budget for level L is large enough for any level <= L.
This condition is now ensured at run time inside ZSTD_estimateCCtxSize().
we want the dictionary table to be fully sorted,
not just lazily filled.
Dictionary loading is a bit more intensive,
but it saves cpu cycles for match search during compression.
This is a pretty nice speed win.
The new strategy consists in stacking new candidates as if it was a hash chain.
Then, only if there is a need to actually consult the chain, they are batch-updated,
before starting the match search itself.
This is supposed to be beneficial when skipping positions,
which happens a lot when using lazy strategy.
The baseline performance for btlazy2 on my laptop is :
15#calgary.tar : 3265536 -> 955985 (3.416), 7.06 MB/s , 618.0 MB/s
15#enwik7 : 10000000 -> 3067341 (3.260), 4.65 MB/s , 521.2 MB/s
15#silesia.tar : 211984896 -> 58095131 (3.649), 6.20 MB/s , 682.4 MB/s
(only level 15 remains for btlazy2, as this strategy is squeezed between lazy2 and btopt)
After this patch, and keeping all parameters identical,
speed is increased by a pretty good margin (+30-50%),
but compression ratio suffers a bit :
15#calgary.tar : 3265536 -> 958060 (3.408), 9.12 MB/s , 621.1 MB/s
15#enwik7 : 10000000 -> 3078318 (3.249), 6.37 MB/s , 525.1 MB/s
15#silesia.tar : 211984896 -> 58444111 (3.627), 9.89 MB/s , 680.4 MB/s
That's because I kept `1<<searchLog` as a maximum number of candidates to update.
But for a hash chain, this represents the total number of candidates in the chain,
while for the binary, it represents the maximum depth of searches.
Keep in mind that a lot of candidates won't even be visited in the btree,
since they are filtered out by the binary sort.
As a consequence, in the new implementation,
the effective depth of the binary tree is substantially shorter.
To compensate, it's enough to increase `searchLog` value.
Here is the result after adding just +1 to searchLog (level 15 setting in this patch):
15#calgary.tar : 3265536 -> 956311 (3.415), 8.32 MB/s , 611.4 MB/s
15#enwik7 : 10000000 -> 3067655 (3.260), 5.43 MB/s , 535.5 MB/s
15#silesia.tar : 211984896 -> 58113144 (3.648), 8.35 MB/s , 679.3 MB/s
aka, almost the same compression ratio as before,
but with a noticeable speed increase (+20-30%).
This modification makes btlazy2 more competitive.
A new round of paramgrill will be necessary to determine which levels are impacted and could adopt the new strategy.
params1 was swapped with params2.
This used to be a non-issue when testing for strict equality,
but now that some tests look for "sufficient size" `<=`, order matters.
The deep fuzzer tests caught a subtle bug that was probably there for a long time.
The impact of the bug is not a crash, or any other clear error signal,
rather, it reduces performance, by cutting data into smaller blocks.
Eventually, the following test would fail because it produces too many 1-byte blocks,
requiring more space than buffer can provide :
`./zstreamtest_asan --mt -s3514 -t1678312 -i1678314`
The root scenario is as follows :
- Create context, initialize it using explicit parameters or a `cdict` to pin them down, set `pledgedSrcSize=1`
- The compression parameters will not be adapted, but `windowSize` and `blockSize` will be automatically set to `1`.
`windowSize` and `blockSize` are dynamic values, set within `ZSTD_resetCCtx_internal()`.
The automatic adaptation makes it possible to generate smaller contexts for smaller input sizes.
- Complete compression
- New compression with same context, using same parameters, but `pledgedSrcSize=ZSTD_CONTENTSIZE_UNKNOWN`
trigger "continue mode"
- Continue mode doesn't modify blockSize, because it used to depend on `windowLog` only,
but in fact, it also depends on `pledgedSrcSize`.
- The "old" blocksize (1) is still there,
next compression will use this value to cut input into blocks,
resulting in more blocks and worse performance than necessary performance.
Given the scenario, and its possible variants, I'm surprised it did not show up before.
But I suspect it did show up, it's just that it never triggered an error, because "worse performance" is not a trigger.
The above test is a special corner case, where performance is so impacted that it reaches an error case.
The fix works, but I'm not completely pleased.
I think the current code relies too much on implied relations between variables.
This will likely break again in the future when some related part of the code change.
Unfortunately, no time to make larger changes if we want to keep the release target for zstd v1.3.3.
So a longer term fix will have to be considered after the release.
To do : create a reliable test case which triggers this scenario for CI tests.
`zstreamtest --newapi` (and `--opaqueapi`) create and destroy way too many threads
resulting in failure of tsan tests,
and potentially connected to the qemu flaky tests.
This is because, at each test, the nb of threads can be changed (random).
The `--no-big-tests` directive reduce this choice to 1/2 threads,
in order to limit memory usage, especially for qemu and 32-bits builds.
Unfortunately, swapping between 1 and 2 threads is enough to constantly create/destroy new mtctx.
This patch takes advantage of the following property :
via compress_generic, no internal mtctx is needed for nbThreads < 2.
As a consequence, when nbThreads == 2, the currently active mtctx is necessarily good.
This dramatically reduces the nb of thread creations when invoking `zstreamtest --newapi --no-big-tests`
(only when parent cctx itself is created, which is randomized to 1/256 tests).
Expected outcome :
- at a minimum : tsan tests shall now work continuously without exploding the thread counter
- at best : flaky qemu tests on `zstreamtest --newapi --no-big-tests` may stop being flaky, due to less stress from constant thread creation/destruction
Real world impact :
minimal, I don't expect users to constantly change `nbThreads` between each invocation.
If `nbThreads` remains stable, existing implementation re-uses existing mtctx.
Also : `zstreamtest --newapi` but without `--no-big-tests` doesn't benefit as much,
since this test can select a random `nbThreads` value between 1 and 4.
The current patch only reduces opportunity to free/create mtctx (for example : 2->1->2 doesn't need a new mtctx)
but doesn't completely eliminate it, since `nbThreads` can still change between 2/3/4.
A more complete solution could be to only use 2 out of 4 allocated threads, thus keeping the pool at a constant size.
This would require a larger change to `POOL_*` api though.
taking advantage of `btopt` improved speed to tune parameters.
Levels 16-19 are stronger than previous release, making the graph more favorable.
In theory, I should also update small-size tables,
but I got lazy on that one ...
zstd streaming API was adding a null-block at end of frame for small input.
Reason is : on small input, a single block is enough.
ZSTD_CStream would size its input buffer to expect a single block of this size,
automatically triggering a flush on reaching this size.
Unfortunately, that last byte was generally received before the "end" directive (at least in `fileio`).
The later "end" directive would force the creation of a 3-bytes last block to indicate end of frame.
The solution is to not flush automatically, which is btw the expected behavior.
It happens in this case because blocksize is defined with exactly the same size as input.
Just adding one-byte is enough to stop triggering the automatic flush.
I initially looked at another solution, solving the problem directly in the compression context.
But it felt awkward.
Now, the underlying compression API `ZSTD_compressContinue()` would take the decision the close a frame
on reaching its expected end (`pledgedSrcSize`).
This feels awkward, a responsability over-reach, beyond the definition of this API.
ZSTD_compressContinue() is clearly documented as a guaranteed flush,
with ZSTD_compressEnd() generating a guaranteed end.
I faced similar issue when trying to port a similar mechanism at the higher streaming layer.
Having ZSTD_CStream end a frame automatically on reaching `pledgedSrcSize` can surprise the caller,
since it did not explicitly requested an end of frame.
The only sensible action remaining after that is to end the frame with no additional input.
This adds additional logic in the ZSTD_CStream state to check this condition.
Plus some potential confusion on the meaning of ZSTD_endStream() with no additional input (ending confirmation ? new 0-size frame ?)
In the end, just enlarging input buffer by 1 byte feels the least intrusive change.
It's also a contract remaining inside the streaming layer, so the logic is contained in this part of the code.
The patch also introduces a new test checking that size of small frame is as expected, without additional 3-bytes null block.
This patch restores capability for each file to receive adapted compression parameters depending on its size.
The bug breaking this feature was relatively silly :
setting a parameter with a value "0" is supposed to be a no-op.
Unfortunately, it would pin down compression parameters as if they were manually set,
preventing later automatic adaptation.
Unfortunately, I'm currently short of a test case that could check this situation and trigger an error.
Compression parameters selection between tableID 0,1,2,3 is largely internal,
leaving no trace to outside world, not even in frame header.
windowLog is now enforced from provided compression parameters,
instead of being copied blindly from `cdict`
where it could be smaller.
also :
- fix a minor bug in zstreamtest --mt : advanced parameters must be set before init
- changed advanced parameter name to ZSTDMT_jobSize
While the final result is still, technically, a frame,
the resulting frame expands initial data instead of compressing it.
This is because the streaming API creates a tiny 1-byte buffer for input,
because it believes input is empty (0-bytes),
because in the past, 0 used to mean "unknown" instead.
This patch fixes the issue.
Todo : add a test which traps the issue.
last such side-effect was modifying cctx->loadedDictEnd on setting forceWindow.
It is no a useless operation, so it's removed.
No side-effect left when setting a compression parameter.
Any ZSTD_CCtx_setParameter() shall just write the requested parameter, without further action.
Any action shall be taken at parameter application only (during init).
It makes it possible to just copy CCtxParams from external container to internal state,
and get rid of the more complex code which was trying to compensate for missing actions.
There was a flaw in the formula
which compared literal cost with match cost :
at a given position,
a non-null literal suite is going to be part of next sequence,
while if position ends a previous match, to immediately start another match,
next sequence will have a litlength of zero.
A litlength of zero has a non-null cost.
It follows that literals cost should be compared to match cost + litlength==0.
Not doing so gave a structural advantage to matches, which would be selected more often.
I believe that's what led to the creation of the strange heuristic which added a complex cost to matches.
The heuristic was actually compensating.
It was probably created through multiple trials, settling for best outcome on a given scenario (I suspect silesia.tar).
The problem with this heuristic is that it's hard to understand,
and unfortunately, any future change in the parser would impact the way it should be calculated and its effects.
The "proper" formula makes it possible to remove this heuristic.
Now, the problem is : in a head to head comparison, it's sometimes better, sometimes worse.
Note that all differences are small (< 0.01 ratio).
In general, the newer formula is better for smaller files (for example, calgary.tar and enwik7).
I suspect that's because starting statistics are pretty poor (another area of improvement).
However, for silesia.tar specifically, it's worse at level 22 (while being better at level 17, so even compression level has an impact ...).
It's a pity that zstd -22 gets worse on silesia.tar.
That being said, I like that the new code gets rid of strange variables,
which were introducing complexity for any future evolution (faster variants being in mind).
Therefore, in spite of this detrimental side effect, I tend to be in favor of it.
optState was used both to evaluate price
and to cache cost of previously calculated literals.
This created a strong dependency, forcing parser to request cost in a strict order.
This limitation is forbids future parser with skipping capabilities.
After this patch, caching literals price still exists,
but is now explicit, in a stack structure.
merging of repcode search into btsearch introduced a small compression ratio regressio at max level :
1.3.2 : 52728769
after repMerge patch : 52760789 (+32020)
A few minor changes have produced this difference.
They can be hard to spot.
This patch buys back about half of the difference,
by no longer inserting position at hc3 when a long match is found there.
It feels strangely counter-intuitive, but works :
after this patch : 52742555 (-18234)
