Parallel scanning: early proof-of-concept implementation

And it's not looking well; this implementation seems to be 3x slower in
the hot cache scenario with -J8, which is a major regression. There's
way too much lock contention and context switching.

Haven't tested with actual disk I/O yet and I've not yet measured how
much parallelism this approach will actually get us in practice, nor
whether the disk access patterns of this approach make a whole lot of
sense.  Maybe this low-memory approach will not work out and I'll end up
rewriting this to scan disjoint subtrees after all.

TODO:
- Validate how much parallelism we can actually get with this algorithm
- Lots of benchmarking and tuning (and most likely some re-architecting)
- Re-implement exclude pattern matching
- Document -J option
- Make OOM handling thread-safe

src/main.zig

@@ -42,6 +42,7 @@ pub const config = struct {
 
     pub var same_fs: bool = false;
     pub var extended: bool = false;
+    pub var parallel: u8 = 1;
     pub var follow_symlinks: bool = false;
     pub var exclude_caches: bool = false;
     pub var exclude_kernfs: bool = false;
@@ -158,7 +159,11 @@ const Args = struct {
 fn argConfig(args: *Args, opt: Args.Option) bool {
     if (opt.is("-q") or opt.is("--slow-ui-updates")) config.update_delay = 2*std.time.ns_per_s
     else if (opt.is("--fast-ui-updates")) config.update_delay = 100*std.time.ns_per_ms
-    else if (opt.is("-x") or opt.is("--one-file-system")) config.same_fs = true
+    else if (opt.is("-J")) {
+        const val = args.arg();
+        config.parallel = std.fmt.parseInt(u8, val, 10) catch ui.die("Invalid argument to -J: {s}, expected number.\n", .{val});
+        if (config.parallel == 0) ui.die("Number of threads (-J) cannot be 0.\n", .{});
+    } else if (opt.is("-x") or opt.is("--one-file-system")) config.same_fs = true
     else if (opt.is("--cross-file-system")) config.same_fs = false
     else if (opt.is("-e") or opt.is("--extended")) config.extended = true
     else if (opt.is("--no-extended")) config.extended = false

src/scan.zig

@@ -53,11 +53,15 @@ const Stat = struct {
     }
 };
 
-var kernfs_cache: std.AutoHashMap(u64,bool) = std.AutoHashMap(u64,bool).init(main.allocator);
-
 // This function only works on Linux
 fn isKernfs(dir: std.fs.Dir, dev: u64) bool {
-    if (kernfs_cache.get(dev)) |e| return e;
+    const state = struct {
+        var cache = std.AutoHashMap(u64,bool).init(main.allocator);
+        var lock = std.Thread.Mutex{};
+    };
+    state.lock.lock();
+    defer state.lock.unlock();
+    if (state.cache.get(dev)) |e| return e;
     var buf: c_statfs.struct_statfs = undefined;
     if (c_statfs.fstatfs(dir.fd, &buf) != 0) return false; // silently ignoring errors isn't too nice.
     const iskern = switch (buf.f_type) {
@@ -77,7 +81,7 @@ fn isKernfs(dir: std.fs.Dir, dev: u64) bool {
         => true,
         else => false,
     };
-    kernfs_cache.put(dev, iskern) catch {};
+    state.cache.put(dev, iskern) catch {};
     return iskern;
 }
 
@@ -103,10 +107,10 @@ fn writeJsonString(wr: anytype, s: []const u8) !void {
     try wr.writeByte('"');
 }
 
-// A ScanDir represents an in-memory directory listing (i.e. model.Dir) where
+// A MemDir represents an in-memory directory listing (i.e. model.Dir) where
 // entries read from disk can be merged into, without doing an O(1) lookup for
 // each entry.
-const ScanDir = struct {
+const MemDir = struct {
     dir: *model.Dir,
 
     // Lookup table for name -> *entry.
@@ -263,7 +267,7 @@ const ScanDir = struct {
 //
 const Context = struct {
     // When scanning to RAM
-    parents: ?std.ArrayList(ScanDir) = null,
+    parents: ?std.ArrayList(MemDir) = null,
     // When scanning to a file
     wr: ?*Writer = null,
 
@@ -303,8 +307,8 @@ const Context = struct {
 
     fn initMem(dir: ?*model.Dir) *Self {
         var self = main.allocator.create(Self) catch unreachable;
-        self.* = .{ .parents = std.ArrayList(ScanDir).init(main.allocator) };
+        self.* = .{ .parents = std.ArrayList(MemDir).init(main.allocator) };
-        if (dir) |d| self.parents.?.append(ScanDir.init(d)) catch unreachable;
+        if (dir) |d| self.parents.?.append(MemDir.init(d)) catch unreachable;
         return self;
     }
 
@@ -427,7 +431,7 @@ const Context = struct {
                 p.items[p.items.len-1].addStat(self.name, &self.stat);
 
             if (e.dir()) |d| // Enter the directory
-                p.append(ScanDir.init(d)) catch unreachable;
+                p.append(MemDir.init(d)) catch unreachable;
 
         } else if (self.wr) |wr|
             self.writeStat(wr.writer(), dir_dev) catch |e| writeErr(e);
@@ -451,90 +455,304 @@ const Context = struct {
 // Context that is currently being used for scanning.
 var active_context: *Context = undefined;
 
-// Read and index entries of the given dir.
+
-fn scanDir(ctx: *Context, dir: std.fs.Dir, dir_dev: u64) void {
+// The following filesystem scanning implementation is designed to support
-    var it = main.allocator.create(std.fs.Dir.Iterator) catch unreachable;
+// some degree of parallelism while generating a serialized tree without
-    defer main.allocator.destroy(it);
+// consuming ~too~ much memory.
-    it.* = dir.iterate();
+//
-    while(true) {
+// It would likely be easier and more efficient to have each thread work on a
-        const entry = it.next() catch {
+// completely sparate branch of the filesystem tree, but our current JSON
-            ctx.setDirlistError();
+// export format requires that entries are output in a certain order, which
+// means we either need to construct the full tree in memory before generating
+// any output (which I'd really rather not do), or we're stuck scanning the
+// filesystem in the required order and lose some opportunities for
+// parallelism. This is an attempt at doing the latter.
+const scanner = struct {
+    var tail: *Level = undefined;
+    // Currently used to protect both the scan stack state and the output
+    // Context, may be worth trying to split in two.
+    var lock = std.Thread.Mutex{};
+    var cond = std.Thread.Condition{};
+
+    // Number of stat() calls to batch in a single task; This little thread
+    // pool implementation is pretty damn inefficient, so batching helps cut
+    // down on synchronization overhead. Can be removed if we ever manage to
+    // migrate to a more efficient thread pool.
+    const BATCH: usize = 128;
+
+    // Maximum number of name lists to keep for each level in the stack. Higher
+    // number means potentially higher degree of parallelism, but comes at the
+    // cost of potentially higher memory and file descriptor use.
+    const SUBDIRS_PER_LEVEL: u8 = 8;
+
+    const StatEntry = struct {
+        name: [:0]u8,
+        stat: Stat,
+    };
+
+    const SpecialEntry = struct {
+        name: [:0]u8,
+        t: Context.Special,
+    };
+
+    const NextLevel = struct {
+        name: [:0]u8,
+        stat: Stat,
+        level: *Level, // XXX: Only 'dir', 'names', and 'specials' are really relevant here
+    };
+
+    // Represents a directory that is being scanned.
+    const Level = struct {
+        dir: std.fs.Dir,
+        dir_dev: u64,
+        dirListError: bool = false,
+        names: std.ArrayListUnmanaged([:0]u8) = .{}, // Queue of names to stat()
+        names_busy: u8 = 0, // Number of threads running stat()
+        files: std.ArrayListUnmanaged(StatEntry) = .{}, // Queue of files we can output
+        specials: std.ArrayListUnmanaged(SpecialEntry) = .{}, // Queue of "special" items we can output
+        dirs: std.ArrayListUnmanaged(StatEntry) = .{}, // Queue of dirs we can read
+        dirs_busy: u8 = 0, // Number of 'dirs' being processed at the moment
+        next: std.ArrayListUnmanaged(NextLevel) = .{}, // Queue of subdirs to scan next
+        sub: ?*Level = null, // Subdirectory currently being scanned
+        parent: ?*Level,
+
+        // Assumption: all queues are empty
+        fn destroy(lvl: *Level) void {
+            lvl.dir.close();
+            lvl.names.deinit(main.allocator);
+            lvl.files.deinit(main.allocator);
+            lvl.specials.deinit(main.allocator);
+            lvl.dirs.deinit(main.allocator);
+            lvl.next.deinit(main.allocator);
+            main.allocator.destroy(lvl);
+        }
+    };
+
+    // Drain the output queue ('files', 'specials') if we can.
+    // Assumes we hold the lock.
+    fn outputQueue(lvl: *Level) void {
+        if (lvl.sub != null) return;
+
+        if (lvl.dirListError) {
+            active_context.setDirlistError();
+            lvl.dirListError = false;
+        }
+
+        for (lvl.specials.items) |e| {
+            active_context.stat.dir = false;
+            active_context.pushPath(e.name);
+            active_context.addSpecial(e.t);
+            active_context.popPath();
+            main.allocator.free(e.name);
+        }
+        for (lvl.files.items) |e| {
+            // TODO: ctx API is inefficient here, no need to copy that Stat
+            active_context.stat.dir = false;
+            active_context.pushPath(e.name);
+            active_context.stat = e.stat;
+            active_context.addStat(lvl.dir_dev);
+            active_context.popPath();
+            main.allocator.free(e.name);
+        }
+        lvl.specials.clearRetainingCapacity();
+        lvl.files.clearRetainingCapacity();
+    }
+
+    // Leave the current dir if we're done with it and find a new dir to enter.
+    fn navigate() void {
+        //std.debug.print("ctx={s}, names={} dirs={} next={}\n", .{ active_context.path.items, tail.names.items.len, tail.dirs.items.len, tail.next.items.len });
+
+        // Assumption: outputQueue() has been called on the tail, so
+        // 'files' and 'specials' are always empty.
+        while (tail.parent != null and tail.sub == null
+            and tail.names.items.len == 0 and tail.names_busy == 0
+            and tail.dirs.items.len == 0 and tail.dirs_busy == 0
+            and tail.next.items.len == 0
+        ) {
+            //std.debug.print("Pop\n", .{});
+            active_context.popPath();
+            const lvl = tail;
+            lvl.parent.?.sub = null;
+            tail = lvl.parent.?;
+            lvl.destroy();
+            outputQueue(tail);
+        }
+        if (tail.sub == null and tail.next.items.len > 0) {
+            const sub = tail.next.pop();
+            //std.debug.print("Push {s}\n", .{sub.name});
+            active_context.pushPath(sub.name);
+            active_context.stat = sub.stat;
+            active_context.addStat(tail.dir_dev);
+            main.allocator.free(sub.name);
+            tail.sub = sub.level;
+            tail = sub.level;
+        }
+
+        // TODO: Only wake up threads when there's enough new work queued, all
+        // that context switching is SLOW.
+        cond.broadcast();
+    }
+
+    fn readNamesDir(lvl: *Level) void {
+        var it = lvl.dir.iterate();
+        while (true) {
+            const entry = it.next() catch {
+                lvl.dirListError = true;
+                break;
+            } orelse break;
+
+            // TODO: Check for exclude patterns
+
+            lvl.names.append(main.allocator, main.allocator.dupeZ(u8, entry.name) catch unreachable) catch unreachable;
+        }
+    }
+
+    fn readNames(parent: *Level) void {
+        const stat = parent.dirs.pop();
+        lock.unlock();
+
+        var dir = parent.dir.openDirZ(stat.name, .{ .access_sub_paths = true, .iterate = true, .no_follow = true }) catch {
+            lock.lock();
+            parent.specials.append(main.allocator, .{ .name = stat.name, .t = .err }) catch unreachable;
             return;
-        } orelse break;
-
-        ctx.stat.dir = false;
-        ctx.pushPath(entry.name);
-        defer ctx.popPath();
-        main.handleEvent(false, false);
-
-        // XXX: This algorithm is extremely slow, can be optimized with some clever pattern parsing.
-        const excluded = blk: {
-            for (main.config.exclude_patterns.items) |pat| {
-                var path = ctx.pathZ();
-                while (path.len > 0) {
-                    if (c_fnmatch.fnmatch(pat, path, 0) == 0) break :blk true;
-                    if (std.mem.indexOfScalar(u8, path, '/')) |idx| path = path[idx+1..:0]
-                    else break;
-                }
-            }
-            break :blk false;
-        };
-        if (excluded) {
-            ctx.addSpecial(.excluded);
-            continue;
-        }
-
-        ctx.stat = Stat.read(dir, ctx.name, false) catch {
-            ctx.addSpecial(.err);
-            continue;
         };
 
-        if (main.config.same_fs and ctx.stat.dev != dir_dev) {
+        if (@import("builtin").os.tag == .linux and main.config.exclude_kernfs and isKernfs(dir, stat.stat.dev)) {
-            ctx.addSpecial(.other_fs);
+            lock.lock();
-            continue;
+            parent.specials.append(main.allocator, .{ .name = stat.name, .t = .kernfs }) catch unreachable;
+            return;
         }
 
-        if (main.config.follow_symlinks and ctx.stat.symlink) {
+        if (main.config.exclude_caches) {
-            if (Stat.read(dir, ctx.name, true)) |nstat| {
+            if (dir.openFileZ("CACHEDIR.TAG", .{})) |f| {
-                if (!nstat.dir) {
-                    ctx.stat = nstat;
-                    // Symlink targets may reside on different filesystems,
-                    // this will break hardlink detection and counting so let's disable it.
-                    if (ctx.stat.hlinkc and ctx.stat.dev != dir_dev)
-                        ctx.stat.hlinkc = false;
-                }
-            } else |_| {}
-        }
-
-        var edir =
-            if (ctx.stat.dir) dir.openDirZ(ctx.name, .{ .access_sub_paths = true, .iterate = true, .no_follow = true }) catch {
-                ctx.addSpecial(.err);
-                continue;
-            } else null;
-        defer if (edir != null) edir.?.close();
-
-        if (@import("builtin").os.tag == .linux and main.config.exclude_kernfs and ctx.stat.dir and isKernfs(edir.?, ctx.stat.dev)) {
-            ctx.addSpecial(.kernfs);
-            continue;
-        }
-
-        if (main.config.exclude_caches and ctx.stat.dir) {
-            if (edir.?.openFileZ("CACHEDIR.TAG", .{})) |f| {
                 const sig = "Signature: 8a477f597d28d172789f06886806bc55";
                 var buf: [sig.len]u8 = undefined;
                 if (f.reader().readAll(&buf)) |len| {
                     if (len == sig.len and std.mem.eql(u8, &buf, sig)) {
-                        ctx.addSpecial(.excluded);
+                        lock.lock();
-                        continue;
+                        parent.specials.append(main.allocator, .{ .name = stat.name, .t = .excluded }) catch unreachable;
+                        return;
                     }
                 } else |_| {}
             } else |_| {}
         }
 
-        ctx.addStat(dir_dev);
+        var lvl = main.allocator.create(Level) catch unreachable;
-        if (ctx.stat.dir) scanDir(ctx, edir.?, ctx.stat.dev);
+        lvl.* = .{ .dir = dir, .dir_dev = stat.stat.dev, .parent = parent };
+        readNamesDir(lvl);
+
+        lock.lock();
+        // Treat empty directories as files
+        if (lvl.names.items.len == 0 and lvl.specials.items.len == 0) {
+            if (lvl.dirListError) { // XXX: this loses information about this entry being a directory :(
+                parent.specials.append(main.allocator, .{ .name = stat.name, .t = .err }) catch unreachable;
+            } else
+                parent.files.append(main.allocator, stat) catch unreachable;
+            dir.close();
+            main.allocator.destroy(lvl);
+        } else {
+            parent.next.append(main.allocator, .{ .name = stat.name, .stat = stat.stat, .level = lvl }) catch unreachable;
+        }
     }
-}
+
+    fn statNames(lvl: *Level) void {
+        var names: [BATCH][:0]u8 = undefined;
+        var stats: [BATCH]Stat = undefined;
+        var errs: [BATCH]bool = undefined;
+        const len = std.math.min(names.len, lvl.names.items.len);
+        std.mem.copy([]u8, &names, lvl.names.items[lvl.names.items.len-len..]);
+        lvl.names.items.len -= len;
+        lock.unlock();
+
+        var i: usize = 0;
+        while (i < len) : (i += 1) {
+            if (Stat.read(lvl.dir, names[i], false)) |s| {
+                errs[i] = false;
+                if (main.config.follow_symlinks and s.symlink) {
+                    if (Stat.read(lvl.dir, names[i], true)) |nstat| {
+                        if (!nstat.dir) {
+                            stats[i] = nstat;
+                            // Symlink targets may reside on different filesystems,
+                            // this will break hardlink detection and counting so let's disable it.
+                            if (nstat.hlinkc and nstat.dev != lvl.dir_dev)
+                                stats[i].hlinkc = false;
+                        }
+                    } else |_| stats[i] = s;
+                } else stats[i] = s;
+
+            } else |_|
+                errs[i] = true;
+        }
+
+        lock.lock();
+        i = 0;
+        while (i < len) : (i += 1) {
+            if (errs[i])
+                lvl.specials.append(main.allocator, .{ .name = names[i], .t = .err }) catch unreachable
+            else if (main.config.same_fs and stats[i].dev != lvl.dir_dev)
+                lvl.specials.append(main.allocator, .{ .name = names[i], .t = .other_fs }) catch unreachable
+            else if (stats[i].dir)
+                lvl.dirs.append(main.allocator, .{ .name = names[i], .stat = stats[i] }) catch unreachable
+            else
+                lvl.files.append(main.allocator, .{ .name = names[i], .stat = stats[i] }) catch unreachable;
+        }
+    }
+
+    fn runThread() void {
+        lock.lock();
+        outer: while (true) {
+            var curlvl: ?*Level = tail;
+            while (curlvl) |lvl| : (curlvl = lvl.parent) {
+
+                // If we have subdirectories to read, do that first to keep the 'names' queues filled up.
+                if (lvl.dirs.items.len > 0 and lvl.dirs_busy + lvl.next.items.len < SUBDIRS_PER_LEVEL) {
+                    lvl.dirs_busy += 1;
+                    readNames(lvl);
+                    lvl.dirs_busy -= 1;
+                    outputQueue(lvl);
+                    navigate();
+                    continue :outer;
+                }
+
+                // Then look for names to stat
+                if (lvl.names.items.len > 0) {
+                    lvl.names_busy += 1;
+                    statNames(lvl);
+                    lvl.names_busy -= 1;
+                    outputQueue(lvl);
+                    navigate();
+                    continue :outer;
+                }
+            }
+
+            // If we're here, then we found no work to do.
+            if (tail.parent == null and tail.dirs_busy == 0 and tail.names_busy == 0) {
+                cond.broadcast(); // only necessary if we don't always wake up threads when there's work to do.
+                break;
+            }
+            cond.wait(&lock);
+        }
+        lock.unlock();
+    }
+    // TODO: progress UI
+
+    // Scan the given dir. The active_context is assumed to have been
+    // initialized already and the entry for the given *dir has already been
+    // output.
+    // The given dir is closed when done.
+    fn scan(dir: std.fs.Dir, dir_dev: u64) void {
+        tail = main.allocator.create(Level) catch unreachable;
+        tail.* = .{ .dir = dir, .dir_dev = dir_dev, .parent = null };
+        readNamesDir(tail);
+        var threads = main.allocator.alloc(std.Thread, main.config.parallel-1) catch unreachable;
+        for (threads) |*t| t.* = std.Thread.spawn(.{ .stack_size = 128*1024 }, runThread, .{}) catch unreachable;
+        runThread();
+        for (threads) |*t| t.join();
+        tail.destroy();
+        tail = undefined;
+    }
+};
+
 
 pub fn scanRoot(path: []const u8, out: ?std.fs.File) !void {
     active_context = if (out) |f| Context.initFile(f) else Context.initMem(null);
@@ -569,8 +787,7 @@ pub fn scan() void {
             main.handleEvent(true, true);
         return;
     };
-    defer dir.close();
+    scanner.scan(dir, active_context.stat.dev);
-    scanDir(active_context, dir, active_context.stat.dev);
     active_context.popPath();
     active_context.final();
 }

src/ui.zig

@@ -42,6 +42,7 @@ pub fn quit() noreturn {
 // Also, init() and other ncurses-related functions may have hidden allocation,
 // no clue if ncurses will consistently report OOM, but we're not handling that
 // right now.
+// TODO: Make thread-safe.
 pub fn oom() void {
     const haveui = inited;
     deinit();