we don't have to create an ostream sentry object for every character of a JSON
string we write. format a bunch of characters and flush them to the stream all
at once instead.
this doesn't affect small numbers of string characters, but larger numbers of
total JSON string characters written gain a lot. at 1MB of total string written
we gain almost 30%, at 16MB it's almost a factor of 3x. large numbers of JSON
string characters do occur naturally in a nixos system evaluation to generate
documentation (though this is now somewhat mitigated by caching the largest part
of nixos option docs).
benchmarked with
hyperfine 'nix eval --raw --expr "let s = __concatStringsSep \"\" (__genList (_: \"c\") 256); in __toJSON (__genList (_: s) {e})"' --warmup 1 -L e 1,4,256,4096,65536
before:
Benchmark 1: nix eval --raw --expr "let s = __concatStringsSep \"\" (__genList (_: \"c\") 256); in __toJSON (__genList (_: s) 1)"
Time (mean ± σ): 12.5 ms ± 0.2 ms [User: 9.2 ms, System: 4.0 ms]
Range (min … max): 11.9 ms … 13.1 ms 223 runs
Benchmark 2: nix eval --raw --expr "let s = __concatStringsSep \"\" (__genList (_: \"c\") 256); in __toJSON (__genList (_: s) 4)"
Time (mean ± σ): 12.5 ms ± 0.2 ms [User: 9.3 ms, System: 3.8 ms]
Range (min … max): 11.9 ms … 13.2 ms 220 runs
Benchmark 3: nix eval --raw --expr "let s = __concatStringsSep \"\" (__genList (_: \"c\") 256); in __toJSON (__genList (_: s) 256)"
Time (mean ± σ): 13.2 ms ± 0.3 ms [User: 9.8 ms, System: 4.0 ms]
Range (min … max): 12.6 ms … 14.3 ms 205 runs
Benchmark 4: nix eval --raw --expr "let s = __concatStringsSep \"\" (__genList (_: \"c\") 256); in __toJSON (__genList (_: s) 4096)"
Time (mean ± σ): 24.0 ms ± 0.4 ms [User: 19.4 ms, System: 5.2 ms]
Range (min … max): 22.7 ms … 25.8 ms 119 runs
Benchmark 5: nix eval --raw --expr "let s = __concatStringsSep \"\" (__genList (_: \"c\") 256); in __toJSON (__genList (_: s) 65536)"
Time (mean ± σ): 196.0 ms ± 3.7 ms [User: 171.2 ms, System: 25.8 ms]
Range (min … max): 190.6 ms … 201.5 ms 14 runs
after:
Benchmark 1: nix eval --raw --expr "let s = __concatStringsSep \"\" (__genList (_: \"c\") 256); in __toJSON (__genList (_: s) 1)"
Time (mean ± σ): 12.4 ms ± 0.3 ms [User: 9.1 ms, System: 4.0 ms]
Range (min … max): 11.7 ms … 13.3 ms 204 runs
Benchmark 2: nix eval --raw --expr "let s = __concatStringsSep \"\" (__genList (_: \"c\") 256); in __toJSON (__genList (_: s) 4)"
Time (mean ± σ): 12.4 ms ± 0.2 ms [User: 9.2 ms, System: 3.9 ms]
Range (min … max): 11.8 ms … 13.0 ms 214 runs
Benchmark 3: nix eval --raw --expr "let s = __concatStringsSep \"\" (__genList (_: \"c\") 256); in __toJSON (__genList (_: s) 256)"
Time (mean ± σ): 12.6 ms ± 0.2 ms [User: 9.5 ms, System: 3.8 ms]
Range (min … max): 12.1 ms … 13.3 ms 209 runs
Benchmark 4: nix eval --raw --expr "let s = __concatStringsSep \"\" (__genList (_: \"c\") 256); in __toJSON (__genList (_: s) 4096)"
Time (mean ± σ): 15.9 ms ± 0.2 ms [User: 11.4 ms, System: 5.1 ms]
Range (min … max): 15.2 ms … 16.4 ms 171 runs
Benchmark 5: nix eval --raw --expr "let s = __concatStringsSep \"\" (__genList (_: \"c\") 256); in __toJSON (__genList (_: s) 65536)"
Time (mean ± σ): 69.0 ms ± 0.9 ms [User: 44.3 ms, System: 25.3 ms]
Range (min … max): 67.2 ms … 70.9 ms 42 runs
Previously you had to remember to call value->attrs->sort() after
populating value->attrs. Now there is a BindingsBuilder helper that
wraps Bindings and ensures that sort() is called before you can use
it.
nixpkgs can save a good bit of eval memory with this primop. zipAttrsWith is
used quite a bit around nixpkgs (eg in the form of recursiveUpdate), but the
most costly application for this primop is in the module system. it improves
the implementation of zipAttrsWith from nixpkgs by not checking an attribute
multiple times if it occurs more than once in the input list, allocates less
values and set elements, and just avoids many a temporary object in general.
nixpkgs has a more generic version of this operation, zipAttrsWithNames, but
this version is only used once so isn't suitable for being the base of a new
primop. if it were to be used more we should add a second primop instead.
When we check for disappeared overrides, we can get "false positives"
for follows and overrides which are defined in the dependencies of the
flake we are locking, since they are not parsed by
parseFlakeInputs. However, at that point we already know that the
overrides couldn't have possible been changed if the input itself
hasn't changed (since we check that oldLock->originalRef == *input.ref
for the input's parent). So, to prevent this, only perform this check
when it was possible that the flake changed (e.g. the flake we're
locking, or a new input, or the input has changed and mustRefetch ==
true).
Lily Foster
Yorick