Hi,
As part of preparing an internal go talk to explain using strings vs bytes of the bufio.Scanner, I created two small samples
https://play.golang.org/p/-TYycdHaPC and
https://play.golang.org/p/L7W-jiaHdL , the only difference in the hot path is reducing the conversions from `[]byte` to `string` (later also avoids fmt module’s string conversions). Input being a 10 million line file. Match is only one line.
For the moment, ignore the fact that I am not checking for number of arguments, is doing unnecessary optimizations etc. I am trying to take a simple case to explain.
First version runs in 3 seconds, second in 2 seconds. For the slower version using `.Text()` 90+ percent of the time was in `syscall.Syscall` (under syscall.Read on the file) that I wasn’t expecting anything more than 10% change. However, the second version shows a much bigger reduction in `syscall.Syscall`. How is that possible? I expected it to be faster, but not affect the time spend reading file.The exclusion of fmt was unnecessary since the number of matches will be very small. But that is probably not relevant here. I have run it multiple times and made sure file is cached.
Attached are the profile SVGs. You can also see that an entire branch of the execution has disappeared in the faster/second version.
I do understand the second has avoided the allocation of string via scanner.Text(), however, the output of go build -gcflags "-m" give me the following
// First version
> go build -gcflags "-m" grep_simple_re.go
# command-line-arguments
./grep_simple_re.go:17: inlining call to bufio.NewScanner
./grep_simple_re.go:19: inlining call to (*bufio.Scanner).Text
./grep_simple_re.go:17: fp escapes to heap
./grep_simple_re.go:19: string(bufio.s·2.token) escapes to heap
./grep_simple_re.go:21: line escapes to heap
./grep_simple_re.go:17: main &bufio.Scanner literal does not escape
./grep_simple_re.go:21: main ... argument does not escape
<autogenerated>:1: leaking param: io.p
<autogenerated>:1: leaking param: .this
// Second version
> go build -gcflags "-m" grep_simple_re_bytes.go
# command-line-arguments
./grep_simple_re_bytes.go:18: inlining call to bufio.NewScanner
./grep_simple_re_bytes.go:20: inlining call to (*bufio.Scanner).Bytes
./grep_simple_re_bytes.go:16: fn escapes to heap
./grep_simple_re_bytes.go:16: err escapes to heap
./grep_simple_re_bytes.go:18: fp escapes to heap
./grep_simple_re_bytes.go:16: main ... argument does not escape
./grep_simple_re_bytes.go:18: main &bufio.Scanner literal does not escape
./grep_simple_re_bytes.go:24: main ([]byte)("\n") does not escape
<autogenerated>:1: leaking param: io.p
<autogenerated>:1: leaking param: .thisI can see "./grep_simple_re.go:21: line escapes to heap" could be a problem in the first version.Here is the memory profiles of a run on 10million line 2.4 G file
$ go tool pprof ./grep_simple_re_mprofile /var/folders/bt/1mh2p2vx41lbnq3fz1n8qlxw0000gn/T/profile066323621/mem.pprof
Entering interactive mode (type "help" for commands)
(pprof) top10
86.37kB of 86.37kB total ( 100%)
Dropped 4 nodes (cum <= 0.43kB)
Showing top 10 nodes out of 23 (cum >= 43.89kB)
flat flat% sum% cum cum%
39.73kB 46.00% 46.00% 39.73kB 46.00% regexp.(*bitState).reset
16.30kB 18.87% 64.87% 16.30kB 18.87% bufio.(*Scanner).Scan
12.62kB 14.61% 79.48% 12.62kB 14.61% runtime.malg
9.04kB 10.47% 89.95% 17.45kB 20.21% runtime.allocm
4.52kB 5.23% 95.19% 4.52kB 5.23% runtime.rawstringtmp
4.16kB 4.81% 100% 4.16kB 4.81% regexp.progMachine
0 0% 100% 64.71kB 74.92% main.main
0 0% 100% 43.89kB 50.82% regexp.(*Regexp).MatchString
0 0% 100% 43.89kB 50.82% regexp.(*Regexp).doExecute
0 0% 100% 43.89kB 50.82% regexp.(*Regexp).doMatch
(pprof) quit
$ go tool pprof -alloc_space ./grep_simple_re_mprofile /var/folders/bt/1mh2p2vx41lbnq3fz1n8qlxw0000gn/T/profile066323621/mem.pprof
Entering interactive mode (type "help" for commands)
(pprof) top10
2.14GB of 2.14GB total ( 100%)
Dropped 22 nodes (cum <= 0.01GB)
flat flat% sum% cum cum%
2.14GB 100% 100% 2.14GB 100% runtime.rawstringtmp
0 0% 100% 2.14GB 100% main.main
0 0% 100% 2.14GB 100% runtime.goexit
0 0% 100% 2.14GB 100% runtime.main
0 0% 100% 2.14GB 100% runtime.slicebytetostring
The only explanation for such a large change is if it grew the stack 2.4G in size for the first case. The SVG attached seems to show something like that. Instead if it was heap allocation, why didn't it show up in the first pprof (memory profile) output above? Does 'escape to heap' not imply it will be allocated in heap?
Any call to re.Match or fmt.Println() escapes the string?#### System details
```
go version go1.8 darwin/amd64
GOARCH="amd64"
GOBIN=""
GOEXE=""
GOHOSTARCH="amd64"
GOHOSTOS="darwin"
GOOS="darwin"
GOPATH="/Users/harry/code"
GORACE=""
GOROOT="/usr/local/go"
GOTOOLDIR="/usr/local/go/pkg/tool/darwin_amd64"
GCCGO="gccgo"
CC="clang"
GOGCCFLAGS="-fPIC -m64 -pthread -fno-caret-diagnostics -Qunused-arguments -fmessage-length=0 -fdebug-prefix-map=/var/folders/bt/1mh2p2vx41lbnq3fz1n8qlxw0000gn/T/go-build737735845=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches -fno-common"
CXX="clang++"
CGO_ENABLED="1"
PKG_CONFIG="pkg-config"
CGO_CFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_CPPFLAGS=""
CGO_CXXFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_FFLAGS="-g -O2"
CGO_LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/lib"
GOROOT/bin/go version: go version go1.8 darwin/amd64
GOROOT/bin/go tool compile -V: compile version go1.8 X:framepointer
uname -v: Darwin Kernel Version 15.6.0: Mon Jan 9 23:07:29 PST 2017; root:xnu-3248.60.11.2.1~1/RELEASE_X86_64
ProductName: Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.11.6
BuildVersion: 15G1217
lldb --version: lldb-360.1.70
```
Thanks
--
Harry