Tags: patch
Hi,
When I use 'equal' on large, cyclic objects, emacs freezes.
Reproduce:
;; emacs -Q
(require 'org-element)
;; get two identical `org-element' trees of this file
;; https://github.com/emacs-mirror/emacs/blob/master/doc/misc/modus-themes.org
(let ((file (expand-file-name "doc/misc/modus-themes.org"
source-directory)))
(with-current-buffer (find-file-noselect file)
(setq org-o1 (org-element-parse-buffer))
(org-element-cache-reset)
(setq org-o2 (org-element-parse-buffer))))
;; the test
(equal org-o1 org-o2)
This equal call freezes emacs. And the memory usage of emacs grows
quickly, until I quit. Reproduced with emacs 29.4 and the master branch.
The cause:
Current code on the master branch:
static bool
internal_equal (Lisp_Object o1, Lisp_Object o2, enum equal_kind equal_kind,
int depth, Lisp_Object ht)
{
tail_recurse:
if (depth > 10)
{
// ...
if (NILP (ht))
ht = CALLN (Fmake_hash_table, QCtest, Qeq);
// ...
}
// ...
if (! internal_equal (XCAR (o1), XCAR (o2),
equal_kind, depth + 1, ht))
return false;
// ...
}
When internal_equal calls itself, it passes the hash table argument 'ht'
by value. As a result, each internal_equal(depth=11) call initializes
its own hash table, separately recording the objects it encounters in
further recursive calls. This leads to excessive 'hash_put' and
significant memory allocation.
Fix:
Make internal_equal pass the hash table by pointer (see the patch).
With this patch, the test above returns quickly:
(benchmark-run 100 (equal org-o1 org-o2))
(2.562444 20 0.30933900000000014)
This will also improve the performance for smaller cyclic objects:
;; emacs -Q
(defun make-cyclic (n m)
(let* ((l1 (make-list n 1))
(l2 (make-list m 2)))
(setf (nth (1- m) l2) l1)
(setf (nth (1- n) l1) l2)
l1))
(let ((a (make-cyclic 100 7))
(b (make-cyclic 100 7)))
(cl-assert (equal a b))
(benchmark-run 10000 (equal a b)))
Current:
(0.530081 32 0.49294199999999977)
With the patch:
(0.036401 1 0.0173350000000001)
And it passes all the tests in 'make fns-tests'.
P.S. Could I get the copyright assignment paperwork please?
Best,
Ethan Kong
In GNU Emacs 29.4 (build 2, x86_64-w64-mingw32) of 2024-07-05 built on
AVALON
Windowing system distributor 'Microsoft Corp.', version 10.0.22631
System Description: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (v10.0.2009.22631.4317)
Configured using:
'configure --with-modules --without-dbus --with-native-compilation=aot
--without-compress-install --with-sqlite3 --with-tree-sitter
CFLAGS=-O2'