diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/technical/commit-graph.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/technical/commit-graph.txt | 210 |
1 files changed, 194 insertions, 16 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/technical/commit-graph.txt b/Documentation/technical/commit-graph.txt index 7805b09..729fbcb 100644 --- a/Documentation/technical/commit-graph.txt +++ b/Documentation/technical/commit-graph.txt @@ -127,22 +127,196 @@ Design Details helpful for these clones, anyway. The commit-graph will not be read or written when shallow commits are present. -Future Work ------------ - -- After computing and storing generation numbers, we must make graph - walks aware of generation numbers to gain the performance benefits they - enable. This will mostly be accomplished by swapping a commit-date-ordered - priority queue with one ordered by generation number. The following - operations are important candidates: - - - 'log --topo-order' - - 'tag --merged' - -- A server could provide a commit-graph file as part of the network protocol - to avoid extra calculations by clients. This feature is only of benefit if - the user is willing to trust the file, because verifying the file is correct - is as hard as computing it from scratch. +Commit Graphs Chains +-------------------- + +Typically, repos grow with near-constant velocity (commits per day). Over time, +the number of commits added by a fetch operation is much smaller than the +number of commits in the full history. By creating a "chain" of commit-graphs, +we enable fast writes of new commit data without rewriting the entire commit +history -- at least, most of the time. + +## File Layout + +A commit-graph chain uses multiple files, and we use a fixed naming convention +to organize these files. Each commit-graph file has a name +`$OBJDIR/info/commit-graphs/graph-{hash}.graph` where `{hash}` is the hex- +valued hash stored in the footer of that file (which is a hash of the file's +contents before that hash). For a chain of commit-graph files, a plain-text +file at `$OBJDIR/info/commit-graphs/commit-graph-chain` contains the +hashes for the files in order from "lowest" to "highest". + +For example, if the `commit-graph-chain` file contains the lines + +``` + {hash0} + {hash1} + {hash2} +``` + +then the commit-graph chain looks like the following diagram: + + +-----------------------+ + | graph-{hash2}.graph | + +-----------------------+ + | + +-----------------------+ + | | + | graph-{hash1}.graph | + | | + +-----------------------+ + | + +-----------------------+ + | | + | | + | | + | graph-{hash0}.graph | + | | + | | + | | + +-----------------------+ + +Let X0 be the number of commits in `graph-{hash0}.graph`, X1 be the number of +commits in `graph-{hash1}.graph`, and X2 be the number of commits in +`graph-{hash2}.graph`. If a commit appears in position i in `graph-{hash2}.graph`, +then we interpret this as being the commit in position (X0 + X1 + i), and that +will be used as its "graph position". The commits in `graph-{hash2}.graph` use these +positions to refer to their parents, which may be in `graph-{hash1}.graph` or +`graph-{hash0}.graph`. We can navigate to an arbitrary commit in position j by checking +its containment in the intervals [0, X0), [X0, X0 + X1), [X0 + X1, X0 + X1 + +X2). + +Each commit-graph file (except the base, `graph-{hash0}.graph`) contains data +specifying the hashes of all files in the lower layers. In the above example, +`graph-{hash1}.graph` contains `{hash0}` while `graph-{hash2}.graph` contains +`{hash0}` and `{hash1}`. + +## Merging commit-graph files + +If we only added a new commit-graph file on every write, we would run into a +linear search problem through many commit-graph files. Instead, we use a merge +strategy to decide when the stack should collapse some number of levels. + +The diagram below shows such a collapse. As a set of new commits are added, it +is determined by the merge strategy that the files should collapse to +`graph-{hash1}`. Thus, the new commits, the commits in `graph-{hash2}` and +the commits in `graph-{hash1}` should be combined into a new `graph-{hash3}` +file. + + +---------------------+ + | | + | (new commits) | + | | + +---------------------+ + | | + +-----------------------+ +---------------------+ + | graph-{hash2} |->| | + +-----------------------+ +---------------------+ + | | | + +-----------------------+ +---------------------+ + | | | | + | graph-{hash1} |->| | + | | | | + +-----------------------+ +---------------------+ + | tmp_graphXXX + +-----------------------+ + | | + | | + | | + | graph-{hash0} | + | | + | | + | | + +-----------------------+ + +During this process, the commits to write are combined, sorted and we write the +contents to a temporary file, all while holding a `commit-graph-chain.lock` +lock-file. When the file is flushed, we rename it to `graph-{hash3}` +according to the computed `{hash3}`. Finally, we write the new chain data to +`commit-graph-chain.lock`: + +``` + {hash3} + {hash0} +``` + +We then close the lock-file. + +## Merge Strategy + +When writing a set of commits that do not exist in the commit-graph stack of +height N, we default to creating a new file at level N + 1. We then decide to +merge with the Nth level if one of two conditions hold: + + 1. `--size-multiple=<X>` is specified or X = 2, and the number of commits in + level N is less than X times the number of commits in level N + 1. + + 2. `--max-commits=<C>` is specified with non-zero C and the number of commits + in level N + 1 is more than C commits. + +This decision cascades down the levels: when we merge a level we create a new +set of commits that then compares to the next level. + +The first condition bounds the number of levels to be logarithmic in the total +number of commits. The second condition bounds the total number of commits in +a `graph-{hashN}` file and not in the `commit-graph` file, preventing +significant performance issues when the stack merges and another process only +partially reads the previous stack. + +The merge strategy values (2 for the size multiple, 64,000 for the maximum +number of commits) could be extracted into config settings for full +flexibility. + +## Deleting graph-{hash} files + +After a new tip file is written, some `graph-{hash}` files may no longer +be part of a chain. It is important to remove these files from disk, eventually. +The main reason to delay removal is that another process could read the +`commit-graph-chain` file before it is rewritten, but then look for the +`graph-{hash}` files after they are deleted. + +To allow holding old split commit-graphs for a while after they are unreferenced, +we update the modified times of the files when they become unreferenced. Then, +we scan the `$OBJDIR/info/commit-graphs/` directory for `graph-{hash}` +files whose modified times are older than a given expiry window. This window +defaults to zero, but can be changed using command-line arguments or a config +setting. + +## Chains across multiple object directories + +In a repo with alternates, we look for the `commit-graph-chain` file starting +in the local object directory and then in each alternate. The first file that +exists defines our chain. As we look for the `graph-{hash}` files for +each `{hash}` in the chain file, we follow the same pattern for the host +directories. + +This allows commit-graphs to be split across multiple forks in a fork network. +The typical case is a large "base" repo with many smaller forks. + +As the base repo advances, it will likely update and merge its commit-graph +chain more frequently than the forks. If a fork updates their commit-graph after +the base repo, then it should "reparent" the commit-graph chain onto the new +chain in the base repo. When reading each `graph-{hash}` file, we track +the object directory containing it. During a write of a new commit-graph file, +we check for any changes in the source object directory and read the +`commit-graph-chain` file for that source and create a new file based on those +files. During this "reparent" operation, we necessarily need to collapse all +levels in the fork, as all of the files are invalid against the new base file. + +It is crucial to be careful when cleaning up "unreferenced" `graph-{hash}.graph` +files in this scenario. It falls to the user to define the proper settings for +their custom environment: + + 1. When merging levels in the base repo, the unreferenced files may still be + referenced by chains from fork repos. + + 2. The expiry time should be set to a length of time such that every fork has + time to recompute their commit-graph chain to "reparent" onto the new base + file(s). + + 3. If the commit-graph chain is updated in the base, the fork will not have + access to the new chain until its chain is updated to reference those files. + (This may change in the future [5].) Related Links ------------- @@ -170,3 +344,7 @@ Related Links [4] https://public-inbox.org/git/20180108154822.54829-1-git@jeffhostetler.com/T/#u A patch to remove the ahead-behind calculation from 'status'. + +[5] https://public-inbox.org/git/f27db281-abad-5043-6d71-cbb083b1c877@gmail.com/ + A discussion of a "two-dimensional graph position" that can allow reading + multiple commit-graph chains at the same time. |