On Thu, Apr 06, 2017 at 04:34:39PM +0000, git@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > Teach add_index_entry_with_check() and has_dir_name() > to avoid index lookups if the given path sorts after > the last entry in the index. > > This saves at least 2 binary searches per entry. > > This improves performance during checkout and read-tree because > merge_working_tree() and unpack_trees() processes a list of already > sorted entries. Just thinking about this algorithmically for a moment. You're saving the binary search when the input is given in sorted order. But in other cases you're adding an extra strcmp() before the binary search begins. So it's a tradeoff. How often is the input sorted? You save O(log n) strcmps for a "hit" with your patch, and one for a "miss". So it's a net win if we expect at least 1/log(n) of additions to be sorted (I'm talking about individual calls, but it should scale linearly either way over a set of n calls). I have no clue if that's a reasonable assumption or not. -Peff