As a prerequisite to implementing multi-pack bitmaps, motivate and describe the format and ordering of the multi-pack reverse index. The subsequent patch will implement reading this format, and the patch after that will implement writing it while producing a multi-pack index. Co-authored-by: Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Taylor Blau <me@xxxxxxxxxxxx> --- Documentation/technical/pack-format.txt | 83 +++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 83 insertions(+) diff --git a/Documentation/technical/pack-format.txt b/Documentation/technical/pack-format.txt index 1faa949bf6..8d2f42f29e 100644 --- a/Documentation/technical/pack-format.txt +++ b/Documentation/technical/pack-format.txt @@ -379,3 +379,86 @@ CHUNK DATA: TRAILER: Index checksum of the above contents. + +== multi-pack-index reverse indexes + +Similar to the pack-based reverse index, the multi-pack index can also +be used to generate a reverse index. + +Instead of mapping between offset, pack-, and index position, this +reverse index maps between an object's position within the MIDX, and +that object's position within a pseudo-pack that the MIDX describes +(i.e., the ith entry of the multi-pack reverse index holds the MIDX +position of ith object in pseudo-pack order). + +To clarify the difference between these orderings, consider a multi-pack +reachability bitmap (which does not yet exist, but is what we are +building towards here). Each bit needs to correspond to an object in the +MIDX, and so we need an efficient mapping from bit position to MIDX +position. + +One solution is to let bits occupy the same position in the oid-sorted +index stored by the MIDX. But because oids are effectively random, their +resulting reachability bitmaps would have no locality, and thus compress +poorly. (This is the reason that single-pack bitmaps use the pack +ordering, and not the .idx ordering, for the same purpose.) + +So we'd like to define an ordering for the whole MIDX based around +pack ordering, which has far better locality (and thus compresses more +efficiently). We can think of a pseudo-pack created by the concatenation +of all of the packs in the MIDX. E.g., if we had a MIDX with three packs +(a, b, c), with 10, 15, and 20 objects respectively, we can imagine an +ordering of the objects like: + + |a,0|a,1|...|a,9|b,0|b,1|...|b,14|c,0|c,1|...|c,19| + +where the ordering of the packs is defined by the MIDX's pack list, +and then the ordering of objects within each pack is the same as the +order in the actual packfile. + +Given the list of packs and their counts of objects, you can +naïvely reconstruct that pseudo-pack ordering (e.g., the object at +position 27 must be (c,1) because packs "a" and "b" consumed 25 of the +slots). But there's a catch. Objects may be duplicated between packs, in +which case the MIDX only stores one pointer to the object (and thus we'd +want only one slot in the bitmap). + +Callers could handle duplicates themselves by reading objects in order +of their bit-position, but that's linear in the number of objects, and +much too expensive for ordinary bitmap lookups. Building a reverse index +solves this, since it is the logical inverse of the index, and that +index has already removed duplicates. But, building a reverse index on +the fly can be expensive. Since we already have an on-disk format for +pack-based reverse indexes, let's reuse it for the MIDX's pseudo-pack, +too. + +Objects from the MIDX are ordered as follows to string together the +pseudo-pack. Let `pack(o)` return the pack from which `o` was selected +by the MIDX, and define an ordering of packs based on their numeric ID +(as stored by the MIDX). Let `offset(o)` return the object offset of `o` +within `pack(o)`. Then, compare `o1` and `o2` as follows: + + - If one of `pack(o1)` and `pack(o2)` is preferred and the other + is not, then the preferred one sorts first. ++ +(This is a detail that allows the MIDX bitmap to determine which +pack should be used by the pack-reuse mechanism, since it can ask +the MIDX for the pack containing the object at bit position 0). + + - If `pack(o1) ≠ pack(o2)`, then sort the two objects in descending + order based on the pack ID. + + - Otherwise, `pack(o1) = pack(o2)`, and the objects are sorted in + pack-order (i.e., `o1` sorts ahead of `o2` exactly when `offset(o1) + < offset(o2)`). + +In short, a MIDX's pseudo-pack is the de-duplicated concatenation of +objects in packs stored by the MIDX, laid out in pack order, and the +packs arranged in MIDX order (with the preferred pack coming first). + +Finally, note that the MIDX's reverse index is not stored as a chunk in +the multi-pack-index itself. This is done because the reverse index +includes the checksum of the pack or MIDX to which it belongs, which +makes it impossible to write in the MIDX. To avoid races when rewriting +the MIDX, a MIDX reverse index includes the MIDX's checksum in its +filename (e.g., `multi-pack-index-xyz.rev`). -- 2.30.0.667.g81c0cbc6fd
