This prevents runaway O(n^2) behavior on devices with extremely large
block sizes (NAND, bs=~128KiB - ~1MiB).
The whole point of shrubs is to avoid this O(n^2) runaway when inline
files become necessarily large. Setting FRAGMENT_SIZE to a factor of the
BLOCK_SIZE humorously defeats this.
The 512 byte cutoff is somewhat arbitrary, it's the natural BLOCK_SIZE/8
FRAGMENT_SIZE on most NOR flash (bs=4096), but it's probably worth
tuning based on actual device performance.
Whoops, looks like cumulative results were overlooked when multiple
bench measurements per bench were added. We were just adding all
cumulative results together!
This led to some very confusing bench results.
The solution here is to keep track of per-measurement cumulative results
via a Python dict. Which adds some memory usage, but definitely not
enough to be noticeable in the context of the bench-runner.
This should be floor (rounds towards -inf), not int (rounds towards
zero), otherwise sub-integer results get funky:
- floor si(0.00001) => 10u
- int si(0.00001) => 0.01m
- floor si(0.000001) => 1u
- int si(0.000001) => m (???)
This was a simple typo. Unfortunately went unnoticed because the
lingering dataset assigned in the above for loop made the results look
mostly correct. Yay.
Before this, the only option for ordering the legend was by specifying
explicit -L/--add-label labels. This works for the most part, but
doesn't cover the case where you don't know the parameterization of the
input data.
And we already have -s/-S flags in other csv scripts, so it makes sense
to adopt them in plot.py/plotmpl.py to allow sorting by one or more
explicit fields.
Note that -s/-S can be combined with explicit -L/--add-labels to order
datasets with the same sort field:
$ ./scripts/plot.py bench.csv \
-bBLOCK_SIZE \
-xn \
-ybench_readed \
-ybench_proged \
-ybench_erased \
--legend \
-sBLOCK_SIZE \
-L'*,bench_readed=bs=%(BLOCK_SIZE)s' \
-L'*,bench_proged=' \
-L'*,bench_erased='
---
Unfortunately this conflicted with -s/--sleep, which is a common flag in
the ascii-art scripts. This was bound to conflict with -s/--sort
eventually, so a came up with some alternatives:
- -s/--sleep -> -~/--sleep
- -S/--coalesce -> -+/--coalesce
But I'll admit I'm not the happiest about these...
Whoops! A missing splat repetition here meant we only ever accepted
floats with a single digit of precision and no e/E exponents.
Humorously this went unnoticed because our scripts were only
_outputting_ single digit floats, but now that that's fixed, float
parsing also needs a fix.
Fixed by allowing >1 digit of precision in our CsvFloat regex.
This adds __csv__ methods to all Csv* classes to indicate how to write
csv/json output, and adopts Python's default float repr. As a plus, this
also lets us use "inf" for infinity in csv/json files, avoiding
potential unicode issues.
Before this we were reusing __str__ for both table rendering and
csv/json writing, which rounded to a single decimal digit! This made
float output pretty much useless outside of trivial cases.
---
Note Python apparently does some of its own rounding (1/10 -> 0.1?), so
the result may still not be round-trippable, but this is probably fine
for our somewhat hack-infested csv scripts.
So now the hidden variants of field specifiers can be used to manipulate
by fields and field fields without implying a complete field set:
$ ./scripts/csv.py lfs.code.csv \
-Bsubsystem=lfsr_file -Dfunction='lfsr_file_*' \
-fcode_size
Is the same as:
$ ./scripts/csv.py lfs.code.csv \
-bfile -bsubsystem=lfsr_file -Dfunction='lfsr_file_*' \
-fcode_size
Attempting to use -b/--by here would delete/merge the file field, as
cvs.py assumes -b/-f specify all of the relevant field type.
Note that fields can also be explicitly deleted with -D/--define's new
glob support:
$ ./scripts/csv.py lfs.code.csv -Dfile='*' -fcode_size
---
This solves an annoying problem specific to csv.py, where manipulating
by fields and field fields would often force you to specify all relevant
-b/-f fields. With how benchmarks are parameterized, this list ends up
_looong_.
It's a bit of a hack/abuse of the hidden flags, but the alternative
would be field globbing, which 1. would be a real pain-in-the-ass to
implement, and 2. affect almost all of the scripts. Reusing the hidden
flags for this keeps the complexity limited to csv.py.
Globs in CLI attrs (-L'*=bs=%(bs)s' for example), have been remarkably
useful. It makes sense to extend this to the other flags that match
against CSV fields, though this does add complexity to a large number of
smaller scripts.
- -D/--define can now use globs when filtering:
$ ./scripts/code.py lfs.o -Dfunction='lfsr_file_*'
-D/--define already accepted a comma-separated list of options, so
extending this to globs makes sense.
Note this differs from test.py/bench.py's -D/--define. Globbing in
test.py/bench.py wouldn't really work since -D/--define is generative,
not matching. But there's already other differences such as integer
parsing, range, etc. It's not worth making these perfectly consistent
as they are really two different tools that just happen to look the
same.
- -c/--compare now matches with globs when finding the compare entry:
$ ./scripts/code.py lfs.o -c'lfs*_file_sync'
This is quite a bit less useful that -D/--define, but makes sense for
consistency.
Note -c/--compare just chooses the first match. It doesn't really make
sense to compare against multiple entries.
This raised the question of globs in the field specifiers themselves
(-f'bench_*' for example), but I'm rejecting this for now as I need to
draw the complexity/scope _somewhere_, and I'm worried it's already way
over on the too-complex side.
So, for now, field names must always be specified explicitly. Globbing
field names would add too much complexity. Especially considering how
many flags accept field names in these scripts.
I don't know how I completely missed that this doesn't actually work!
Using del _does_ work in Python's repl, but it makes sense the repl may
differ from actual function execution in this case.
The problem is Python still thinks the relevant builtin is a local
variables after deletion, raising an UnboundLocalError instead of
performing a global lookup. In theory this would work if the variable
could be made global, but since global/nonlocal statements are lifted,
Python complains with "SyntaxError: name 'list' is parameter and
global".
And that's A-Ok! Intentionally shadowing language builtins already puts
this code deep into ugly hacks territory.
This was broken:
$ ./scripts/plotmpl.py -L'*=bs=%(bs)s'
There may be a better way to organize this logic, but spamming if
statements works well enough.
Mainly formatting/comment things, but also a couple tweaks:
- Changed BUILDDIR mkdir hack to infer directories from SRC, TESTS,
TEST_SRC, etc
Avoids a hardcoded list of build directories.
- Added $(BUILDDIR)/%.c -> $(BUILDDIR)/%.{o,ci,s} rules
Without these, make doesn't know how to build .o files that depend on
generated .c files (.t.c, .b.c, .a.c, etc) when using an external
BUILDDIR.
This better matches how other filesystems refer to the number of in-use
blocks.
Which makes sense when you consider that "size" could also refer to the
configured block_count. The term "usage" avoids this ambiguity.
This still forces the block_rows_ <= height invariant, but also prevents
ceiling errors from introducing blank rows.
I guess the simplest solution is the best one, eh?
This carves out two more bits in cksum tags to store the "phase" of the
rbyd block (maybe the name is too fancy, this is just the lowest 2 bits
of the block address):
LFSR_TAG_CKSUM 0x300p v-11 ---- ---- -pqq
^ ^
| '-- phase bits
'---- perturb bit
The intention here is to catch mrootanchors that are "out-of-phase",
i.e. they've been shifted by a small number of blocks.
This can happen if we find the wrong mrootanchor (after, say, a magic
scan), and risks filesystem corruption:
formatted
.-----------------'-----------------.
mounted
.-----------------'-----------------.
.--------+--------+--------+--------+ ...
|(erased)| mroot |
| | anchor | ...
| | |
'--------+--------+--------+--------+ ...
Including the lower 2 bits of the block address in cksum tags avoids
this, for up to a 3 block shift (the maximum number of redund
mrootanchors).
---
Note that cksum tags really are the only place we could put these bits.
Anywhere else and they would interfere with the canonical cksum, which
would break error correction. By definition these need to be different
per block.
We include these phase bits in every cksum tag (because it's easier),
but these don't really say much about mdirs that are not the
mrootanchor. Non-anchor mdirs can have arbitrary block addresses,
therefore arbitrary phase bits.
You _might_ be able to do something interesting if you sort the rbyd
addresses and use the index as the phase bits, but that would add quite
a bit of code for questionable benefit...
You could argue this adds noise to our cksums, but:
1. 2 bits seems like a really small amount of noise
2. our cksums are just crc32cs
3. the phase bits humorously never change when you rewrite a block
---
As with any feature this adds code, but only a small amount. I think
it's worth the extra protection:
code stack ctx
before: 35792 2368 636
after: 35824 (+0.1%) 2368 (+0.0%) 636 (+0.0%)
Also added test_mount_incompat_out_of_phase to test this.
The dbg scripts _don't_ error (block mismatch seems likely when
debugging), but dbgrbyd.py at least adds phase mismatch notes in
-l/--log mode.
Mainly the grm and ptail subsystems. This matches the internal mtree
API.
Unfortunately this _did_ add a little bit of code, I guess due to the
larger struct offsets. But since this simplifies the internal API I'm
going to chalk it up to compiler noise:
code stack ctx
before: 35768 2368 636
after: 35792 (+0.1%) 2368 (+0.0%) 636 (+0.0%)
This drops the leading count/mode byte, and instead uses mid=0 to
terminate grms. This shaves off 1 bytes from grmdeltas.
Previously, we needed the count/mode byte for a couple reasons:
- We needed to know the number of grm entries somehow, and there wasn't
always an obvious sentinel value. mid=-1, for example, is
unrepresentable with our unsigned leb128 encoding.
But now that development has settled, we can use mid=0.0 to figure out
the end-of-queue. mid=0.0 should always map to the root bookmark,
which doesn't make sense to delete, so it makes for a reasonable null
terminator here.
- It provided a route for future grm extensions, which could use the >2
count/mode encodings.
But I think we can use additional grm tag encodings for this.
There's only one gdelta tag so far, but the current plan for future
gdelta tags is to carve out the bottom 2 bits for redund like we do
with the struct tags:
LFSR_TAG_GDELTA 0x01tt v--- ---1 -ttt ttrr
LFSR_TAG_GRMDELTA 0x0100 v--- ---1 ---- ----
LFSR_TAG_GBMAPDELTA 0x0104 v--- ---1 ---- -1rr
LFSR_TAG_GDDTREEDELTA 0x0108 v--- ---1 ---- 1-rr
LFSR_TAG_GPTREEDELTA 0x010c v--- ---1 ---- 11rr
...
Decoding is a bit more complicated for gstate, since we will need to
xor those bits if mutable, but this avoids needing a full byte just
for redund in every auxiliary tree.
Long story short, we can leverage the lower 2 bits of the grm tag for
future extensions using the same mechanism.
This may seem like a lot of effort for only a handful of bytes, but keep
in mind each gdelta lives in more-or-less every mdir in the filesystem.
Also saves a bit of code/ctx:
code stack ctx
before: 35772 2368 640
after: 35768 (-0.0%) 2368 (+0.0%) 636 (-0.6%)
I think this was left over from when we handled LFSR_TAG_SHRUBTRUNK in
lfsr_mdir_commit__, which needed to forward mode bits to the generated
rattr.
Now that lfsr_mdir_commit__ only handles high-level in-device tags, we
can drop the lfsr_tag_key masks and save a bit of code:
code stack ctx
before: 35796 2368 640
after: 35772 (-0.1%) 2368 (+0.0%) 640 (+0.0%)
So instead of special behavior for only bookmark tags, LFSR_TAG_GRMPUSH
allows pushing any mid to the grm queue.
The benefit of LFSR_TAG_GRMPUSH, vs just calling lfsr_grm_push before
lfsr_mdir_commit, is that you can push mids that don't exist yet. This
lets you to create self-grming mids that effectively don't exist until
some other work has completed.
We currently use this to atomically create directory + bookmark entries,
but it may have some other uses in the future.
---
The extra rattr does add a bit of code, but fortunately no stack, since
lfsr_mkdir is not on the stack hot-path:
code stack ctx
before: 35768 2368 640
after: 35796 (+0.1%) 2368 (+0.0%) 640 (+0.0%)
A bit of a hack, but this saves some stack:
code stack ctx
before: 35764 2392 640
after: 35768 (+0.0%) 2368 (-1.0%) 640 (+0.0%)
It's not like the rbyd is doing anything else until we fetch the mdir.
This prevents some pretty unintuitive behavior with dbgbmap.py -H2 (the
default) in the terminal.
Consider before:
bd 4096x256, 7.8% mdir, 0.4% btree, 0.0% data
mm--------b-----mm--mm--mm--mmmmmmm--mm--mmmm-----------------------
Vs after:
bd 4096x256, 7.8% mdir, 0.4% btree, 0.0% data
m-----------------------------------b-mmmmmmmm----------------------
Compared to the original bmap (-H5):
bd 4096x256, 7.8% mdir, 0.4% btree, 0.0% data
mm------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------
----------b-----mm--mm--mm--mmmmmmm--mm--mmmm-----------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------
What's happening is dbgbmap.py is prioritizing aspect ratio over pixel
boundaries, so it's happy drawing a 4-row bmap to a 1-row Canvas. But of
course we can't see subpixels, so the result is quite confusing.
Prioritizing rows while tiling avoids this.
I was toying with making this look more like the mtree API in lfs.c (so
no lookupleaf/namelookupleaf, only lookup/namelookup), but dropped the
idea:
- It would be tedious
- The Mtree class's lookupleaf/namelookupleaf are also helpful for
returning inner btree nodes when printing debug info
- Not embedding mids in the Mdir class would complicate things
It's ok for these classes to not match littlefs's internal API
_exactly_. The goal is easy access for debug info, not to port the
filesystem to Python.
At least dropped Mtree.lookupnext, because that function really makes no
sense.
Why?
- lfsr_mtree_lookupleaf vs lfsr_mtree_commit is inconsistent. Should
lfsr_mdir_commit be called lfsr_mtree_commitleaf? That'd be weird.
It's reasonable to call mdirs entries of the mtree, but it'd be weird
to call rbyds entries of btrees, so the inconsistency there is
expected.
- lfsr_mtree_lookup/lfsr_mtree_lookupnext (going mtree -> mdir) aren't
actually useful.
- The lfsr_mtree_namelookup/lfsr_mtree_namelookupleaf split is just more
of a headache than it's worth.
Saves a tiny bit of code:
code stack ctx
before: 35768 2392 640
after: 35764 (-0.0%) 2392 (+0.0%) 640 (+0.0%)
This matches the behavior of rbyd_/mdir_ out-pointers.
I mostly just wanted to see the separate affects on code size. Saves a
bit more code/stack:
code stack ctx
before: 35780 2408 640
after: 35768 (-0.0%) 2392 (-0.7%) 640 (+0.0%)
At least this simplifies lfsr_mtree_traverse_ quite a bit.
This makes all rbyd_/mdir_ out-pointers required, dropping all of the
internal copies needed to make lookup/namelookup/pathlookup/etc work.
Previously, the -- rough -- rule was to make out-pointers generally
optional (lfsr_data_read and other struct initers being notable
exceptions), the idea being you can opt-out of stack allocations where
possible.
In practice this kind of backfired, with many internal functions needing
redundant stack allocations in case the relevant parameter is NULL
(lfsr_btree_lookupleaf being an excellent example).
---
As an alternative rule, I think we should only expect optional
out-pointers for things you would pass-by-value (lfsr_rid_t, lfsr_tag_t,
lfsr_data_t, etc).
I've also developed a habit of naming optional out-pointers with a
trailing underscore_, to hopefully make this subtlety a bit less subtle.
This claws back all of the stack cost of BNAMEs/MNAMEs, and most of the
code cost:
code stack ctx
before: 35888 2480 640
after: 35780 (-0.3%) 2408 (-2.9%) 640 (+0.0%)
Though we still have more function calls than we started with
(lfsr_mtree_*lookup mtree -> mdir lookups).
This is the _nth_ time I've tried to force arbitrary btree name inserts
to work, so _clearly_ I need a bigger comment.
Hopefully this will prevent me from trying to delete the LFSR_RATTR_NOOP
in test_btree_find_general_fuzz _again_.
---
The gist is that insert-before-bid+1 is fundamentally different from
insert-after-bid when named btrees are involved:
.-----f-----. insert-after-d .-------f-----.
.-b--. .--j-. => .-b---. .--j-.
| .-. .-. | | .---. .-. |
a c d h i k a c d e h i k
^
insert-before-h
=> .-----f-------.
.-b--. .---j-.
| .-. .---. |
a c d g h i k
^
The problem is that lfsr_btree_commit_ needs to find the same leaf
rbyd as lfsr_btree_namelookup, and potentially insert-before the
first rid or insert-after the last rid.
Instead of separate insert-before/after flags, we make the first tag
in a commit insert-before, and all following non-grow tags
insert-after (splits).
This info is now captured in the above mentioned comment.
Now that we don't have to worry about name tag conflicts as much, we
can add name tags for things that aren't files.
This adds LFSR_TAG_BNAME for branch names, and LFSR_TAG_MNAME for mtree
names. Note that the upper 4 bits of the subtype match LFSR_TAG_BRANCH
and LFSR_TAG_MDIR respectively:
LFSR_TAG_BNAME 0x0200 v--- --1- ---- ----
LFSR_TAG_MNAME 0x0220 v--- --1- --1- ----
LFSR_TAG_BRANCH 0x030r v--- --11 ---- --rr
LFSR_TAG_MDIR 0x0324 v--- --11 --1- -1rr
The encoding is somewhat arbitrary, but I figured reserving ~31 types
for files is probably going to be plenty for littlefs. POSIX seems to
do just fine with only ~7 all these years, and I think custom attributes
will be more enticing for "niche" file types (symlinks, compressed
files, etc), given the easy backwards compatibility.
---
In addition to the debugging benefits, the new name tags let us stop
btree lookups on the first non-bname/branch tag. Previously we always
had to fetch the first struct tag as well to check if it was a branch.
In theory this saves one rbyd lookup, but in practice it's a bit muddy.
The problem is that there's two ways to use named btrees:
1. As buckets: mtree -> mdir -> mid
2. As a table: ddtree -> ddid
The only named btree we _currently_ have is the mtree. And the mtree
operates in bucket mode, with each mdir acting more-or-less as an
extension to the btree. So we end up needing to do the second tag lookup
anyways, and all we've done is complicated up the code.
But we will _eventually_ need the table mode for the ddtree, where we
care if the ddname is an exact match.
And returning the first tag is arguably the more "correct" internal API,
vs arbitrarily the first struct tag.
But then again this change is pretty pricey...
code stack ctx
before: 35732 2440 640
after: 35888 (+0.4%) 2480 (+1.6%) 640 (+0.0%)
---
It's worth noting the new BNAME/MNAME tags don't _require_ the btree
lookup changes (which is why we can get away with not touching the dbg
scripts). The previous algorithm of always checking for branch tags
still works.
Maybe there's an argument for conditionally using the previous API when
compiling without the ddtree, but that sounds horrendously messy...
Block conflict detection was originally implemented with non-dags in
mind. But now that dags are allowed, we shouldn't treat them as errors!
Instead, we only report blocks as conflicts if multiple references have
mismatching types.
This should still be very useful for debugging the upcoming bmap work.
Found another ckparity flaw! Only detected now due to the reworked tag
encoding, but it's just luck this wasn't detected earlier.
Consider the following bit flip:
03 04 80 04 80 04 6b ... data w512 512
43 04 80 04 80 04 6b ... altble 0x304 w512 -512
^
flip
Not only are leb128s problem for ckparity, but even the difference in
alt vs normal tag encoding presents a vulnerability.
So limiting the ckparity tests further, to just 47 of the first 48 bits.
Mainly to make room for some future planned stuff:
- Moved the mroot's redund bits from LFSR_TAG_GEOMETRY to
LFSR_TAG_MAGIC:
LFSR_TAG_MAGIC 0x003r v--- ---- --11 --rr
This has the benefit of living in a fixed location (off=0x5), which
may make mounting/debugging easier. It also makes LFSR_TAG_GEOMETRY
less of a special case (LFSR_TAG_MAGIC is already a _very_ special
case).
Unfortunately, this does get in the way of our previous magic=0x3
encoding. To compensate (and to avoid conflicts with LFSR_TAG_NULL),
I've added the 0x3_ prefix. This has the funny side-effect of
rendering redunds 0-3 as ascii 0-3 (0x30-0x33), which is a complete
accident but may actually be useful when debugging.
Currently all config tags fit in the 0x3_ prefix, which is nice for
debugging but not a hard requirement.
- Flipped LFSR_TAG_FILELIMIT/NAMELIMIT:
LFSR_TAG_FILELIMIT 0x0039 v--- ---- --11 1--1
LFSR_TAG_NAMELIMIT 0x003a v--- ---- --11 1-1-
The file limit is a _bit_ more fundamental. It's effectively the
required integer size for the filesystem.
These may also be followed by LFSR_TAG_ATTRLIMIT based on how future
attr revisits go.
- Rearranged struct tags so that LFSR_TAG_BRANCH = 0x300:
LFSR_TAG_BRANCH 0x030r v--- --11 ---- --rr
LFSR_TAG_DATA 0x0304 v--- --11 ---- -1--
LFSR_TAG_BLOCK 0x0308 v--- --11 ---- 1err
LFSR_TAG_DDKEY* 0x0310 v--- --11 ---1 ----
LFSR_TAG_DID 0x0314 v--- --11 ---1 -1--
LFSR_TAG_BSHRUB 0x0318 v--- --11 ---1 1---
LFSR_TAG_BTREE 0x031c v--- --11 ---1 11rr
LFSR_TAG_MROOT 0x032r v--- --11 --1- --rr
LFSR_TAG_MDIR 0x0324 v--- --11 --1- -1rr
LFSR_TAG_MTREE 0x032c v--- --11 --1- 11rr
*Planned
LFSR_TAG_BRANCH is a very special tag when it comes to bshrub/btree
traversal, so I think it deserves the subtype=0 slot.
This also just makes everything fit together better, and makes room
for the future planned ddkey tag.
Code changes minimal:
code stack ctx
before: 35728 2440 640
after: 35732 (+0.0%) 2440 (+0.0%) 640 (+0.0%)
Ok so, funny story, looks like we won't actually need pure-tree
bshrubs/btrees.
It _is_ true that the single-parent constraint imposed by pure-trees can
enable a wider range of algorithms. But looking forward into the planned
design, we just happen to not need this constraint at all. I made a
mistake here:
1. Block allocation - On paper block allocation benefits the most from
the single-parent constraint. But we have another daggish problem,
how do we efficiently account for in-flight/open btrees?
Naively, you might think we can just traverse all open btrees during
allocation, since we shouldn't have _that_ many. But this scales
O(n^2) when writing a large file. The key observation being that open
files reference on-disk btrees and are _not_ RAM constrained.
The current solution involves tree-diffing in order to figure out
bmap updates. Which, humorously, works perfectly fine even if the
trees are dags.
2. Error correction - I just completely forgot that the current plans
for block redundancy require the ddtree.
Each block gets mapped into the dense ddtree, with subranges of the
ddtree grouped into parity groups backed by the ptree. Instead of
bptrs, file btrees store indirect ddkeys into the ddtree. No bptrs?
No dag problem!
This is still a problem if we ever support naive data redund (redund
blocks in a bptrs), but that's out of scope for other reasons
(basically just a lot more code).
So reverting. Allowing dags allows for much faster random writes, at
least in theory.
---
For now I'm still keeping the dag-avoidance in lfsr_file_flush_ around
under the LFS_NONDAG ifdef. This will likely be dropped at some point,
but I'm curious how it affects benchmarks.
Ugh, and of course the unused label makes GCC unhappy. Added
-Wno-unused-label to CFLAGS because labels have other uses besides just
being goto targets (debug targets, code organization, etc).
We probably use labels more that other libraries because to littlefs's
no-recursion requirement.
Code changes minimal, still not sure where that stack difference comes
from:
code stack ctx
before: 35740 2424 640
after: 35736 (-0.0%) 2440 (+0.7%) 640 (+0.0%)
This tears out most of the implied lfsr_file_sync calls, and restricts
LFS_O_SYNC to only imply lfsr_file_sync on _write_ operations. So only
lfsr_file_write, and maybe pwrite/writev/etc in the future.
This mainly affects lfsr_file_truncate/fruncate (and punchhole/
insertrange/collapserange in the future), while reverting the LFS_O_SYNC
related changes in lfsr_file_open:
- lfsr_file_open + LFS_O_SYNC => does _not_ sync
- lfsr_file_close + LFS_O_SYNC => syncs (unless desynced)
- lfsr_file_write + LFS_O_SYNC => syncs
- lfsr_file_sync + LFS_O_SYNC => syncs
- lfsr_file_truncate + LFS_O_SYNC => does _not_ sync
- lfsr_file_fruncate + LFS_O_SYNC => does _not_ sync
Note LFS_O_FLUSH is unaffected, it was always limited to
lfsr_file_write since that's the only function that touches file
buffers.
Also note I want this rule to apply to the future lfsr_file_punchhole/
insertrange/collapserange functions as well. Even though you can argue
these effectuate writes, they're at a level of sophistication that we
can just expect users to just call lfsr_file_sync if they want to.
---
Ok, so a number of reasons:
- This matches behavior of LFS_O_APPEND, which is intentionally
restricted to only write operations.
In that case I think the explicit limitation is easier to understand
than trying to define an abstract model.
This makes LFS_O_SYNC, LFS_O_FLUSH, and LFS_O_APPEND consistent in
when the relevant behavior takes effect.
- This avoids the zero-sized files after powerloss. Which are just as
likely, if not more, to trip up users vs missing syncs.
- Most truncate/fruncate operations are immediately followed by a write
operation anyways. Which just makes the truncate/fruncate syncs wasted
prog/erase cycles.
Even in some of the more complicated truncate/function use cases, you
just don't care about when fruncates/truncates hit the disk.
Take logging via lfsr_file_fruncate for example. Yes the fruncate will
usually happen _after_ the write operation, but this just means the
log file will usually be one entry larger than expected. Which is a
state you can end up with anyways after powerloss.
- This avoids confusing/conflicting LFS_O_SYNC + LFS_O_DESYNC behavior.
Again, this simple rule is easier to reason about than a model.
You would think this would be well defined in POSIX, but it's really
not. POSIX limits O_SYNC to "write I/O operations", but doesn't really
define a "write" (it is a retroactive standard after all). ftruncate is
a bit funny in that it states "the extended area shall appear as if it
were zero-filled", but the term "write" doesn't appear in ftruncate's
documentation at all.
Searching through LKML, stack overflow, etc, it doesn't seem like anyone
else knows exactly what to do either. There was a bug report[1] in 2005
for ext3 + O_SYNC + ftruncate that was rejected, but a later bug
report[2] in 2012 for xfs + O_SYNC + fallocate that was fixed (but was
broken in almost every Linux fs?).
1: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/1111610558.1998.193.camel@sisko.sctweedie.blueyonder.co.uk
2: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-ext4/20111116084256.GA22963@infradead.org
So, this may end up a bit controversial, but I'm going to go with the
simpler truncate/fruncate-do-not-imply-sync rule for the above reasons.
I think this is a bit more important for littlefs than other
filesystems, as it also defines the behavior of lfsr_file_open, and with
a rigorous powerloss model being core to the design.
---
This is also cheaper code/stack-wise, but if this was going to be a
deciding factor we should just put LFS_O_SYNC/LFS_O_FLUSH behind ifdefs:
code stack ctx
before: 35816 2480 640
after: 35740 (-0.2%) 2424 (-2.3%) 640 (+0.0%)
Compared to before the LFS_O_SYNC tweaks:
code stack ctx
before-tweaks: 35780 2440 640
before: 35816 (+0.1%) 2480 (+1.6%) 640 (+0.0%)
after: 35740 (-0.1%) 2424 (-0.7%) 640 (+0.0%)
This is the only way I can think of resolving the weirdness that is
LFS_O_SYNC + LFS_O_DESYNC. Just don't allow it.
LFS_O_SYNC and LFS_O_DESYNC are pretty much opposite behaviors, so an
LFS_O_SYNC + LFS_O_DESYNC file seems like a contradiction.
---
This does limit a little bit what's possible with the API, but hey that
just means fewer tests/smaller API surface area for users to stub their
toes on.
Saves a tiny bit of code:
code stack ctx
before: 35824 2480 640
after: 35816 (-0.0%) 2480 (+0.0%) 640 (+0.0%)
Do'h! I almost forgot about LFS_O_TRUNC. If LFS_O_CREAT + LFS_O_SYNC
implies lfsr_file_sync, clearly LFS_O_TRUNC + LFS_O_SYNC should as well.
This changes lfsr_file_open to only imply lfsr_file_sync if any open
operation sets the unsync flag, which is the only case where
lfsr_file_sync would do anything anyways.
This does have a subtle change in behavior when LFS_O_CREAT + LFS_O_SYNC
+ LFS_O_DESYNC, in that the desync flag is only cleared if the file did
not exist before. But I think this is more expected than unconditionally
syncing.
Note this matches the behavior of lfsr_file_write, which does _not_
imply lfsr_file_sync if the write is size=0.
---
Also added better tests over lfsr_file_open + LFS_O_TRUNC, this flag
isn't very well tested...
Which found a bug!
We were incorrectly setting LFS_o_UNFLUSH when opening with LFS_O_TRUNC,
when we should have set LFS_o_UNSYNC. This caused littlefs to never
bother updating the file's metadata unless some other write comes along
(which is what usually follows LFS_O_TRUNC).
To help catch bugs like this, I added an assert to lfsr_file_flush that
unflushed files are always marked unsynced. A synced + unflushed file is
weird and should never happen.
---
Code changes minimal:
code stack ctx
before: 35820 2480 640
after: 35824 (+0.0%) 2480 (+0.0%) 640 (+0.0%)
So we keep the behavior of creating reg files with lfsr_file_open +
LFS_O_SYNC, but only clear the desync flag if lfsr_file_open would
mutate the filesystem.
This is hopefully a simpler model to reason about, and makes LFS_O_SYNC
+ LFS_O_DESYNC a bit less weird.
Saves a little bit of code:
code stack ctx
before: 35836 2488 640
after: 35820 (-0.0%) 2480 (-0.3%) 640 (+0.0%)
So now the following creates a reg file (instead of just a stickynote):
lfsr_file_open(&lfs, &file, "test.txt",
LFS_O_WRONLY | LFS_O_CREAT | LFS_O_EXCL | LFS_O_SYNC) => 0;
// powerloss!!
struct lfsr_info info;
lfsr_stat(&lfs, "test.txt", &info) => 0; // LFS_ERR_NOENT before
assert(info.type == LFS_TYPE_REG);
This hopefully results in more intuitive behavior around lfsr_file_open
with LFS_O_SYNC. Which is important as LFS_O_SYNC is often used as an
escape hatch to avoid needing to reason about syncing things when
performance is not a big concern.
Unfortunately this does come with a surprisingly big code/stack cost,
but I'm thinking of putting these flags (LFS_O_FLUSH/LFS_O_SYNC) behind
ifdefs anyways (LFS_MAYBE_SYNC?):
code stack ctx
before: 35780 2440 640
after: 35836 (+0.2%) 2488 (+2.0%) 640 (+0.0%)
Also added some more tests to make sure these open+LFS_O_SYNC cases are
explicitly covered:
- test_fsync_sync_o_wrr
- test_fsync_sync_o_wwrr
- test_fsync_desync_o_wdwrr
- test_fsync_resync_o_wdwyrr
This does make a bit of a mess when you combined LFS_O_SYNC +
LFS_O_DESYNC. What exactly should a SYNC + DESYNC file look like?
For now I've just made LFS_O_SYNC + LFS_O_DESYNC behave as if you opened
a file with LFS_O_SYNC and then immediately called lfsr_file_desync on
it. So it doesn't receive broadcasts, but _does_ create the reg file,
and _does_ sync on first write, clearing the desync flag.
But this may be worth revisiting. Maybe LFS_O_DESYNC files shouldn't
have their desync flags cleared unless lfsr_file_sync is explicitly
called? Or maybe LFS_O_SYNC + LFS_O_DESYNC should just be an error?
Unsure...
So now calling lfsr_file_sync on zombied files is a noop:
// create a file
lfsr_file_t a;
lfsr_file_open(&lfs, &a, "a",
LFS_O_RDWR | LFS_O_CREAT | LFS_O_EXCL) => 0;
// remove, creating a zombie
lfsr_remove(&lfs, "a") => 0;
// sync, this is now a noop (previously LFS_ERR_NOENT)
lfsr_file_sync(&lfs, &a) => 0;
// close is also a noop
lfsr_file_close(&lfs, &a) => 0;
I've been on the fence on this for a while, on one hand erroring
provides more information to the user, on the other hand a noop is less
surprising if the user comes from other systems.
Ended up making this a noop. I figured minimizing surprises is good API
design, and the user can always use lfsr_stat to check if the file still
exists.
This also matches POSIX, and, perhaps more importantly, the current
version of littlefs.
---
Note that lfsr_file_resync still errors with LFS_ERR_NOENT. It's hard to
argue the file "matches the state of disk" otherwise.
Code changes minimal:
code stack ctx
before: 35784 2440 640
after: 35780 (-0.0%) 2440 (+0.0%) 640 (+0.0%)
I think these cases were mostly just overlooked as the API churned
internally, bmosses/bprout were added and removed, etc.
Shaves off some more code:
code stack ctx
before: 35820 2440 640 (+0.0%)
after: 35784 (-0.1%) 2440 (+0.0%) 640 (+0.0%)
I think this was just overlooked when dropping bmoss/bsprouts.
Dropping bmoss here makes it so file size is always the first leb128 in
the data, which is nice.
Saves a bit of code:
code stack ctx
before: 35864 2440 640
after: 35820 (-0.1%) 2440 (+0.0%) 640 (+0.0%)
In hindsight this was way too fragile.
Explicitly checking for both LFS_TYPE_REG and LFS_type_TRAVERSAL (the 2
in-device types that can have attached bshrubs) solves this and
hopefully prevents lfsr_o_isbshrub from falling out-of-date in the
future.
The downside being a little bit more code:
code stack ctx
before: 35832 2440 640
after: 35864 (+0.1%) 2440 (+0.0%) 640 (+0.0%)
Found by test_traversal_mutation_mroot_split_bshrub_l and
test_traversal_mutation_mroot_split_bshrub_r.
This adds LFSR_TAG_ORPHAN, which simplifies quite a bit of the internal
stickynote handling.
Now that we don't have to worry about conflicts with future unknown
types, we can add whatever types we want internally. One useful one
is LFSR_TAG_ORPHAN, which lets us determine stickynote's orphan status
early (in lfsr_mdir_lookupnext and lfsr_mdir_namelookup):
- non-orphan stickynotes -> LFSR_TAG_STICKYNOTE
- orphan stickynotes -> LFSR_TAG_ORPHAN
This simplifies all the places where we need to check if a stickynote
really exists, which is most of the high-level functions.
One downside is that this makes stickynote _manipulation_ a bit more
delicate. lfsr_mdir_lookup(LFSR_TAG_ORPHAN) no longer works as expected,
for example.
Fortunately we can sidestep this issue by dropping down to
lfsr_rbyd_lookup when we need to interact with stickynotes directly,
skipping the is-orphan checks.
---
Saves a nice bit of code:
code stack ctx
before: 35984 2440 640
after: 35832 (-0.4%) 2440 (+0.0%) 640 (+0.0%)
It got a little muddy since this now include the unknown-type changes,
but here's the code diff from before we exposed LFSR_TYPE_STICKYNOTE to
users:
code stack ctx
before: 35740 2440 640
after: 35832 (+0.3%) 2440 (+0.0%) 640 (+0.0%)
Now that name tags are a special case, using a switch case statement
here continues to make less sense.
Also switched to just checking count >= 0 directly instead of via
lfsr_attr_dtag, because lfsr_tag_suptype(lfsr_tag_dtag(rattr)) would've
been a mouthful.
Saves a teensy bit of code:
code stack ctx
before: 35992 2440 640
after: 35984 (-0.0%) 2440 (+0.0%) 640 (+0.0%)
This drops the requirement that all file types are introduced with a
related wcompat flag. Instead, the wcompat flag is only required if
modification _would_ leak resources, and we treat unknown file types as
though they are regular files.
This allows modification of unknown file types without the risk of
breaking anything.
To compare with before the unknown-type rework:
Before:
> Unknown file types are allowed and may leak resources if modified,
> so attempted modification (rename/remove) will error with
> LFS_ERR_NOTSUP.
Now:
> Unknown file types are allowed but must not leak resources if
> modified. If an unknown file type would leak resources, it should set
> a related wcompat flag to only allow mounting RDONLY.
Note this includes directories, which can leak bookmarks if removed, so
filesystems using directories should set the LFSR_WCOMPAT_DIR flag.
But we no longer need the LFSR_WCOMPAT_REG/LFSR_WCOMPAT_STICKYNOTE
flags.
---
The real tricky part was getting lfsr_rename to work with unknown types,
as this broke the invariant that we only ever commit tags we know about.
Fixing this required:
- Fetching the non-unknown-mapped tag in lfsr_rename
- Mapping all name tags to LFSR_TAG_NAME in lfsr_rbyd_appendrattr_
- Adopting LFSR_RATTR_NAME for bookmark name tags
This was broken by the above lfsr_rbyd_appendrattr_ change, but it's
probably good to handle these the same as other name tags anyways.
This adds a bit of code, but not enough that I think this isn't worth
it (or worth a build-time option):
code stack ctx
before: 35924 2440 640
after: 35992 (+0.0%) 2440 (+0.0%) 640 (+0.0%)
This changes how we approach unknown file types.
Before:
> Unknown file types are allowed and may leak resources if modified,
> so attempted modification (rename/remove) will error with
> LFS_ERR_NOTSUP.
Now:
> Unknown file types are only allowed in RDONLY mode. This avoids the
> whole leaking resources headache.
Additionally, unknown types are now mapped to LFS_TYPE_UNKNOWN, instead
of just being forwarded to the user. This allows us to add internal
types/tags to the LFSR_TAG_NAME type space without worrying about
conflicts with future types:
- reg -> LFS_TYPE_REG
- dir -> LFS_TYPE_DIR
- stickynote -> LFS_TYPE_STICKYNOTE
- everything else -> LFS_TYPE_UNKNOWN
Thinking about potential future types, it seems most (symlinks,
compressed files, etc) can be better implemented via custom attributes.
Using custom attributes doesn't mean the filesystem _can't_ inject
special behavior, and custom attributes allow for perfect backwards
compatibility.
So with future types less likely, forwarding type info to users is less
important (and potentially error prone). Instead, allowing on-disk +
internal types to be represented densely is much more useful.
And it avoids setting an upper bound on future types prematurely.
---
This also includes a minor rcompat/wcompat rework. Since we're probably
going to end up with 32-bit rcompat flags anyways, might as well make
them more human-readable (nibble-aligned):
LFS_RCOMPAT_NONSTANDARD 0x00000001 Non-standard filesystem format
LFS_RCOMPAT_WRONLY 0x00000002 Reading is disallowed
LFS_RCOMPAT_BMOSS 0x00000010 Files may use inlined data
LFS_RCOMPAT_BSPROUT 0x00000020 Files may use block pointers
LFS_RCOMPAT_BSHRUB 0x00000040 Files may use inlined btrees
LFS_RCOMPAT_BTREE 0x00000080 Files may use btrees
LFS_RCOMPAT_MMOSS 0x00000100 May use an inlined mdir
LFS_RCOMPAT_MSPROUT 0x00000200 May use an mdir pointer
LFS_RCOMPAT_MSHRUB 0x00000400 May use an inlined mtree
LFS_RCOMPAT_MTREE 0x00000800 May use an mdir btree
LFS_RCOMPAT_GRM 0x00001000 Global-remove in use
LFS_WCOMPAT_NONSTANDARD 0x00000001 Non-standard filesystem format
LFS_WCOMPAT_RDONLY 0x00000002 Writing is disallowed
LFS_WCOMPAT_REG 0x00000010 Regular file types in use
LFS_WCOMPAT_DIR 0x00000020 Directory file types in use
LFS_WCOMPAT_STICKYNOTE 0x00000040 Stickynote file types in use
LFS_WCOMPAT_GCKSUM 0x00001000 Global-checksum in use
---
Code changes:
code stack ctx
before: 35928 2440 640
after: 35924 (-0.0%) 2440 (+0.0%) 640 (+0.0%)
Christopher Haster