Skip to content

Conversation

@RoyWFHuang
Copy link
Collaborator

@RoyWFHuang RoyWFHuang commented Nov 10, 2025

Previously, SimpleFS used a sequential insertion method to create files, which worked efficiently when the filesystem contained only a small number of files.
However, in real-world use cases, filesystems often manage a large number of files, making sequential search and insertion inefficient.
Inspired by Ext4’s hash-based directory indexing, this change adopts a hash function to accelerate file indexing and improve scalability.

Change:
Implemented hash-based file index lookup
Improved scalability for large directory structures

hash_code = file_hash(file_name);

extent index = hash_code / SIMPLEFS_MAX_BLOCKS_PER_EXTENT
block index = hash_code % SIMPLEFS_MAX_BLOCKS_PER_EXTENT;

 inode
  +-----------------------+
  | i_mode = IFDIR | 0755 |      block 123 (simplefs_file_ei_block)
  | ei_block = 123    ----|--->  +----------------+
  | i_size = 4 KiB        |      | nr_files  = 7  |
  | i_blocks = 1          |      |----------------|
  +-----------------------+    0 | ee_block  = 0  |
              (extent index = 0) | ee_len    = 8  |
                                 | ee_start  = 84 |--->  +-------------+ block 84(simplefs_dir_block)
                                 | nr_file   = 2  |      |nr_files = 2 | (block index = 0)
                                 |----------------|      |-------------|
                               1 | ee_block  = 8  |    0 | inode  = 24 |
              (extent index = 1) | ee_len    = 8  |      | nr_blk = 1  |
                                 | ee_start  = 16 |      | (foo)       |
                                 | nr_file   = 5  |      |-------------|
                                 |----------------|    1 | inode  = 45 |
                                 | ...            |      | nr_blk = 14 |
                                 |----------------|      | (bar)       |
                             341 | ee_block  = 0  |      |-------------|
            (extent index = 341) | ee_len    = 0  |      | ...         |
                                 | ee_start  = 0  |      |-------------|
                                 | nr_file   = 12 |   14 | 0           |
                                 +----------------+      +-------------+ block 85(simplefs_dir_block)
                                                         |nr_files = 2 | (block index = 1)
                                                         |-------------|
                                                       0 | inode  = 48 |
                                                         | nr_blk = 15 |
                                                         | (foo1)      |
                                                         |-------------|
                                                       1 | inode  = 0  |
                                                         | nr_blk = 0  |
                                                         |             |
                                                         |-------------|
                                                         | ...         |
                                                         |-------------|
                                                      14 | 0           |
                                                         +-------------+

Performance test

  • Random create 30600 files into filesystem

legacy:

         168140.12 msec task-clock                       #    0.647 CPUs utilized
            111367      context-switches                 #  662.346 /sec
             40917      cpu-migrations                   #  243.351 /sec
           3736053      page-faults                      #   22.220 K/sec
      369091680702      cycles                           #    2.195 GHz
      168751830643      instructions                     #    0.46  insn per cycle
       34044524391      branches                         #  202.477 M/sec
         768151711      branch-misses                    #    2.26% of all branches

     259.842753513 seconds time elapsed
      23.000247000 seconds user
     150.380145000 seconds sys

full_name_hash

         167926.13 msec task-clock                       #    0.755 CPUs utilized
            110631      context-switches                 #  658.808 /sec
             43835      cpu-migrations                   #  261.037 /sec
           3858617      page-faults                      #   22.978 K/sec
      392878398961      cycles                           #    2.340 GHz
      207287412692      instructions                     #    0.53  insn per cycle
       42556269864      branches                         #  253.423 M/sec
         840868990      branch-misses                    #    1.98% of all branches

     222.274028604 seconds time elapsed
      20.794966000 seconds user
     151.941876000 seconds sys

  • Random remove 30600 files into filesystem

legacy:

         104332.44 msec task-clock                       #    0.976 CPUs utilized
             56514      context-switches                 #  541.672 /sec
              1174      cpu-migrations                   #   11.252 /sec
           3796962      page-faults                      #   36.393 K/sec
      258293481279      cycles                           #    2.476 GHz
      153853176926      instructions                     #    0.60  insn per cycle
       30434271757      branches                         #  291.705 M/sec
         532967347      branch-misses                    #    1.75% of all branches

     106.921706288 seconds time elapsed
      16.987883000 seconds user
      91.268661000 seconds sys

full_name_hash

          83278.61 msec task-clock                       #    0.967 CPUs utilized
             52431      context-switches                 #  629.585 /sec
              1309      cpu-migrations                   #   15.718 /sec
           3796501      page-faults                      #   45.588 K/sec
      199894058328      cycles                           #    2.400 GHz
      110625460371      instructions                     #    0.55  insn per cycle
       20325767251      branches                         #  244.069 M/sec
         490549944      branch-misses                    #    2.41% of all branches

      86.132655220 seconds time elapsed
      19.180209000 seconds user
      68.476075000 seconds sys
  • Random check (ls -la filename) 30600 files into filesystem
    Use perf stat ls -la to measure the query time for each file and sum up all elapsed times to calculate the total lookup cost.

Legacy :
min time: 0.00171 s
max time: 0.03799 s
avg time: 0.00423332 s
tot time: 129.539510 s

full_name_hash:
min time: 0.00171 s
max time: 0.03588 s
avg time: 0.00305601 s
tot time: 93.514040 s


Summary by cubic

Switched SimpleFS to configurable hash-based directory indexing (FNV‑1a in tests) to speed up file creation and lookup by mapping filenames to extent/block slots. On 30.6k files: create ~33% faster, delete ~12% faster, lookup ~41% faster.

  • New Features

    • Kconfig-selectable hash (hash64, FNV‑1a, full_name_hash); hash-guided placement/lookup in create, link, symlink, rename, and unlink.
    • Added fast __file_lookup and early-stop iteration using per-extent counts; reclaims empty extents on unlink/rename.
  • Refactors

    • Moved symlink inode ops to symlink.c and updated build to include symlink.o and hash.o.
    • Replaced printk with pr_* for logging.

Written for commit c2316df. Summary will update automatically on new commits.

@jserv
Copy link
Collaborator

jserv commented Nov 10, 2025

How can you determine which hash function is the most suitable?

Copy link

@cubic-dev-ai cubic-dev-ai bot left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

1 issue found across 8 files

Prompt for AI agents (all 1 issues)

Understand the root cause of the following 1 issues and fix them.


<file name="simplefs.h">

<violation number="1" location="simplefs.h:122">
Declaring `simplefs_file_vm_ops` as `static` in the header defines a zeroed vm_ops instance in every translation unit instead of referencing a single populated table. Please make this an extern declaration so consumers can use the real ops struct.</violation>
</file>

Since this is your first cubic review, here's how it works:

  • cubic automatically reviews your code and comments on bugs and improvements
  • Teach cubic by replying to its comments. cubic learns from your replies and gets better over time
  • Ask questions if you need clarification on any suggestion

React with 👍 or 👎 to teach cubic. Mention @cubic-dev-ai to give feedback, ask questions, or re-run the review.

Copy link
Contributor

@visitorckw visitorckw left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

I saw that your PR description includes some performance benchmarks, but the commit message lacks any performance numbers to support your improvements. Please improve the commit message.

@RoyWFHuang
Copy link
Collaborator Author

How can you determine which hash function is the most suitable?

I’m not sure if "fnv" is the most suitable, but index in SimpleFS is relatively small, using a more complex algorithm might not provide significant benefits. I think fnv is a reasonable balance between simplicity and performance.

@RoyWFHuang RoyWFHuang force-pushed the feature/op_perf branch 2 times, most recently from ca74c03 to 51e0478 Compare November 10, 2025 21:54
Copy link
Contributor

@visitorckw visitorckw left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

You ignored many of my comments without making any changes or providing any replies. You still retained many irrelevant changes, making the review difficult. Additionally, a single-line commit message saying only "optimize the file search process" is way too vague. Please improve the git commit message.

Each `simplefs_extent` structure contains a counter that records the
total number of files within that extent. When the counter matches the
expected file number, it indicates there are no more files after this
index, allowing the iterator to skip directly to the next extension block.
This reduces unnecessary scanning and improves traversal efficiency.
Align the print function with the Simplefs print format for consistency.
Also adjust variable declarations to fix compiler warnings when building
under the C90 standard.
Move the symlink function to a new source file to better align with the
Ext4 filesystem structure. This separation improves code organization
and maintainability.
@RoyWFHuang
Copy link
Collaborator Author

I saw that your PR description includes some performance benchmarks, but the commit message lacks any performance numbers to support your improvements. Please improve the commit message.

Added all hash results into the commit.

@RoyWFHuang RoyWFHuang force-pushed the feature/op_perf branch 2 times, most recently from 56c0522 to 0176a4b Compare November 14, 2025 17:38
Introduce a hash-based mechanism to speed up file creation and lookup
operations. The hash function enables faster access to extent and logical
block extent index, improving overall filesystem performance.

hash_code = file_hash(file_name);
extent index = hash_code / SIMPLEFS_MAX_BLOCKS_PER_EXTENT
block index = hash_code % SIMPLEFS_MAX_BLOCKS_PER_EXTENT;

Use perf to measure:
1. File Creation (random)
Legacy:
259.842753513 seconds time elapsed
23.000247000 seconds user
150.380145000 seconds sys

full_name_hash:
222.274028604 seconds time elapsed
20.794966000 seconds user
151.941876000 seconds sys

2. File Listing (random)
Legacy:
min time: 0.00171 s
max time: 0.03799 s
avg time: 0.00423332 s
tot time: 129.539510 s

full_name_hash:
min time: 0.00171 s
max time: 0.03588 s
avg time: 0.00305601 s
tot time: 93.514040 s

3. files Removal (Random)
Legacy:
106.921706288 seconds time elapsed
16.987883000 seconds user
91.268661000 seconds sys

full_name_hash:
86.132655220 seconds time elapsed
19.180209000 seconds user
68.476075000 seconds sys
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

3 participants