bufmgr: Add one-entry cache for private refcount

anarazel · anarazel · commit 30df61990c67 · 2025-12-14T13:09:43.000-05:00
The private refcount entry for a buffer is often looked up repeatedly for the same buffer, e.g. to pin and then unpin a buffer. Benchmarking shows that it's worthwhile to have a one-entry cache for that case. With that cache in place, it's worth splitting GetPrivateRefCountEntry() into a small inline portion (for the cache hit case) and an out-of-line helper for the rest. This is helpful for some workloads today, but becomes more important in an upcoming patch that will utilize the private refcount infrastructure to also store whether the buffer is currently locked, as that increases the rate of lookups substantially. Reviewed-by: Melanie Plageman <melanieplageman@gmail.com> Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/6rgb2nvhyvnszz4ul3wfzlf5rheb2kkwrglthnna7qhe24onwr@vw27225tkyar
diff --git a/src/backend/storage/buffer/bufmgr.c b/src/backend/storage/buffer/bufmgr.c
@@ -241,6 +241,7 @@ static HTAB *PrivateRefCountHash = NULL;
 static int32 PrivateRefCountOverflowed = 0;
 static uint32 PrivateRefCountClock = 0;
 static int	ReservedRefCountSlot = -1;
+static int	PrivateRefCountEntryLast = -1;
 
 static uint32 MaxProportionalPins;
 
@@ -374,28 +375,27 @@ NewPrivateRefCountEntry(Buffer buffer)
 	res->buffer = buffer;
 	res->data.refcount = 0;
 
+	/* update cache for the next lookup */
+	PrivateRefCountEntryLast = ReservedRefCountSlot;
+
 	ReservedRefCountSlot = -1;
 
 	return res;
 }
 
 /*
- * Return the PrivateRefCount entry for the passed buffer.
- *
- * Returns NULL if a buffer doesn't have a refcount entry. Otherwise, if
- * do_move is true, and the entry resides in the hashtable the entry is
- * optimized for frequent access by moving it to the array.
+ * Slow-path for GetPrivateRefCountEntry(). This is big enough to not be worth
+ * inlining. This particularly seems to be true if the compiler is capable of
+ * auto-vectorizing the code, as that imposes additional stack-alignment
+ * requirements etc.
  */
-static inline PrivateRefCountEntry *
-GetPrivateRefCountEntry(Buffer buffer, bool do_move)
+static pg_noinline PrivateRefCountEntry *
+GetPrivateRefCountEntrySlow(Buffer buffer, bool do_move)
 {
 	PrivateRefCountEntry *res;
 	int			match = -1;
 	int			i;
 
-	Assert(BufferIsValid(buffer));
-	Assert(!BufferIsLocal(buffer));
-
 	/*
 	 * First search for references in the array, that'll be sufficient in the
 	 * majority of cases.
@@ -409,8 +409,13 @@ GetPrivateRefCountEntry(Buffer buffer, bool do_move)
 		}
 	}
 
-	if (match != -1)
+	if (likely(match != -1))
+	{
+		/* update cache for the next lookup */
+		PrivateRefCountEntryLast = match;
+
 		return &PrivateRefCountArray[match];
+	}
 
 	/*
 	 * By here we know that the buffer, if already pinned, isn't residing in
@@ -450,6 +455,8 @@ GetPrivateRefCountEntry(Buffer buffer, bool do_move)
 		free->buffer = buffer;
 		free->data = res->data;
 		PrivateRefCountArrayKeys[ReservedRefCountSlot] = buffer;
+		/* update cache for the next lookup */
+		PrivateRefCountEntryLast = match;
 
 		ReservedRefCountSlot = -1;
 
@@ -464,6 +471,43 @@ GetPrivateRefCountEntry(Buffer buffer, bool do_move)
 	}
 }
 
+/*
+ * Return the PrivateRefCount entry for the passed buffer.
+ *
+ * Returns NULL if a buffer doesn't have a refcount entry. Otherwise, if
+ * do_move is true, and the entry resides in the hashtable the entry is
+ * optimized for frequent access by moving it to the array.
+ */
+static inline PrivateRefCountEntry *
+GetPrivateRefCountEntry(Buffer buffer, bool do_move)
+{
+	Assert(BufferIsValid(buffer));
+	Assert(!BufferIsLocal(buffer));
+
+	/*
+	 * It's very common to look up the same buffer repeatedly. To make that
+	 * fast, we have a one-entry cache.
+	 *
+	 * In contrast to the loop in GetPrivateRefCountEntrySlow(), here it
+	 * faster to check PrivateRefCountArray[].buffer, as in the case of a hit
+	 * fewer addresses are computed and fewer cachelines are accessed. Whereas
+	 * in GetPrivateRefCountEntrySlow()'s case, checking
+	 * PrivateRefCountArrayKeys saves a lot of memory accesses.
+	 */
+	if (likely(PrivateRefCountEntryLast != -1) &&
+		likely(PrivateRefCountArray[PrivateRefCountEntryLast].buffer == buffer))
+	{
+		return &PrivateRefCountArray[PrivateRefCountEntryLast];
+	}
+
+	/*
+	 * The code for the cached lookup is small enough to be worth inlining
+	 * into the caller. In the miss case however, that empirically doesn't
+	 * seem worth it.
+	 */
+	return GetPrivateRefCountEntrySlow(buffer, do_move);
+}
+
 /*
  * Returns how many times the passed buffer is pinned by this backend.
  *
