yes: output data more efficiently

yes(1) may be used to generate repeating patterns of text
for test inputs etc., so adjust to be more efficient.

Profiling the case where yes(1) is outputting small items
through stdio (which was the default case), shows the overhead
of continuously processing small items in main() and in stdio:

    $ yes >/dev/null & perf top -p $!
    31.02%  yes           [.] main
    27.36%  libc-2.20.so  [.] _IO_file_xsputn@@GLIBC_2.2.5
    14.51%  libc-2.20.so  [.] fputs_unlocked
    13.50%  libc-2.20.so  [.] strlen
    10.66%  libc-2.20.so  [.] __GI___mempcpy
     1.98%  yes           [.] fputs_unlocked@plta

Sending more data per stdio call improves the situation,
but still, there is significant stdio overhead due to memory copies,
and the repeated string length checking:

    $ yes "`echo {1..1000}`" >/dev/null & perf top -p $!
    42.26%  libc-2.20.so  [.] __GI___mempcpy
    17.38%  libc-2.20.so  [.] strlen
     5.21%  [kernel]      [k] __srcu_read_lock
     4.58%  [kernel]      [k] __srcu_read_unlock
     4.27%  libc-2.20.so  [.] _IO_file_xsputn@@GLIBC_2.2.5
     2.50%  libc-2.20.so  [.] __GI___libc_write
     2.45%  [kernel]      [k] system_call
     2.40%  [kernel]      [k] system_call_after_swapgs
     2.27%  [kernel]      [k] vfs_write
     2.09%  libc-2.20.so  [.] _IO_do_write@@GLIBC_2.2.5
     2.01%  [kernel]      [k] fsnotify
     1.95%  libc-2.20.so  [.] _IO_file_write@@GLIBC_2.2.5
     1.44%  yes           [.] main

We can avoid all stdio overhead by building up the buffer
_once_ and outputting that, and the profile below shows
the bottleneck moved to the kernel:

    $ src/yes >/dev/null & perf top -p $!
    15.42%  [kernel]      [k] __srcu_read_lock
    12.98%  [kernel]      [k] __srcu_read_unlock
     9.41%  libc-2.20.so  [.] __GI___libc_write
     9.11%  [kernel]      [k] vfs_write
     8.35%  [kernel]      [k] fsnotify
     8.02%  [kernel]      [k] system_call
     5.84%  [kernel]      [k] system_call_after_swapgs
     4.54%  [kernel]      [k] __fget_light
     3.98%  [kernel]      [k] sys_write
     3.65%  [kernel]      [k] selinux_file_permission
     3.44%  [kernel]      [k] rw_verify_area
     2.94%  [kernel]      [k] __fsnotify_parent
     2.76%  [kernel]      [k] security_file_permission
     2.39%  yes           [.] main
     2.17%  [kernel]      [k] __fdget_pos
     2.13%  [kernel]      [k] sysret_check
     0.81%  [kernel]      [k] write_null
     0.36%  yes           [.] write@plt

Note this change also ensures that yes(1) will only write
complete lines for lines shorter than BUFSIZ.

* src/yes.c (main): Build up a BUFSIZ buffer of lines,
and output that, rather than having stdio process each item.
* tests/misc/yes.sh: Add a new test for various buffer sizes.
* tests/local.mk: Reference the new test.
Fixes http://bugs.gnu.org/20029

1 files changed, 41 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/src/yes.c b/src/yes.c
index b35b13f75..d6dd4b1ef 100644
--- a/src/yes.c
+++ b/src/yes.c
@@ -58,6 +58,10 @@ Repeatedly output a line with all specified STRING(s), or 'y'.\n\
 int
 main (int argc, char **argv)
 {
+  char buf[BUFSIZ];
+  char *pbuf = buf;
+  int i;
+
   initialize_main (&argc, &argv);
   set_program_name (argv[0]);
   setlocale (LC_ALL, "");
@@ -77,9 +81,44 @@ main (int argc, char **argv)
       argv[argc++] = bad_cast ("y");
     }
 
-  while (true)
+  /* Buffer data locally once, rather than having the
+     large overhead of stdio buffering each item.   */
+  for (i = optind; i < argc; i++)
+    {
+      size_t len = strlen (argv[i]);
+      if (BUFSIZ < len || BUFSIZ - len <= pbuf - buf)
+        break;
+      memcpy (pbuf, argv[i], len);
+      pbuf += len;
+      *pbuf++ = i == argc - 1 ? '\n' : ' ';
+    }
+  if (i < argc)
+    pbuf = NULL;
+  else
+    {
+      size_t line_len = pbuf - buf;
+      size_t lines = BUFSIZ / line_len;
+      while (--lines)
+        {
+          memcpy (pbuf, pbuf - line_len, line_len);
+          pbuf += line_len;
+        }
+    }
+
+  /* The normal case is to continuously output the local buffer.  */
+  while (pbuf)
+    {
+      if (write (STDOUT_FILENO, buf, pbuf - buf) == -1)
+        {
+          error (0, errno, _("standard output"));
+          return EXIT_FAILURE;
+        }
+    }
+
+  /* If the data doesn't fit in BUFSIZ then it's large
+     and not too inefficient to output through stdio.  */
+  while (! pbuf)
     {
-      int i;
       for (i = optind; i < argc; i++)
         if (fputs (argv[i], stdout) == EOF
             || putchar (i == argc - 1 ? '\n' : ' ') == EOF)