Re: pg_basebackup: removed an unnecessary use of memset in FindStreamingStart - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Chao Li
Subject Re: pg_basebackup: removed an unnecessary use of memset in FindStreamingStart
Date
Msg-id 79349F18-1A09-4E90-96FF-DB07E10CD32D@gmail.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: pg_basebackup: removed an unnecessary use of memset in FindStreamingStart  (Daniel Gustafsson <daniel@yesql.se>)
Responses Re: pg_basebackup: removed an unnecessary use of memset in FindStreamingStart
List pgsql-hackers

> On Feb 25, 2026, at 21:10, Daniel Gustafsson <daniel@yesql.se> wrote:
>
>> On 25 Feb 2026, at 13:41, Chao Li <li.evan.chao@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Feb 25, 2026, at 18:21, Daniel Gustafsson <daniel@yesql.se> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 25 Feb 2026, at 07:31, yangyz <1197620467@qq.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> 2.Performance Overhead
>>>> In each iteration, the entire buffer of size LZ4_CHUNK_SZ (potentially several megabytes) is zero-initialized.
Sincethese memory blocks are immediately overwritten by decompressed data, this zeroing operation constitutes an
unnecessaryconsumption of CPU resources. 
>>>
>>> When proposing a performance improvement it's important to provide some level
>>> of benchmarks to show the improvement. Is removing this memset noticeable?
>>
>> I don’t think this patch is about performance. Although removing the memset might save a few CPU cycles, the real
benefitseems to be cleanup and consistency. The memset appears unnecessary, and similar functions don’t use it, so I
thinkthis change mainly improves maintainability. 
>
> I would argue the opposite, clearing a buffer before passing it to an external
> library function writing to it seems the right thing to do unless it can be
> proven to regress performance too much.  Also, "appears unnecessary" doesn't
> instill enough confidence to perform a change IMO.
>
> --
> Daniel Gustafsson


As I pointed out earlier, ReadDataFromArchiveLZ4() has a very similar loop that doesn’t zero out  the output buffer:
```
while (readp < readend)
{
    size_t out_size = DEFAULT_IO_BUFFER_SIZE;
    size_t read_size = readend - readp;

    status = LZ4F_decompress(ctx, outbuf, &out_size,
                                                 readp, &read_size, &dec_opt);
    if (LZ4F_isError(status))
        pg_fatal("could not decompress: %s",
              LZ4F_getErrorName(status));

    ahwrite(outbuf, 1, out_size, AH);
    readp += read_size;
}
```

Do you think we should add a memset there? There are a couple of more callers of LZ4F_decompress that don’t zero out
theoutput buffer. 

Best regards,
--
Chao Li (Evan)
HighGo Software Co., Ltd.
https://www.highgo.com/







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