perf(gnolang): use slice not map for Attributes.data per usage performance

[odeke-em]

TL;DR: Despite the reduction in memory consumption, the preliminary direct benchmarks show increase in CPU time but in microseconds

 benchstat before.txt after.txt 
name                   old time/op    new time/op    delta
AttributesSetGetDel-8    12.4µs ± 0%    56.6µs ± 3%  +355.22%  (p=0.000 n=8+9)

name                   old alloc/op   new alloc/op   delta
AttributesSetGetDel-8    9.37kB ± 0%    5.38kB ± 0%   -42.61%  (p=0.000 n=10+10)

name                   old allocs/op  new allocs/op  delta
AttributesSetGetDel-8      11.0 ± 0%     107.0 ± 0%  +872.73%  (p=0.000 n=10+10)

Deep dive

Noticed in profiling stdlibs/bytes that a ton of memory was being used in maps, and that's due to the conventional CS 101 that maps with O(1) lookups, insertions and deletions beat O(n) slices' performance, but when n is small, the memory bloat is not worth it and we can use slices as evidenced in profiles for which there was 30% perceptible reduction in RAM where

• Before:

Showing nodes accounting for 92.90MB, 83.87% of 110.76MB total
Dropped 51 nodes (cum <= 0.55MB)
Showing top 10 nodes out of 123
      flat  flat%   sum%        cum   cum%
   47.37MB 42.77% 42.77%    47.37MB 42.77%  internal/runtime/maps.newarray
   10.50MB  9.48% 52.25%    10.50MB  9.48%  internal/runtime/maps.NewEmptyMap
       8MB  7.22% 59.47%        8MB  7.22%  github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.(*StaticBlock).InitStaticBlock
    7.51MB  6.78% 66.25%    13.03MB 11.76%  github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.Go2Gno
    6.02MB  5.43% 71.68%    10.73MB  9.68%  github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.(*defaultStore).SetObject
       4MB  3.61% 75.29%        4MB  3.61%  github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.NewBlock
    3.47MB  3.13% 78.43%     3.47MB  3.13%  github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.(*Allocator).NewDataArray
    2.52MB  2.27% 80.70%     3.52MB  3.18%  github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.toKeyValueExprs
       2MB  1.81% 82.51%        2MB  1.81%  runtime.allocm
    1.51MB  1.36% 83.87%     1.51MB  1.36%  runtime/pprof.(*profMap).lookup

Showing nodes accounting for 47.37MB, 42.77% of 110.76MB total
----------------------------------------------------------+-------------
      flat  flat%   sum%        cum   cum%   calls calls% + context
----------------------------------------------------------+-------------
                                           47.37MB   100% |   internal/runtime/maps.newGroups
   47.37MB 42.77% 42.77%    47.37MB 42.77%                | internal/runtime/maps.newarray
----------------------------------------------------------+-------------
                                           32.01MB 78.05% |   github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.preprocess1.func1
                                               7MB 17.07% |   github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.evalConst (inline)
                                            1.50MB  3.66% |   github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.constType (inline)
                                            0.50MB  1.22% |   github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.tryPredefine.func1
         0     0% 42.77%    41.01MB 37.03%                | github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.(*Attributes).SetAttribute
                                           41.01MB   100% |   runtime.mapassign_faststr
----------------------------------------------------------+-------------
                                            4.50MB   100% |   github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/test.(*TestOptions).runTestFiles
         0     0% 42.77%     4.50MB  4.06%                | github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.(*Machine).RunFiles
                                            4.50MB   100% |   github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.(*Machine).runFileDecls

and after:

Showing nodes accounting for 61.99MB, 73.12% of 84.78MB total
Showing top 10 nodes out of 196
      flat  flat%   sum%        cum   cum%
   19.50MB 23.00% 23.00%    19.50MB 23.00%  github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.(*Attributes).SetAttribute
   12.52MB 14.76% 37.77%    18.02MB 21.26%  github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.Go2Gno
    7.58MB  8.94% 46.70%     9.15MB 10.79%  github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.(*defaultStore).SetObject
       5MB  5.90% 52.60%        5MB  5.90%  github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.(*StaticBlock).InitStaticBlock
    3.47MB  4.09% 56.69%     3.47MB  4.09%  github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.(*Allocator).NewDataArray
       3MB  3.54% 60.24%        3MB  3.54%  github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.NewBlock
       3MB  3.54% 63.77%        3MB  3.54%  github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang.Nx (inline)
    2.77MB  3.26% 67.04%     2.77MB  3.26%  bytes.growSlice
    2.65MB  3.12% 70.16%     2.65MB  3.12%  internal/runtime/maps.newarray
    2.50MB  2.95% 73.12%     2.50MB  2.95%  runtime.allocm

Fixes #3436

[Gno2D2]

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[codecov]

Codecov Report

Attention: Patch coverage is 85.18519% with 4 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.

Files with missing lines	Patch %	Lines
gnovm/pkg/gnolang/nodes.go	85.18%	3 Missing and 1 partial ⚠️

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[thehowl]

I've taken a quick look at the benchmarks on BenchmarkBenchdata, and there seems to be a minor performance drop:

goos: linux
goarch: amd64
pkg: github.com/gnolang/gno/gnovm/pkg/gnolang
cpu: AMD Ryzen 7 7840U w/ Radeon  780M Graphics
                                │ master.txt  │              3437.txt              │
                                │   sec/op    │    sec/op     vs base              │
Benchdata/fib.gno_param:4-16      7.922µ ± 3%   8.155µ ±  5%       ~ (p=0.132 n=6)
Benchdata/fib.gno_param:8-16      56.74µ ± 4%   58.82µ ±  5%       ~ (p=0.180 n=6)
Benchdata/fib.gno_param:16-16     2.709m ± 5%   2.819m ±  4%  +4.06% (p=0.026 n=6)
Benchdata/loop.gno-16             70.94n ± 2%   70.28n ± 69%       ~ (p=0.515 n=6)
Benchdata/matrix.gno_param:3-16   170.5µ ± 6%   175.4µ ±  7%       ~ (p=0.589 n=6)
Benchdata/matrix.gno_param:4-16   449.2µ ± 2%   445.6µ ±  2%       ~ (p=0.310 n=6)
Benchdata/matrix.gno_param:5-16   1.613m ± 3%   1.663m ±  4%       ~ (p=0.093 n=6)
Benchdata/matrix.gno_param:6-16   8.292m ± 3%   8.400m ±  5%       ~ (p=0.394 n=6)
geomean                           131.3µ        134.0µ        +2.01%

(the benchmarks were done very quickly, but it's just to have an idea)

the optimization is good and desired for the memory side, but I'd like this to come at no cost on the CPU.

Some ideas for optimization:

• Maybe we can make the slice an []attrKV, so that iteration in getAttribute doesn't have to do a pointer indirection for each key.
• ATTR_PREPROCESSED and ATTR_PREDEFINED can only be true if set; maybe these could be just an unexported byte value with a bitmap.

[jefft0]

Removed the review/triage-pending label because this PR was reviewed by core dev thehowl.