[PATCH 3/4] lib/sort: Optimize heapsort for handling final 2 or 3 elements

From: Kuan-Wei Chiu
Date: Mon May 27 2024 - 16:30:58 EST


After building the heap, the code continuously pops two elements from
the heap until only 2 or 3 elements remain, at which point it switches
back to a regular heapsort with one element popped at a time. However,
to handle the final 2 or 3 elements, an additional else-if statement in
the while loop was introduced, potentially increasing branch misses.
Moreover, when there are only 2 or 3 elements left, continuing with
regular heapify operations is unnecessary as these cases are simple
enough to be handled with a single comparison and 1 or 2 swaps outside
the while loop.

Eliminating the additional else-if statement and directly managing
cases involving 2 or 3 elements outside the loop reduces unnecessary
conditional branches resulting from the numerous loops and conditionals
in heapify.

This optimization maintains consistent numbers of comparisons and swaps
for arrays with even lengths while reducing swaps and comparisons for
arrays with odd lengths from 2.5 swaps and 1 comparison to 1.5 swaps
and 1 comparison.

Signed-off-by: Kuan-Wei Chiu <visitorckw@xxxxxxxxx>
---
lib/sort.c | 10 ++++++----
1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)

diff --git a/lib/sort.c b/lib/sort.c
index b918ae15302d..048b7a6ef967 100644
--- a/lib/sort.c
+++ b/lib/sort.c
@@ -250,10 +250,7 @@ void sort_r(void *base, size_t num, size_t size,
a = size << shift;
n -= size;
do_swap(base + a, base + n, size, swap_func, priv);
- } else if (n > size) { /* Sorting: Extract root */
- n -= size;
- do_swap(base, base + n, size, swap_func, priv);
- } else { /* Sort complete */
+ } else { /* Sort complete */
break;
}

@@ -283,6 +280,11 @@ void sort_r(void *base, size_t num, size_t size,
do_swap(base + b, base + c, size, swap_func, priv);
}
}
+
+ n -= size;
+ do_swap(base, base + n, size, swap_func, priv);
+ if (n == size * 2 && do_cmp(base, base + size, cmp_func, priv) > 0)
+ do_swap(base, base + size, size, swap_func, priv);
}
EXPORT_SYMBOL(sort_r);

--
2.34.1