Re: [FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] AVDictionary2

["softworkz ." <softworkz-at-hotmail.com@ffmpeg.org>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ffmpeg-devel <ffmpeg-devel-bounces@ffmpeg.org> On Behalf Of
> Michael Niedermayer
> Sent: Dienstag, 8. April 2025 12:20
> To: FFmpeg development discussions and patches <ffmpeg-devel@ffmpeg.org>
> Subject: [FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] AVDictionary2
> 
> Hi all
> 
> As i have too many things to do already i did the most logic thing and
> started thinking about a new and unrelated idea.
> 
> This is a list of problems and ideas, that everyone is welcome to add to
> and
> comment on.
> 
> AVDictionary is just bad.
> 
> * its complicated internally with
>   unneeded alternative (AV_DICT_DONT_STRDUP_VAL/KEY) these are rarely
> used
>   and probably not relevant for performance.
> 
> * all basic operations are as slow as possible.
>   you want to find, update or remove an entry, search through all
> entries
> 
> * its heavy on memory allocations
>   1 malloc for key, 1 malloc for value, 1 realloc on the
> AVDictionaryEntry array
>   that makes 2+ malloc() for every "foo"="bar"
> 
> Ideas:
> 1. put the node struct (AVDictionaryEntry), the key and value in the
> same
>    allocated block, 1 malloc() instead of 2.
>    We can simply concatenate the key and value string, we could even use
> the
>    0 terminator instead of the 2nd pointer. Either way the whole
>    can go to the end of the Node structure for a tree
> 1b. Now if we did put the key and value together, we can order in the
> tree
>    by this combined entity. Why ? because now we have a unique ordering
>    and also the key+value could be required to be always unique.
> Simplifying
>    things from what we have now and making it more replicatable, no
>    more changes in output because order changed
> 2. We have a simple AVL tree implementation which we could use to make
>    all operations O(log n) instead of O(n)
> 3. We could go with hash tables, splay trees, critbit trees or something
>    else. hash tables have issues with malicious/odd input which would
>    require more complexity to workaround.
> 
> Of course we could also go a step further and eliminate the malloc per
> node and put it all in a linear array.
>         As in, insert -> append at the end,
>         realloc with every power of 2 size increase
>         complete rebuild once enough elements are removed
>     not sure this isnt overkill for a metadata string dictionary
> 
> I probably wont have time to implement this in the near future but as i
> was thinking about this, it seemed to make sense to write this down and
> post here
> 
> git grep av_dict | wc is 1436
> 
> So its used a bit, justifying looking at improving it
> 
> 
> git grep AV_DICT_DONT_STRDUP | wc is 87
> git grep AV_DICT_DONT_STRDUP libavutil/ tests doc | wc is 20
> 
> Seems not too common and one malloc/copy of a string once per metadata
> entry
> which is once per file generally, seems a strange optimization to me
> 
> thx
> 
> --
> Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB


Hi Michael,

it's been a while, but as far as memory serves, wasn't a linear search even more efficient than other methods as long as we're dealing with no more than a few dozens of items?

In turn, my question would be whether we even have use cases with hundreds or thousands of dictionary entries?

Best,
sw
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