RFR 8005698 : Handle Frequent HashMap Collisions with Balanced Trees

[Doug Lea]

Sorry that it has taken me a while to take a look at this.
Here are some initial comments/questions:

* Given that balanced trees are not used in WeakHashMap
or Hashtable, I wonder why the TreeNode etc classes are
not just nested inside HashMap (usable from subclass LinkedHashMap).
And if so, it would be simpler, faster, and less code-intensive
to declare TreeNode as a subclass of the internal Entry class.
Plus some further gymnastics to overcome the unfortunate
decision to make LinkedHashMap a subclass of HashMap.
Had you considered this? I might take a shot at exploring it.

* The comparableClassFor code turns out to be a bottleneck
(and is bypassed in the particular case of String)
in tests of the analogous code in ConcurrentHashMap, mainly
because the only available reflection methods allocate little
objects while checking for the form "class C implements Comparable<C>"
At some point, someone might want to implement a JDK-internal
streamlined form.

* Notice that if trees were ever to be used in WeakHashMap,
the nodes would surely need to be declared as  WeakReference
subclasses, as are the current Entry nodes. The whole thought
of doing this though is suspect (so I'm happy to see it
not being done) because at that point, you would be most
of the way to creating a ConcurrentWeakHashMap, which is
itself controversial -- Eviction policies? Identity vs equality?
Weak values? Soft refs? Ephemeron-style? etc.

-Doug


On 05/22/13 16:50, Brent Christian wrote:
> I have updated the changes as follows:
>
> * TreeBin.createEntryForNode() + the anonymous TreeBin subclass in
> [Linked]HashMap have been replaced by a TreeBin.map reference back to the
> containing map, enabling TreeBin to just call newEntry() directly.
>
> * TreeNode.entry was made final
>
> * Added a top-level comment in HashMap giving a brief overview of how balanced
> trees are used
>
> * Updated the TreeBinSplitBackToEntries test for TREE_THRESHOLD=16
>
> * Test code was updated to not need to be on the bootclasspath.
> LaunchOnBootClass.java was removed from the changes (and would not have been
> needed anyway, due to the recent jtreg update)
>
>
> The new webrev is here:
> http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~bchristi/8005698/webrev.01/
>
> Thanks,
> -Brent
>
> On 5/13/13 9:48 AM, Brent Christian wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> Please review my changes for 8005698 : Handle Frequent HashMap
>> Collisions with Balanced Trees.
>>
>> For HashMap and LinkedHashMap, we would like to duplicate the technique
>> (and some of the code) that the latest ConcurrentHashMap[1] uses for
>> handling hash collisions: use of balanced trees to store map entries in
>> hash bins containing many collisions.
>>
>> Webrev is here:
>> http://cr.openjdk.java.net/~bchristi/8005698/webrev.00/
>>
>> Some high-level details copied from the JEP[2]:
>>
>> Earlier work in this area in JDK 8, namely the alternative
>> string-hashing implementation[3], improved collision performance for
>> string-valued keys only, and it did so at the cost of adding a new
>> (private) field to every String instance.
>>
>> The changes proposed here will improve collision performance for any key
>> type that implements Comparable. The alternative string-hashing
>> mechanism, including the private hash32 field added to the String class,
>> can then be removed.
>>
>> The principal idea is that once the number of items in a hash bucket
>> grows beyond a certain threshold, that bucket will switch from using a
>> linked list of entries to a balanced tree.
>>
>> We will not implement this for the Hashtable class - some legacy code
>> that uses it is known to depend upon iteration order. Instead, Hashtable
>> will be reverted to its state prior to the introduction of the
>> alternative string-hashing implementation, and will maintain its
>> historical iteration order.
>>
>> We also will not implement this technique in WeakHashMap. An attempt was
>> made, but the complexity of having to account for weak keys resulted in
>> an unacceptable drop in microbenchmark performance. WeakHashMap will
>> also be reverted to its prior state.
>>
>> Thanks!
>> -Brent
>>
>> 1.
>> http://gee.cs.oswego.edu/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/jsr166/src/main/java/util/concurrent/ConcurrentHashMap.java?view=log
>>
>>
>> 2. http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/180
>> 3. http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk8/jdk8/jdk/rev/43bd5ee0205e
>