Avoid copying some undef memory in MIR

During MIR interpretation it may happen that a place containing
uninitialized bytes is copied. This would read the current
representation of these bytes and write it to the destination even
though they must, by definition, not matter to the execution.

This elides that representation change when no bytes are defined in such
a copy, saving some cpu cycles. In such a case, the memory of the target
allocation is not touched at all which also means that sometimes no
physical page backing the memory allocation of the representation needs
to be provided by the OS at all, reducing memory pressure on the system.

Author: spastorino

src/librustc/mir/interpret/allocation.rs

@@ -594,6 +594,14 @@ pub struct AllocationDefinedness {
     ranges: smallvec::SmallVec<[u64; 1]>,
 }
 
+impl AllocationDefinedness {
+    pub fn all_bytes_undef(&self) -> bool {
+        // The `ranges` are run-length encoded and of alternating definedness.
+        // So if `ranges.len() > 1` then the second block is a range of defined.
+        self.initial == false && self.ranges.len() == 1
+    }
+}
+
 /// Transferring the definedness mask to other allocations.
 impl<Tag, Extra> Allocation<Tag, Extra> {
     /// Creates a run-length encoding of the undef mask.

src/librustc_mir/interpret/memory.rs

@@ -841,6 +841,9 @@ impl<'mir, 'tcx, M: Machine<'mir, 'tcx>> Memory<'mir, 'tcx, M> {
 
         let tcx = self.tcx.tcx;
 
+        // The bits have to be saved locally before writing to dest in case src and dest overlap.
+        assert_eq!(size.bytes() as usize as u64, size.bytes());
+
         // This checks relocation edges on the src.
         let src_bytes =
             self.get_raw(src.alloc_id)?.get_bytes_with_undef_and_ptr(&tcx, src, size)?.as_ptr();
@@ -855,6 +858,22 @@ impl<'mir, 'tcx, M: Machine<'mir, 'tcx>> Memory<'mir, 'tcx, M> {
 
         let dest_bytes = dest_bytes.as_mut_ptr();
 
+        // Prepare a copy of the undef mask.
+        let compressed = self.get_raw(src.alloc_id)?.compress_undef_range(src, size);
+
+        if compressed.all_bytes_undef() {
+            // Fast path: If all bytes are `undef` then there is nothing to copy. The target range
+            // is marked as undef but we otherwise omit changing the byte representation which may
+            // be arbitrary for undef bytes.
+            // This also avoids writing to the target bytes so that the backing allocation is never
+            // touched if the bytes stay undef for the whole interpreter execution. On contemporary
+            // operating system this can avoid physically allocating the page.
+            let dest_alloc = self.get_raw_mut(dest.alloc_id)?;
+            dest_alloc.mark_definedness(dest, size * length, false);
+            dest_alloc.mark_relocation_range(relocations);
+            return Ok(());
+        }
+
         // SAFE: The above indexing would have panicked if there weren't at least `size` bytes
         // behind `src` and `dest`. Also, we use the overlapping-safe `ptr::copy` if `src` and
         // `dest` could possibly overlap.
@@ -889,38 +908,23 @@ impl<'mir, 'tcx, M: Machine<'mir, 'tcx>> Memory<'mir, 'tcx, M> {
             }
         }
 
-        // copy definedness to the destination
-        self.copy_undef_mask(src, dest, size, length)?;
+        // now fill in all the data
+        self.get_raw_mut(dest.alloc_id)?.mark_compressed_undef_range(
+            &compressed,
+            dest,
+            size,
+            length,
+        );
+
         // copy the relocations to the destination
         self.get_raw_mut(dest.alloc_id)?.mark_relocation_range(relocations);
 
         Ok(())
     }
 }
 
-/// Undefined bytes
+/// Machine pointer introspection.
 impl<'mir, 'tcx, M: Machine<'mir, 'tcx>> Memory<'mir, 'tcx, M> {
-    // FIXME: Add a fast version for the common, nonoverlapping case
-    fn copy_undef_mask(
-        &mut self,
-        src: Pointer<M::PointerTag>,
-        dest: Pointer<M::PointerTag>,
-        size: Size,
-        repeat: u64,
-    ) -> InterpResult<'tcx> {
-        // The bits have to be saved locally before writing to dest in case src and dest overlap.
-        assert_eq!(size.bytes() as usize as u64, size.bytes());
-
-        let src_alloc = self.get_raw(src.alloc_id)?;
-        let compressed = src_alloc.compress_undef_range(src, size);
-
-        // now fill in all the data
-        let dest_allocation = self.get_raw_mut(dest.alloc_id)?;
-        dest_allocation.mark_compressed_undef_range(&compressed, dest, size, repeat);
-
-        Ok(())
-    }
-
     pub fn force_ptr(
         &self,
         scalar: Scalar<M::PointerTag>,