Re: [PATCH v6 11/11] doc: add corrected commit date info

["SZEDER Gábor" <szeder.dev@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Jan 16, 2021 at 06:11:18PM +0000, Abhishek Kumar via GitGitGadget wrote:
> With generation data chunk and corrected commit dates implemented, let's
> update the technical documentation for commit-graph.

This patch should come much earlier in this series, before patch 07/11
(commit-graph: implement corrected commit date), or perhaps even
earlier.  That way if someone were to investigate an issue in this
series and checks out one of its commits, then the specification and
the will be right there under 'Documentation/technical/'.

Furthermore, a patch introducing a new chunk format is the right place
to justify the introduction of said new chunk.  What problems does a
chunk of corrected commit dates solve?  Why does it solve them?  Why
do we need corrected commit dates instead of simple commit dates?
What alternatives were considered [1]?  Any other design considerations
worth mentioning for the benefit of future readers?

None of the patches' log messages properly explain these, and while
much of these is indeed explained in the cover letter, the cover
letter will not be part of the history.  Requiring to look up mailing
list archives for the justification puts unnecessary burden on other
developers who might get interested in this feature in the future.

You might want to take
https://public-inbox.org/git/20200529085038.26008-16-szeder.dev@gmail.com/
as an inspiration.


[1] Please remember the following snippet from SubmittingPatches:
    "Try to make sure your explanation can be understood without
    external resources. Instead of giving a URL to a mailing list
    archive, summarize the relevant points of the discussion."

> Signed-off-by: Abhishek Kumar <abhishekkumar8222@gmail.com>
> ---
>  .../technical/commit-graph-format.txt         | 28 +++++--
>  Documentation/technical/commit-graph.txt      | 77 +++++++++++++++----
>  2 files changed, 86 insertions(+), 19 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/technical/commit-graph-format.txt b/Documentation/technical/commit-graph-format.txt
> index b3b58880b92..b6658eff188 100644
> --- a/Documentation/technical/commit-graph-format.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/technical/commit-graph-format.txt
> @@ -4,11 +4,7 @@ Git commit graph format
>  The Git commit graph stores a list of commit OIDs and some associated
>  metadata, including:
>  
> -- The generation number of the commit. Commits with no parents have
> -  generation number 1; commits with parents have generation number
> -  one more than the maximum generation number of its parents. We
> -  reserve zero as special, and can be used to mark a generation
> -  number invalid or as "not computed".
> +- The generation number of the commit.
>  
>  - The root tree OID.
>  
> @@ -86,13 +82,33 @@ CHUNK DATA:
>        position. If there are more than two parents, the second value
>        has its most-significant bit on and the other bits store an array
>        position into the Extra Edge List chunk.
> -    * The next 8 bytes store the generation number of the commit and
> +    * The next 8 bytes store the topological level (generation number v1)
> +      of the commit and
>        the commit time in seconds since EPOCH. The generation number
>        uses the higher 30 bits of the first 4 bytes, while the commit
>        time uses the 32 bits of the second 4 bytes, along with the lowest
>        2 bits of the lowest byte, storing the 33rd and 34th bit of the
>        commit time.
>  
> +  Generation Data (ID: {'G', 'D', 'A', 'T' }) (N * 4 bytes) [Optional]
> +    * This list of 4-byte values store corrected commit date offsets for the
> +      commits, arranged in the same order as commit data chunk.
> +    * If the corrected commit date offset cannot be stored within 31 bits,
> +      the value has its most-significant bit on and the other bits store
> +      the position of corrected commit date into the Generation Data Overflow
> +      chunk.
> +    * Generation Data chunk is present only when commit-graph file is written
> +      by compatible versions of Git and in case of split commit-graph chains,
> +      the topmost layer also has Generation Data chunk.
> +
> +  Generation Data Overflow (ID: {'G', 'D', 'O', 'V' }) [Optional]
> +    * This list of 8-byte values stores the corrected commit date offsets
> +      for commits with corrected commit date offsets that cannot be
> +      stored within 31 bits.
> +    * Generation Data Overflow chunk is present only when Generation Data
> +      chunk is present and atleast one corrected commit date offset cannot
> +      be stored within 31 bits.
> +
>    Extra Edge List (ID: {'E', 'D', 'G', 'E'}) [Optional]
>        This list of 4-byte values store the second through nth parents for
>        all octopus merges. The second parent value in the commit data stores
> diff --git a/Documentation/technical/commit-graph.txt b/Documentation/technical/commit-graph.txt
> index f14a7659aa8..f05e7bda1a9 100644
> --- a/Documentation/technical/commit-graph.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/technical/commit-graph.txt
> @@ -38,14 +38,31 @@ A consumer may load the following info for a commit from the graph:
>  
>  Values 1-4 satisfy the requirements of parse_commit_gently().
>  
> -Define the "generation number" of a commit recursively as follows:
> +There are two definitions of generation number:
> +1. Corrected committer dates (generation number v2)
> +2. Topological levels (generation nummber v1)
>  
> - * A commit with no parents (a root commit) has generation number one.
> +Define "corrected committer date" of a commit recursively as follows:
>  
> - * A commit with at least one parent has generation number one more than
> -   the largest generation number among its parents.
> + * A commit with no parents (a root commit) has corrected committer date
> +    equal to its committer date.
>  
> -Equivalently, the generation number of a commit A is one more than the
> + * A commit with at least one parent has corrected committer date equal to
> +    the maximum of its commiter date and one more than the largest corrected
> +    committer date among its parents.
> +
> + * As a special case, a root commit with timestamp zero has corrected commit
> +    date of 1, to be able to distinguish it from GENERATION_NUMBER_ZERO
> +    (that is, an uncomputed corrected commit date).
> +
> +Define the "topological level" of a commit recursively as follows:
> +
> + * A commit with no parents (a root commit) has topological level of one.
> +
> + * A commit with at least one parent has topological level one more than
> +   the largest topological level among its parents.
> +
> +Equivalently, the topological level of a commit A is one more than the
>  length of a longest path from A to a root commit. The recursive definition
>  is easier to use for computation and observing the following property:
>  
> @@ -60,6 +77,9 @@ is easier to use for computation and observing the following property:
>      generation numbers, then we always expand the boundary commit with highest
>      generation number and can easily detect the stopping condition.
>  
> +The property applies to both versions of generation number, that is both
> +corrected committer dates and topological levels.
> +
>  This property can be used to significantly reduce the time it takes to
>  walk commits and determine topological relationships. Without generation
>  numbers, the general heuristic is the following:
> @@ -67,7 +87,9 @@ numbers, the general heuristic is the following:
>      If A and B are commits with commit time X and Y, respectively, and
>      X < Y, then A _probably_ cannot reach B.
>  
> -This heuristic is currently used whenever the computation is allowed to
> +In absence of corrected commit dates (for example, old versions of Git or
> +mixed generation graph chains),
> +this heuristic is currently used whenever the computation is allowed to
>  violate topological relationships due to clock skew (such as "git log"
>  with default order), but is not used when the topological order is
>  required (such as merge base calculations, "git log --graph").
> @@ -77,7 +99,7 @@ in the commit graph. We can treat these commits as having "infinite"
>  generation number and walk until reaching commits with known generation
>  number.
>  
> -We use the macro GENERATION_NUMBER_INFINITY = 0xFFFFFFFF to mark commits not
> +We use the macro GENERATION_NUMBER_INFINITY to mark commits not
>  in the commit-graph file. If a commit-graph file was written by a version
>  of Git that did not compute generation numbers, then those commits will
>  have generation number represented by the macro GENERATION_NUMBER_ZERO = 0.
> @@ -93,12 +115,12 @@ fully-computed generation numbers. Using strict inequality may result in
>  walking a few extra commits, but the simplicity in dealing with commits
>  with generation number *_INFINITY or *_ZERO is valuable.
>  
> -We use the macro GENERATION_NUMBER_MAX = 0x3FFFFFFF to for commits whose
> -generation numbers are computed to be at least this value. We limit at
> -this value since it is the largest value that can be stored in the
> -commit-graph file using the 30 bits available to generation numbers. This
> -presents another case where a commit can have generation number equal to
> -that of a parent.
> +We use the macro GENERATION_NUMBER_V1_MAX = 0x3FFFFFFF for commits whose
> +topological levels (generation number v1) are computed to be at least
> +this value. We limit at this value since it is the largest value that
> +can be stored in the commit-graph file using the 30 bits available
> +to topological levels. This presents another case where a commit can
> +have generation number equal to that of a parent.
>  
>  Design Details
>  --------------
> @@ -267,6 +289,35 @@ The merge strategy values (2 for the size multiple, 64,000 for the maximum
>  number of commits) could be extracted into config settings for full
>  flexibility.
>  
> +## Handling Mixed Generation Number Chains
> +
> +With the introduction of generation number v2 and generation data chunk, the
> +following scenario is possible:
> +
> +1. "New" Git writes a commit-graph with the corrected commit dates.
> +2. "Old" Git writes a split commit-graph on top without corrected commit dates.
> +
> +A naive approach of using the newest available generation number from
> +each layer would lead to violated expectations: the lower layer would
> +use corrected commit dates which are much larger than the topological
> +levels of the higher layer. For this reason, Git inspects the topmost
> +layer to see if the layer is missing corrected commit dates. In such a case
> +Git only uses topological level for generation numbers.
> +
> +When writing a new layer in split commit-graph, we write corrected commit
> +dates if the topmost layer has corrected commit dates written. This
> +guarantees that if a layer has corrected commit dates, all lower layers
> +must have corrected commit dates as well.
> +
> +When merging layers, we do not consider whether the merged layers had corrected
> +commit dates. Instead, the new layer will have corrected commit dates if the
> +layer below the new layer has corrected commit dates.
> +
> +While writing or merging layers, if the new layer is the only layer, it will
> +have corrected commit dates when written by compatible versions of Git. Thus,
> +rewriting split commit-graph as a single file (`--split=replace`) creates a
> +single layer with corrected commit dates.
> +
>  ## Deleting graph-{hash} files
>  
>  After a new tip file is written, some `graph-{hash}` files may no longer
> -- 
> gitgitgadget